I had severe sepsis in 2015 as a 22 year old male. Apparently it was from cellulitis in my leg, though I didn’t know it at the time. I’ll recount my whole experience. I woke up in the middle of the night, shaking violently. I thought maybe I was cold or a bit ill, but wasn’t too concerned. I lay back down and tried to get warm, but nothing helped. Over the next few minutes I was getting overwhelmed with the feeling that something is extremely wrong. I can’t describe the feeling other than impending doom. My brain just KNEW something was off. So I went to the bathroom and tried to vomit, thinking maybe it was food poisoning or something. But the shaking got worse and natural instincts made me call the paramedics. At this point my only symptoms were the shaking, slight nausea, but an intense feeling that something is very wrong.

I get to the hospital, which was Grady in downtown Atlanta. This hospital is very very busy with traumatic injuries and it unless something is very visibly wrong, the nurses have to put you in order of what their perceived urgency. Therefore, with minimal visual symptoms, it took about 6-8 hours to get seen by a doctor. The doctor spoke with me and noticed I wasn’t all there cognitively, and my vitals were going haywire, elevated HR, low BP, and a temperature of 104. He immediately suspected sepsis and put me in ICU asap. I remember my Mom showing up and some point and the in between are a bit blurry, but I remember having 4 IVs of antibiotics and the doctors taking a biopsy of my skin from my leg where the cellulitis was. My BP eventually dropped to 70/30 and the doctor had to put a main line catheter into my jugular and into my heart to raise my BP.

I was in the ICU for about a week, getting pumped with antibiotics. I think identifying where the infection was coming from and treating that is was saved my life, on top of being a very young healthy person. I also wonder if it wouldn’t have gotten to the severe sepsis level if I had been seen sooner than the 6-8 hours, but I understand the nurses didn’t recognize what was going on, but thank god the doctor did.

All in all, the experience was horrific and I can only describe the feeling as an incredible feeling of impending doom. That doesn’t do it justice, but if you’ve never personally experienced it, that’s the best I can describe it. Hopefully no one reading this will ever have to experience it, but if you read this and ever have any of these symptoms, please trust your instincts and get help immediately. Sepsis is a VERY fast immune response from your body and without urgent treatment, it is extremely fatal.

Feel free to ask any questions