My name is Ashley and this is my sepsis story.
At the age of 28, I became a wife and a mother of 2 young children fighting for her life. At first I had no symptoms. Then everything hit me like a ton of bricks. I was severely cold, vomiting, hallucinating and had the shakes, but I shrugged it off as the flu. After fighting for 2 days I finally collapsed on the bathroom floor at home. My husband rushed me to the hospital where my blood pressure dropped to 50/20 and I passed out. After taking a urine sample, the doctors determined I had a UTI (urinary tract infection), leading to sepsis. At this point I was in organ failure and the doctor told my husband they didn’t know if I was going to pull through. I almost lost my life.
I was in the hospital over Christmas and couldn’t spend it with my children.
I will never forget the feeling of death. It’s something that cannot he explained. I remember lying on the stretcher in the emergency department, completely lifeless. People around me thought I was unconscious yet I was trapped in my own mind, still wide awake but unable to communicate this to anyone.
Don’t shrug it off like I did! Go to the hospital before it’s too late; without the care I received my husband could have been a widow and my children without a mother.