Let’s me just begin to say, I am sorry for this long overdue
blog post. I know people enjoy
reading my blog posts and I do apologize for not getting this post out
sooner. My family and I made it to
Florida on Saturday because we stopped Friday night somewhere in South
Carolina, I believe if memory serves me correctly. Almost every hotel was booked when we pulled off the exit
around 10:30/11 because all of the spring breakers were crashing for the night. We didn’t care where we stayed all we
needed was somewhere to crash too, however, we weren’t willing to risk our
safety for a night’s stay. After
pulling up to 3 or 4 hotels and my Dad hopping out of the car, running in then
running back out into the car, only to tell us that the hotel was full like the
rest, we finally found a hotel. We
stayed in a pretty crappy room for $119 dollars; my Dad is a man of reason and
he tried to bargain his way down.
We have AAA, but these people know that this is their season and bottom
line is they could charge whatever they would like and we would pay because
everywhere was booked! She
essentially said you can pay or keep driving. How nice.
We paid and enjoyed our night’s stay. The rest of the drive wasn’t bad except
for the fact by the end I think we were all ancy and wanted to get there to
enjoy the warmth especially my poor sister. The Indiana winter ate away at her; it’s lonely there and it
doesn’t help that her roommate situation isn’t ideal. She is a night owl and has a lot of family issues. She doesn’t know how to communicate
appropriately and things are worse since my sister told her they weren’t living
together next year. Needless to
say, I think my sister needed the sun more than any of us did. By the time we got to my grandparents
house, I threw on my bathing suit and darted towards the pool. I didn’t waste any time, I felt bad not
visiting with my grandparents long especially since they weren’t staying more
than a night with us but I NEEDED the pool and a tan. I don’t think I have ever appreciated 4 hours more in my
life and that isn’t an exaggeration.
The sun was warm, but not island hot where you feel uncomfortable; I was
surrounded by all of the people I love and I was away from school. After spending the day at the pool, I
went home to nap and that is when I received the dreaded phone call.
The microbiologist had left me a message saying he needed me
to call him as soon as possible.
It was a Saturday, if a microbiologist tells you to call them on a
Saturday as soon as possible that isn’t a good sign. I stepped outside the house because I didn’t want to make a
seen and I called, only to have my stomach drop the lowest it has gone in
awhile. He told me he had found an
unusual amount of bacteria in my blood, which would explain why I am not feeling
better. I took a deep breath, not
crying, I was too numb for tears.
How could this happen on my vacation? I never go away.
I will never go away again because clearly I am not meant to go
away. Bad things happen when I go
away. All I wanted to do was enjoy
a few days with my family. In my
head the rationale I was experiencing was that I had just tasted a bit of
heaven and it was just snatched out from under me again. I asked a few more questions like what
bacteria was it?, should I go to the hospital to get my line out?, could he
call my dr?, etc. He didn’t
have any answers at this stage in the game. He said let me identify the bacteria which should be by
tomorrow then we can move from there.
I was freaking out, what am I supposed to do in Florida knowing
that? I don’t even have a doctor
there. I don’t know where the
hospital is.
I calmly went back in side and I asked if I could speak to
my Dad before we ate dinner in the other room. I explained the entire situation to my Dad. He asked me if I needed to leave
Florida. He said we could go
home. I thought I needed to fly
home but my parents had a point, with the information we knew at that point
what were they going to do for me at home. I couldn’t do anything at home differently than I could in
Florida until we at least had different information. I said okay fine I understand. I tried to enjoy the rest of the night, but how could you
with information like that. I kept
thinking I had a fever too, maybe out of paranoia but still!
The whole time I was in Florida I laid out in the sun and I
slept entirely too much, an unhealthy amount of time. I would be concerned for the average person had they slept
as much as I did. Skip a few days
and it is Tuesday morning, my Mom is waking me up telling me we are flying
home. She wants me to get my line
pulled out and I wanted to too. No
one should have bacteria in their blood, which is by definition another round
of Sepsis! On Sunday the bacteria
still hadn’t been able to be identified and same with on Monday, which was very
aggravating, but they thought gram negative. Scary. While in
the airport waiting to board the plane, my doctor called my Mom’s cell phone
with an update on the blood culture FINALLY. My doctor told my Mom that the blood culture came back as
cocci bacteria, for those of you that are reading this and don’t know what
cocci bacteria are, it is usually gonorrhea. It can be two other types of bacteria, but in most cases it
is gonorrhea; however, I knew that it wasn’t gonorrhea, but convincing my
doctor and Mom this while in the airport was quite the task. My doctor straight up asked me if I was
having sex currently and if I was at the risk for STD’s because then this would
be a concern. She said as my
healthcare provider she needs to know especially considering I am on IV
medication, which I completely understand but I wasn’t lying! Then I asked if I had gonorrhea wouldn’t
they have caught it when I had sepsis in January and was hospitalized; they
answer was yes. Plus I wasn’t sure
if gonorrhea was one of those STD’s that you could get from a toilet seat and
have no idea or if it had to be sex.
The worst part wasn’t my mother’s reaction actually; the worst part was I
couldn’t really ask questions because I was in the airport. There were people sitting all around me
and I couldn’t ask direct questions; I would say “it”, “this”, “contracted”,
etc. And I had to sit on a plane
with this news.
More to come soon be patient.
“Who I am and what I am capable of doing has always managed
to surprise me.”
