{"id":187,"date":"2018-06-12T00:10:39","date_gmt":"2018-06-12T00:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lp21.uk\/?page_id=187"},"modified":"2024-03-11T00:26:12","modified_gmt":"2024-03-11T00:26:12","slug":"sepsis","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/lp21.uk\/?page_id=187","title":{"rendered":"Sepsis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sepsis is a killer!<\/u><\/b><\/span><\/h1>\n

We were decorating my sons bedroom, we had promised him it would be done before Christmas, I did most of the work without my legs on, sitting on the floor building the furniture, drilling into walls etc. and crawling around as necessary. It later transpired I had a small graze on the end of my left residual limb. It is thought this was the cause of the infection.<\/p>\n

I never knew I had Sepsis, I thought I had \u2018Man Flu\u2019!<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n

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6th December 2017<\/b> – \u00a0I felt poorly, \u2018Man Flu\u2019 symptoms. I had been told by some people I know, that I looked awful, go home and go to bed. I didn\u2019t, I just carried on.<\/p>\n

7th December<\/b> – I felt worse and had a \u00a0high temperature. I called 111 and the \u2018out of hours\u2019 doctor came, It was late, I was given a prescription for some antibiotics. I was told \u2018get them in the morning\u2019.<\/p>\n

9th December<\/b> – I went to A&E, hands and fingers swollen, I had a temperature of 39+ degrees, and felt the worst ever. \u00a0I even had other patients in A&E talking to the nurses, saying \u2018that man doesn\u2019t look well\u2019 and the nurses saying \u2018we are keeping an eye on him\u2019.
I was in A&E alone, my choice, it was the evening of my wife\u2019s work Christmas party, she thought I would be home later that day. I was shivering even though I was wearing three layers including a jacket. A nurse came over with a blanket asking if I was cold. I said I had a high temperature, I was told to take my jacket and jumper off, blanket was taken away. A short time later after examination,\u00a0I was admitted to hospital.<\/p>\n

After being admitted to hospital, I had two operations to the fingers on my left hand, and four operations to my right wrist to let out the infection, see images below.<\/p>\n

I was also later told that I was lucky I came into hospital on the Saturday, and not waited until Monday! Otherwise the outcome could have been very different.<\/p>\n

The pictures below were taken over a period of 5 months. My hands and fingers have not recovered fully, but I have been told by the surgeon \u2018considering what he saw inside, count myself lucky!\u2019<\/p>\n

Even now (mid 2018), I have not regained full functionality to either of my hands, and have been told I never will. For example, I cannot properly grip a knife & fork, or hold a pen. I work in IT, and I cannot hold and use a normal mouse, currently looking for an alternative. I also have voice dictation software installed on my work computer to reduce the amount of typing I need to do. This additional difficulty on top of having no legs is hard work, but life goes on.<\/p>\n

This all started less than 6 months after my mother-in-law died of Sepsis. My wife must have gone through hell during this time.<\/p>\n

It was only after I had recovered and was out of hospital, that my then 9 year old son found out how serious it was, and how close I was to not being here. That was hard!<\/p>\n

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