‘Sepsis hit me like a deer in headlights and it hit me quick. Timing is everything. Act quickly if there is even a slight suspicion that it could be sepsis.’
33 year old mum of two, Sammi, from Essex, has worked in the banking industry since she left sixth form at the age of 17. Outside of work, most of her time is spent with her two daughters – Isabella (4) and Celine (2). ‘I love planning fun days out for us together. When I get time to myself, I really enjoy exercising – mainly reformer Pilates and walking. I love cooking – it’s something I really enjoy and I love sharing dishes I’ve made with family and friends.’
So you might think Sammi was unlikely to be someone who developed sepsis. Except she did, rapidly and dramatically, in September 2025. She explains what happened here.
On Wednesday 17th September 2025, I underwent planned robotic single-port, laparoscopic surgery to excise deep infiltrating endometriosis which had spread and attached to organs in my pelvic region, including my bowel and bladder, and beyond into my abdomen.
The operation was said to be a success and I was discharged the following day. I had minimal pain – as expected – until the afternoon of Friday 19th September when I suddenly felt an intense pain in my tummy. The pain began radiating and worsening. I took some of the painkillers that I had been prescribed and tried to breathe through it. It felt like no pain I had never experienced before though. When we called the surgeon’s PA for advice they explained it was normal and to be expected and said that I should be patient and take pain relief. Within an hour my condition worsened, however. My hands and lips discoloured and became ice-cold to touch. I was becoming delirious, and my heart was racing.
We called for an ambulance, detailed my symptoms and explained that something was seriously wrong. I honestly felt doomed and that something terrible was happening. I felt like I was dying. The ambulance wait-times were too long so eventually, after chasing 999 on a number of occasions, we decided to go to A&E at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow. On arrival, they saw the state of my condition, triaged me immediately and established that I had tachycardia and hypotension. I was rushed through to resus where, based on my presenting symptoms, I was immediately given IV antibiotics whilst they waited for confirmation of sepsis. As a result of blood tests and cultures, as well as the presenting symptoms, the resus team then confirmed that I did have sepsis and began treatment quickly. They then also sent me for a CT scan. The scan revealed a perforation of the small bowel with free fluid and air in the abdomen. I underwent emergency surgery within the hour to repair the bowel.
My condition deteriorated whilst in surgery, however, and I went into septic shock so I was immediately placed in an induced coma and sent to ICU. I had worsening metabolic acidosis, faecal peritonitis and vasopressor requirement so was treated with vasopressors, fluid resuscitation, IV antibiotics, TPN and painkillers as well as electrolytes and glucose. I then had to have another laparotomy surgery for an abdominal wash out to try to clear the collections of fluid and infection. In total I had three surgeries within a week. I continued to receive IV medication, including the antibiotic Meropenem, for the three weeks that I spent in hospital, moving from ICU to HDU and then to the surgical ward. I was then given a further week of oral antibiotics to take at home when I was discharged.
I was so delirious and confused in resus that to be honest I don’t think I had much of a reaction at the time of my sepsis diagnosis. I just remember wanting to be helped and treated as soon as possible – I was in so much pain and felt so terribly unwell. My family were shocked and absolutely devastated though. They were really fearful of the outcome and what was to come next.
Four months on, I am no longer receiving treatment for sepsis but I am still receiving support to help with my recovery. I have physio weekly to help with my mobility which was lost due to inactivity and muscle atrophy. I have weekly mental health therapy (EMDR) for PTSD and anxiety and I meet a dietician every two weeks to help with my diet and nutrition.
I have made good progress with my recovery but I still have so far to go. I am struggling with symptoms of post sepsis syndrome and I am awaiting results on investigations on my kidney to see if there has been any damage as a result of the sepsis.
During my treatment, the staff in ICU and HDU helped beyond measure. Their encouragement and care were absolutely paramount to my recovery journey. Added to that was the support of my family – my husband, mum and dad were at the hospital daily to keep me in as good spirits as possible and to keep on top of my medical situation. Hope and purpose really helped from a spiritual and motivational perspective. Knowing I had no option but to get better for my daughters, and knowing how much they need their mum, no doubt pulled me through some of the toughest moments. The support that I have sought privately since discharge – physio, reassurance from consultants, dieticians and mental health treatment – has totally changed the course of my recovery in my opinion.
When the CT scan was completed in hospital and the doctors were fully aware of the situation at hand, I was given an hour to live and was told that they needed to perform emergency surgery immediately. I have made remarkable progress with my recovery since then. I am still in the very early stages but I am just so glad to be here and to have my life. I will do everything in my power to get back to some type of normality and I am taking my health and recovery very seriously.
I hadn’t heard of Sepsis Research FEAT before September. Seeing other people’s stories has been encouraging – knowing that I’m not alone. The charity’s research is incredible and it’s been so helpful to read factual information and learn about sepsis and the impact it has. It would be great to see their work in the future with the research they’re still working on.
I’m sharing my story with Sepsis Research FEAT now for several reasons – to help with their research and awareness – sharing the story from a patient’s perspective. I also want to raise awareness for others who have never had sepsis and who may know nothing about it, in the hope of saving lives in the future. And I want to share my story to encourage other sepsis survivors that there is hope. I’d love to work with sepsis charities to do all that I can to raise awareness, improve patient outcomes and support future research.
