Belfast City Councillor and mum of four Siobhan McCallin survived sepsis but went on to have a truly life-changing, long-term battle to regain her health. Here we share the transcript of a speech that she made at a Sepsis Research FEAT World Sepsis Day launch event at Stormont in September 2025.
My name is Siobhan McCallin
I am a 45-year-old wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend. I was a primary school teacher at Christ the Redeemer Primary School in Belfast but had to retire on medical grounds due to a sepsis ordeal in 2016.
For two decades I suffered with various acute issues and most of my life I have been accident-prone. I had four horrendous pregnancies with C sections, neonatal babies and was a very sick mummy. I spent hundreds of nights in hospitals – the longest being a 13 week stay resulting in a left nephrectomy (a surgery to remove all or part of a kidney). I also require blood thinners due to rare blood clots and pulmonary oedema. Whilst hospitalised I contracted E. coli, C diff (clostridium difficile) and MRSA as well as being plagued with infections. I’ve been in ICU and on a ventilator. After my fourth pregnancy I had a hysterectomy due to endometriosis. Recovery – each time the scar opened – became harder and harder.
Despite all of my health battles, throughout my short career I was promoted to acting head of key stage, head of PDMU (an area of the curriculum focussing on Personal Development & Mutual Understanding) and head of PR.
Life was good. I felt I was on my A game. I attended every game my sons played and every activity my daughter was involved in. I was energetic and full of joy. I cooked and baked. I was extremely physically active.
I took unwell on the first day back to school after the Christmas holidays in 2016. By then I knew the signs of a UTI. I went to my GP who confirmed that, prescribed an antibiotic and told me I needed to rest for two weeks. When I returned to school I was still not feeling 100%.
I was teaching Primary Four and we were bringing the children up the hill to practice for the sacrament of communion. The short but steep incline from the school to the chapel had me short of breath. As the priest was saying mass an irritating cough came over me. The type of cough you mimic to a baby when asking them “where is your bad cough”.
One of the other teachers came over and told me that my colour was awful and that I should leave and they would look after my class. By the time I got down to the school I felt like I was breaking out in a sweat. The principal sent me home. I went straight to bed and for two days I felt like I was shivering and running hot and cold. The GP gave me more antibiotics but warned me that if I didn’t improve I would need to go to hospital. Having spent so many hundreds of nights in hospital previously I behaved like a child and refused. However the rigors started and my skin became mottled and blue. I was hallucinating and saw my granda who was dead ten years waving at the bottom of my bed. I screamed to my husband that it was time to go to hospital. Due to my history and symptoms, once I got there I was rushed into resuscitation and put on monitors and an ECG, plus IV drips. Eventually I was brought to the ward and had various scans and checks in the following days.
The doctors told me that I was very lucky and that I had developed sepsis due to a urinary tract infection. I was also told I was very lucky that I had come in when I did as organs can go into shut down at which point one in two people die.
Upon discharge, full of gratitude, I followed the usual routine of recuperation. I felt like I was getting worse though – the stairs felt like a mountain. I’d wake up and the bed was soaking. I would have horrendous vivid nightmares. My hair was falling out in clumps. I was falling. I needed help with the most basic of tasks. I lost time. My memory and attention felt all over the place. I was repeating myself. I had widespread pain and blinding headaches. I completely lost my voice again. I had throat surgery due to a haemorrhagic cyst and vocal chord nodules and required intense voice therapy.
My GP, Dr McKenna has been amazing and has looked after me throughout all my health battles. He said I’d been through a lot and that it sounded like post sepsis syndrome. I didn’t even know what sepsis was until I Googled it. It all made sense and I also realised how lucky I was to be alive.
The pattern continued to worsen though. About 3 months post-sepsis Dr McKenna rang to say further blood tests had came back and showed CMV (a common virus that’s usually harmless but can sometimes cause problems in babies and people with a weakened immune system) in my system and that it might have been dormant before being reactivated.
With this information he now began using the term Post viral syndrome. I was rarely out of bed and, when I did have a good day, emptying the dishwasher or putting clothes in the machine had me on my back – heart palpitating and severe chest pains. I had several really bad falls in the months that followed and broke fingers and fell in the shower, knocking tiles off the wall and cutting and damaging myself
As time marched on, for me life stood still; I was crippled with anxiety and severe depression. Life was passing me by. The more I tried to get well the sicker I was becoming. I was also experiencing regular sleep paralysis, and the vivid nightmares continued. I required throat surgery. It was at the consultation with my ENT surgeon that medical retirement from teaching was first mooted. When I spoke to my GP about it he also agreed that this might be what I was facing. I was becoming so desperate as I just wanted to be able to be the wife, the mother, the daughter, the teacher and friend I had always been. I couldn’t see myself in the mirror.
The GP also began to discuss with me the fact that he believed I had ME/CFS as all the tests and check ups had ruled out other diseases. I’d been seen by various specialist consultants who also believed that might be the case. Sadly there is no pathway to care either for ME/CFS diagnosis or care for patients here in the North (Northern Ireland). ME Support NI arranged for me to see a Harley Street specialist who flies in to see patients in the hotel next to Belfast International Airport.
My life spiralled downward and I was bedbound most of the time. I was on so much medication and yet I still felt pain. Despite helping with the pain, some of the medication was making me have suicidal thoughts and I stopped after discussions with my GP.
On the days I was well enough I started writing a few words of positive affirmation. Anything to distract from the noise of feeling like a failure. I felt like I was a huge burden to my family. I was in bed for about 8.5months without being able to turn myself most days.
We lost two very decent salaries. Financial pressure added to our misery and my lump sum disappeared as we had to use it to live on. It was a Catch 22.
