“I’m fine, I’m fine, it’ll be OK…”
With these words Ironman triathlete John from Edinburgh tried desperately to convince himself that, with just two weeks to go till the most important competition of his career, he would be well enough to compete. Early medical intervention for sepsis saved his life.
John explains what happened here:
It was summer 2014. The Ironman UK triathlon (swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, run a marathon) was two weeks away. At this race, I was aiming to qualify for the Ironman Triathlon World Championships later that year in Hawaii. I had already tried three times from 2011-2013 to achieve this, but I hadn’t quite made it.
I had trained hard for six months for the 2014 race, sacrificed a lot, and put everything I had into it. My preparation had gone really well. I knew I was in great shape, and I really believed it was going to be my day – that I’d finally qualify for the World Championships, and be heading for Hawaii…
I was beginning to taper down my training for race day, and I went for a routine sports massage. Two weeks out from the biggest day of my year, with six months of hard training behind me, I wasn’t going to do anything risky that could derail things. A sports massage? Zero risk, or so I thought…
The following morning, I felt a bit funny. A bit “off”. My legs were a bit red. I shrugged it off: “I’ll be fine…” I headed to work as usual. But I felt “on edge” and I didn’t feel like myself at all. I remember getting into an argument with a taxi driver just as I was arriving to the office. This was very unlike me. I don’t usually get into arguments with people on the street…
By lunchtime, I was sweating and shivering. My legs were sore. I was in denial: “I’m fine, I’m fine, it’ll be OK…” I didn’t want to admit to myself that something was wrong. I had worked too hard for this race to have it all go wrong at this stage, so close to race day.
Later that day, I went into the toilets and had a proper look at my legs. They were disgusting, a mess, from top to bottom. They were an angry red colour, they were hot and sore, and they were septic. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I couldn’t deny it any longer – I felt terrible, and my legs were in a horrible state. I needed to see a medical professional. So I headed to a local pharmacy. I hoped they’d tell me everything would be fine after a good night’s sleep, maybe they’d give me some cream to put on my legs, and hopefully they’d send me on my way.
I explained my situation to the pharmacist. By now I didn’t have much energy and I had whole-body aches. The look on the pharmacist’s face upon seeing my legs told me that I was in trouble, and I was firmly instructed to go to the nearest hospital straight away. Still I didn’t want to believe that this was happening. I did contemplate going home, going to bed and hoping it would all be OK in the morning: “I’m young, I’m fit, I’ll shake it off…” But deep down, I knew what I had to do…
So I found myself in hospital, in the A&E department, dazedly wondering how on earth it could have come to this. Triage was rapid. This was an indicator to me that my condition was serious. Among other things, they took my heart rate, and it was almost twice what it usually is. Not good… Nor was the reaction when they saw my legs… by now there was pus everywhere and they felt like they were going to explode.
I tried to explain about the upcoming race and all the work I’d put into it. In two weeks I wanted to be qualifying for the Ironman Triathlon World Championships and booking tickets to Hawaii. I didn’t want to be sitting in hospital. The triage nurse could see that I really, really did not want this to be happening to me, and that I just wanted to walk out of there and for everything to be fine. Unfortunately, there is no magical, instantaneous fix for sepsis. The nurse knew what I needed.
She had to get tough with me, and I am glad she did. She barked at me: “You are an intelligent man. You have come to hospital. You can see you are in trouble. You have sepsis and if you don’t have this treated immediately…” “OK, OK, OK,” I interrupted. I didn’t need to hear about the consequences. I had heard of sepsis. I knew it was bad. I resigned myself to the fact that it was time to forget the race and time to let the medical people take over.
Within a very short space of time, I was in a hospital bed, hooked up to intravenous medication, having all sorts of tests done, wires and lines everywhere, doctors and nurses everywhere. I was being very closely monitored. I was treated in hospital for three days, where I received fantastic care. I consider myself lucky. I walked away with no damage done and no long-term effects. If I had gone home rather than going to the hospital, there might well have been a much worse outcome.
How had it happened? Contaminated massage oil? Dirty hands, fingers, or fingernails? Not enough oil being used, too much friction? My immune system being on edge from months of tough training? Bad luck? A combination of all of these? Something else? I’ll never know.
I did learn about sepsis, and how serious it is. Sepsis is when the body reacts in an extreme and overwhelming way to infection. Clearly some sort of infection had got into my legs from the sports massage, and my body had an extreme reaction to this. I’ve never experienced anything like it. I had always considered myself fit and healthy, and never thought something like this could happen to me.
I was showing many of the symptoms – feeling dazed and dizzy, argumentative, shivering and sweaty, my heart was racing, and I had full-body aches. I’m glad I went to hospital when I did, and I wish I had gone sooner. You deteriorate very quickly with sepsis. It can progress quickly to permanent tissue damage, organ failure, and death. You can’t shrug it off, you can’t hope that it will go away by itself and that everything will be fine.
I would strongly encourage everyone to become familiar with the symptoms of sepsis, and not to delay in seeking medical help if they have any concerns whatsoever. Don’t let stubbornness and an unwillingness to seek help make things worse – sepsis is life-threatening and needs urgent medical intervention. The quicker, the better. You also can’t rush your recovery from sepsis. The body needs plenty of time to rest and recover, and it’s important to be patient with yourself.
I did try again six more times to qualify for the Ironman Triathlon World Championships, and I finally achieved qualification in 2019.