I woke up Easter morning 2015 thinking that I had the flu. I had all the symptoms – nausea, vomiting, body aches and fever. I spent the entire day in bed only leaving to make trips to the restroom. At one point in the day I remember my right leg hurting and thinking that I had somehow pulled a muscle. I got in to see a doctor first thing Monday morning. The flu test was negative and I was told that it was something viral that I’d just have to work through. While there I mentioned the pain in my leg. She looked at it and said it just looked like bug bites. I’m sure she thought I was a hypochondriac.
I spent the next 2 days trying to work through it but I only felt worse. Those days are mostly a blur but I do remember thinking at one point that my thermometer must be broken because I’d take my temp one minute and it would be high and then just a little while later it would be normal. Wednesday morning I called the doctor’s office asking to see the doctor again. The nurse I spoke to advised that she could set up an appointment but that it was viral and there was nothing that the doctor would be able to do. Feeling stupid, I decided not to go in. I have no idea whether going in that day would have made any difference but I will never allow a nurse or doctor to make me feel that way again.
My husband works two jobs so I was in bed before he got home each night that week and still in bed when he left each morning. I got in the bathtub at 3am Thursday morning hoping that would somehow bring me some relief. When he got up to check on me he decided that as soon as the doctor’s office opened that morning I would call them to make an appointment while he dropped the kids off at school. (I had 4 school aged children at the time) At 7:30am I called the doctor’s office. When the nurse got on the line and heard my labored breathing she told me that I needed to get to the emergency room ASAP.
Within an hour of getting to the hospital, I was headed to the operating room. I was very lucky that the doctor knew what the issue was almost immediately. I had necrotizing fasciitis and was in septic shock. Over the next 2 months I would visit the operating room a total of 10 times for debridement, wound vac changes and finally skin grafts. I would also undergo multiple rounds of dialysis as my kidneys had shut down. I was then sent to a rehab hospital for two weeks so that I could build up my strength enough to get up on my feet again. My goal was to make it to my oldest son’s high school graduation but I had only been in rehab for a couple of days so I was not ready and had to settle for watching a video of him receiving his diploma. There were many rough days over those 10 weeks but that was the hardest one emotionally.
Every new doctor, nurse and CNA that I encountered during my hospital stay had the same question. They wanted to know where I had traveled to or what body of water I had swam in to get this. I had done neither. My 9 year old son had been fighting strep throat and we assume that the bacteria entered my body through the bug bites the doctor saw on my leg that first day as all my issues were caused by group A strep.
Five years later and I’ve adjusted to my new normal. If it wasn’t for a quarter of my thigh missing, the discomfort, pain and swelling of my leg as well as my crappy kidneys you could probably convince me that it was just a bad dream. I was a healthy 45 year old woman who ran into the perfect storm.