Social workers and Occupational Health were amazing. It was difficult to accept the help at the start but soon my bedroom and home felt like a hospital ward. I needed bed rails, perching stools and other equipment to assist me. I couldn’t brush my own hair. I needed help getting washed and often had falls getting out of the bath – cracking my chin or head. I later learned I had POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome – a circulatory disorder characterised by an abnormal increase in heart rate when transitioning from lying down to standing up. Common symptoms include dizziness and fainting) and that helped me understand why I was having tremors, and restless legs or felt like I was having a heart attack every time I faced the stairs. So my world became very small and my bedroom became my prison. I watched the Lion King daily and cried and wept feeling like I’d lost everything. I felt like such a burden.
I went to visit a faith healer in 2019. He helped me accept this illness. After that visit he gave me several instructions: one was to throw two stones on my journey home, light a candle and to scribble. The doctor had told me for a long time to lift my pen, assuring me Florence Nightingale was believed to have had ME and that she wrote from her bed. I was so angry and frustrated – I cursed him up and down. What would I have to write? I can’t even speak or move most days, let alone write! The faith healer said that there would be a day when my writing would come and that my voice would be heard across the globe at a time when the world needed to hear it.
I began to write two positive words a day. I relived every happy memory as if it was on loop in my mind. I wept silently and in agony but something shifted after that visit. Soon poems began to flow without thought. When I’d send them to my family they applaud me like a wee child who needed positive praise. I did need it. I’d forgotten who I was. I am a Westie. I am a fighter. I come from one of the most resilient communities in the world.
I’d think of all the times I could have died and hadn’t and realised I still have a purpose. I am still here. The poems began to flow. I would spend my days in bed watching concerts from every genre and documentaries. My family would read to me when I was stuck in bed – often tales of Irish mythology and folklore – I was literally away with the fairies. In those tales there is suffering and triumph that inspired me to keep fighting, to keep believing that life would get better. It was with acceptance that I began to heal. I watched spiritual teachers and podcasts about healing, such as Deepak Chopra and Eckart Tolle.
Instead of focusing on all the things I could no longer do I wrote lists of gratitude. Number one being that I am alive and I am breathing. Living in the present moment taught me how to appreciate the days that I was well enough to sit in our beautiful garden. The sensation of inhaling fresh air, the ability to look at the sky and clouds. The joy of listening to birdsong and enjoying the beauty of nature.
The pandemic was a blessing for me. I had round-the-clock care. The severe isolation and loneliness ended. Zoom was revolutionary. I participated in online classes and writing groups organised by Glor na mona. I was asked to do a short podcast for the James Connolly visitors museum. That changed my life so much – in that, via social media I was sharing my poetry. Veteran journalist Eamon Mallie asked me to read one poem a week for his poetry platform. This again opened up new friendships. I was being messaged by former ambassadors, politicians, leaders within the community and by the media. My poetry was giving other people hope.
In 2022 we were finally offered a house that was electrified with a stairlift and a downstairs shower room. That move enabled me to be back among the best family and friends one could wish for.
It was then as a community that we undertook a huge sepsis awareness campaign. At that stage we had two families in our club who had lost sisters – Paula Brennan and Mairead Donnelly. I and several others were survivors. Most people don’t know what sepsis is. Tonight, we remember Gareth, Paula and Mairead.
We hope that through our stories you go away and share awareness with family and friends about the dangers and signs of sepsis.
I will end with a poem I wrote following our last sepsis campaign, dedicated to Mairead and Paula. I dedicate it to all who have lost a loved one to sepsis:
A message straight from heaven
On this very special evening know that I am here
A visit straight from heaven to whisper in your ear
I know that you’ve been weeping
I know that it’s been tough
Like a lonesome boatsman without a paddle
In a sea that’s very rough
The storm feels never ending but know it’s one that you will weather
Despite solitary footsteps in the sand we are walking it together
As the thunder bellows loudly, I’m the lightening that forks across the sky
I am the free flowing waterfall just like the teardrops that fall gracefully from your eye
As the storm begins to pass I’m the brightly coloured rainbow illuminating in the cloud
I’m the treasure in the memory box all the photos and trinkets that make you proud
So, tonight as you gather in my name, as an angel I am here
Know that I am with you and my spirit is always near
As you light a candle in remembrance, I’m holding your hand as you speak my name
Eternal is my memory your love ignites an everlasting flame
As you lay your head upon the pillow I’ll speak softly in your dreams
To tell you someday you’ll conquer the mountain that’s grief insurmountable as it seems
To help you on your healing journey, I’ll send some signs to guide you through
A brilliant white feather, a stone shaped heart, a sudden flash of happy memories are just a few
On the days it feels impossible and the pain is weighing you down
I am the robin in the garden sweetly serenading to take away your frown
They say that time is a healer and I know you are suffering and in pain
Please know it will get easier and have hope in heaven we will meet again.
—
Charity Comment:
Siobhan‘s story of sepsis is one of debilitating long-term illness but also of hope.
Already a community leader, over the course of nine years, Siobhan has rebuilt her life and found new ways to help others – by sharing her experience and the gift for writing that she has discovered in herself.
The sharing of sepsis stories can be so therapeutic and we are very grateful to Siobhan for taking the time not only to share hers with Sepsis Research FEAT but also for the work that she has done to raise funds and awareness to help in the battle against sepsis. Particularly, though, for sharing the account here as an address at a World Sepsis Day launch event hosted by this charity at Stormont in September 2025.
We look forward to working with Siobhan in future, to raise better awareness of sepsis in Northern Ireland and to save lives and improve outcomes for the northern Irish community via the funding of research into sepsis.