Tereza’s Sepsis Story – From Fit to Sepsis and Back Again
It all started in Bali, where I lived at the time. After a year, I planned to visit my parents and friends in the Czech Republic. About a month before I left, I contracted Covid-19 (Omicron variant), which knocked my immunity to zero. My immunity used to be so strong. Colds or viruses had been foreign words to me for several years. About 5 days before my flight, I was preparing chicken for a broth and had a nostril on my fingernail. It wasn't the first time I'd come in contact with raw chicken, so it never occurred to me that the gut was the gateway to Campylobacter infection. On the day of my arrival in the Czech Republic, everything was still fine, I didn't feel anything, I just found it weird that I didn't have a taste for beer, it always means something is wrong. This time I attributed it to fatigue after a long journey…
The next day, fevers and chills began. I thought it was post-covid syndrome. I lasted another day, but the temperature began to mysteriously fluctuate from 39.5 to 34.3. It seemed absurd to me and led to a broken thermometer. That Wednesday in the evening, I fell unconscious. My parents called the ambulance, which took me to the hospital. After a few hours, they told me the results showed an intestinal virus and I could go home. It was 2 o'clock in the morning. They recommended another blood sample in 2 days.
That Friday, I wasn’t able to stay on my feet anymore, I couldn't talk, and I had horrible stomach aches, and terrible green diarrhea so the nurse came to take my blood sample at home. An hour later, when she got the blood results, she sent an ambulance to me, saying that I was in danger of death. CRP level 430, pressure 70/40, malaise, dehydration – I had developed sepsis, which began to turn into septic shock. My kidneys were starting to fail. After a few hours on admission, when I underwent various examinations (X-ray and CT of the abdomen, blood samples, etc.), they took me to the intensive care unit. They knew it was a septic shock. They immediately inserted a probe that drained 1.5 liters of green infectious fluid from my stomach, which had formed there for a week. After a few days, the antibiotics stopped working and the inflammatory values jumped up again. It showed another source of infection in my body. My heart was starting to fail, and I had water in my lungs.
It was the morning of March 3 when they told me that I needed emergency surgery to look into my stomach. It's the day I'm going to celebrate my second birthday. I had a 10% chance of surviving. They inserted central venous access into my throat, from where they took my blood daily and infused me because my veins were terribly weak and were already starting to rupture. The abdomen and intestines were full of infectious fluid, which caused inflammation of the peritoneum, a dysfunctional intestine on which adhesions formed. The infection was so great that it hit my lungs.
I was relieved after this operation, even though I was weak and wasn’t able to stay on my feet. I was finally able to drink after a week. I spent another week in the ICU's surgical department, where they slowly began to teach me to stand on my own two feet and take at least a few steps with the help of a walker. These were the worst moments – I had been in shape all the time, as a coach I put into my body as much as I could, how many times I disobeyed my body, and when it couldn't, I loaded him twice as much. Hard training, extreme mountain hikes, untreated injuries, because I still have to train, etc. and suddenly I can't stay on my own feet?!
Evidently, my body brought me back to the years of torturing and driving him to extremes without being grateful to him for all that. I was still dissatisfied, well, here I have it, I can and I have to start all over again. I left the hospital like a skeleton, my dad had to take me up the stairs – my legs didn't carry me at all.
By the time this is published, it will be 2 months since I am home from the hospital. It's still very difficult, and I have post-sepsis syndrome. For me, it's a change in taste, problems with short-term memory, my hair falling out a handful, I have nightmares at night, panic about the possibility of another infection, problems with appetite, mood swings, mental problems, and fatigue.
Every day, I write down my progress. I don't bother my body and I'm infinitely grateful to him for winning a second chance at life for me! And I'm grateful to my great parents, whom I have exposed to terrifying moments. How they support me and take care of me in this difficult time is beyond explanation. I am writing this story to raise awareness of this insidious disease, where time and awareness play a critical role for one to survive. Very few people in the Czech Republic know about sepsis.
Now I have problems with my stomach and intestines. I am still on a very strict diet, unfortunately, and I still can't eat what I was used to before – piles of vegetable salads, spicy food, and much more. And in a month, I will have my first session with a psychologist due to a post-traumatic stress disorder I was diagnosed with.
I try to practice yoga 2-3 times a week, and I go for walks regularly – I am up to 9 km now after I started with 50 meters after being released from the hospital.
The article above was written by Tereza Sauer and is shared here with her explicit consent. The views in the article do not necessarily represent those of the Global Sepsis Alliance. They are not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. The whole team here at the GSA and World Sepsis Day wishes to thank Tereza for sharing her story and for fighting to raise awareness for sepsis.