Sepsis doesn’t discriminate. Forget the stereotypes that it only affects the elderly or vulnerable. Never assume it couldn’t be you or someone you love. I was a healthy, fit, young mum of two. Sepsis hit me like a deer in headlights and it hit me quick. Timing is everything. Act quickly if there is even a slight suspicion that it could be sepsis. Always ask the question – could it be sepsis? If it’s not – at least you will get checked. If it is, the possibility of a good outcome is so much higher if it is caught early. Early recognition saves lives. I am a sepsis survivor and I share my story so others don’t have to learn the hard way.
And to fellow survivors: your journey is long, your strength is extraordinary, and your future still holds hope. Keep going. With the right support, physical, mental and emotional healing is possible. You are not alone and your voice can help save someone else’s life.
Charity Comment
Sammi was a healthy 32-year-old mum of two with none of the prior risk factors commonly associated with sepsis. She developed sepsis and septic shock rapidly and her condition deteriorated dramatically with classic sepsis symptoms including severe pain, cold discoloured skin, delirium, tachycardia (rapid heart-rate) and hypotension (low blood pressure). Her survival and recovery, given how quickly she became so seriously ill, is testament to the prompt diagnosis and treatment that she received.
The impacts of sepsis remain significant though and Sammi recognises that, like around half of those who survive sepsis each year (some 100,000 people) she has some way still to go. She is clearly investing time and energy into her recovery for the sake of her family and others.
Sammi’s story illustrates clearly the importance of rapid diagnosis for sepsis – an area of research on which Sepsis Research FEAT is focussing heavily via seedcorn funding in 2026 – and that sepsis can affect anyone, regardless of age or fitness, and can progress extremely quickly.
As a footnote, the experience of sepsis that she describes in the account above was actually not her first. In March 2023, when she was around 9 weeks pregnant with her second daughter, Sammi developed a cold, which then developed into a chest infection, which ultimately developed into pneumonia and sepsis.
In her own words she says:
‘I became very unwell very quickly. The cold and chest infection had been developing over 3 weeks with no improvement. I remember being full of cold on my daughter’s 2nd birthday when we took her to the zoo, but it was very manageable at that point.
I booked a GP appointment to try to get antibiotics but my GP was not willing to prescribe them because I was pregnant – they said they would only give them if it was absolutely necessary and that at that time I was not presenting clinically as particularly unwell so I should try and let my immune system fight the infection, which was likely to be viral. I did then try a second time to get antibiotics but was met with the same message.
On the day that sepsis was diagnosed, I felt unwell but I was able to log onto my laptop and work from my bed. I started to feel very cold but was dripping with sweat and my temperature was over 40 when we checked. Within hours, things had deteriorated. We called 111 and they sent an ambulance car. They checked my vitals and agreed I was very unwell but said that they were unsure of the cause. They said that it would take a long time to get an ambulance to take us to the hospital and advised us to go to A&E immediately with a printout of the ECG.
By the time I got to A&E, I was tachycardic and I was sweating so much that the stickers for the ECG took a long time to produce a reading because they kept slipping off. My blood pressure was very low and my temperature was still extremely high. They took us into a room separate to the waiting area to do a blood test as there were no beds in resus available at that time and it was there that the doctor informed us that he believed I had sepsis and was going to start treatment for that immediately with fluids and IV antibiotics.
I broke down in tears – I just couldn’t believe it. I was soon in the resus room and had doctors rushing around to begin treatment. They told me I’d have to have a chest x-ray to check for pneumonia and assess the situation. A nurse told me that I should seriously consider the wisdom of having an x-ray because of the potential long-term effects of radiation on the baby. I felt distraught with guilt. A doctor overheard though and told the nurse in front of us that without mum, there would be no baby so mum’s health has to be prioritised right now. That made me feel safe and seemed like a much more sensible approach. I still had to sign disclaimers regarding the effect of x-rays on the pregnancy which was scary but the x-ray did confirm pneumonia and the blood tests confirmed they’d caught the sepsis in the very early stages.
I remained in hospital overnight before being discharged the following morning with oral antibiotics once my vitals were stable.
I then spent the rest of my pregnancy feeling anxious about the effects that the sepsis would have had on me and my baby. I was given extra maternity appointments and growth scans to check on the welfare of the baby. It was a really scary time and I found the pregnancy quite challenging. I would say I felt more fatigued than I had with my first, and I ended up hospitalised for 4 days around 32 weeks pregnant, which they suggested could have been due to the sepsis and pneumonia I had experienced at the beginning.
I am so grateful that the birth of my daughter went well – she was born healthy and, three years on, is thriving. I am grateful that the A&E staff recognised the possibility that I had sepsis and acted so quickly – I am sure that had a huge impact on the outcome.
The doctors told me at the time that women are at a higher risk of developing sepsis when pregnant because the immune system is compromised. I never knew that. I wish I could have challenged my GP and pushed for antibiotics – I accepted the argument that I could potentially do harm to the baby. When you’re pregnant or a new mum, it’s programmed into maternal instincts to prioritise the baby, but we really must think of ourselves too. When the doctor said ‘without mum, there will be no baby’ it really hit home for me and totally changed my way of thinking – in terms of how I prioritise my health. I think it should be made clear at your first maternity appointment that if you are unwell and have any signs of sepsis you need to seek urgent help. It’s always better to check – even if it doesn’t turn out to be sepsis. If you feel more unwell than you ever have – consider the possibility of sepsis and urge doctors to take your concerns seriously. It escalates so quick and every minute matters.’
This charity could not be more grateful to Sammi for sharing her story. The charity looks forward to working with her in the future to help improve sepsis outcomes for others.