I had never heard of Sepsis Research FEAT before, but when I was in hospital with sepsis back in April, I craved real life stories, as opposed to information from medical websites. I read all the stories on your website at that stage. I became aware that the issue of sepsis during cancer treatment isn’t raised as often as it should be. I think that it is really important to make people aware so that they can ask the question and flag their concerns.
My name is Stuart Barnes and I am in my 50s. Originally from Chester, I have lived in Bolton for the last 30 years of my life, and am married to Julie with two sons – Josh, who’s 31, and Joel, who’s 29. Prior to July 2023 and then April 2025, I was a fit, healthy guy, in good shape for my age – a long-distance runner and regular gym-goer.
In July 2023 I received my initial diagnosis of cancer and was offered surgery, which appeared to be successful, and I was given the all-clear.
However, at my first surveillance scan in October 2024 it became clear that three new tumours had developed, and I was told at that stage that my cancer was incurable. I was offered chemotherapy in order to buy me time, and was told that it was likely to make the difference, between 6 and 12 months more of life. I signed the form, consenting to all the potential side effects, and took the chemotherapy, not fully realising the possible implications and not having a clear understanding of sepsis. With hindsight, I would still have taken the chemo as I had a great six months. Through to the end of March 2025 I was living my life and appeared to have swerved the worst of the side effects but, had I been more aware, I would have been able to better advocate for myself when the sepsis did set in.
At the end of March 2025 I had my post-chemo scan. Two tumours had remained the same size, but one had shrunk. Things were looking so good that I was told that I could wait three months until July 2025 for my next review. That was on 2nd April. On 5th April, I developed sepsis.
The cancer has now spread massively. I wonder now about the potential link that I have read about between the noradrenaline that I was given during my sepsis treatment to control my blood pressure and the significant acceleration of my cancer then and since.
In early April of this year, Joel and Julie had taken a trip to Poland. I was at home on my own dog sitting for five days. Early morning of 5th April, a Saturday, I went to the gym. I was half an hour into my cardio routine when I started to feel very unwell and really thirsty. I drank the entire bottle of water that I had brought with me, and then went to the cafe and bought another bottle and drank that too. I was feeling so unwell by this point that I grabbed everything from my locker and went straight home. I chucked the dogs outside, and promptly went to the bathroom and threw up. When I came out of the bathroom, I collapsed on the sofa and started shaking uncontrollably. I had never had sepsis before, and sepsis wasn’t even on my mind. I had had an infection of my foot previously, though, with the same symptoms of uncontrollable shivering, so I thought that if I got antibiotics I would be absolutely fine. I rang the out of hours GP, and amazingly, managed to get an appointment within the following couple of hours. So I had a shower, fed the dogs, and then took myself by car to that appointment.
I told the GP on call that I thought I had an infection coming and that I would probably need antibiotics, at which point he told me that I was extremely unwell and needed to be admitted straight to hospital. He even rang ahead and put together a letter and told me that I needed to be fast-tracked through A&E. At that stage, I rang my son, Josh, who collected me and took me to the hospital. I just had time to grab the basic things that I would need – some belongings and a bit of food.
Unfortunately, the call ahead and the letter didn’t really seem to do the trick, and I spent hours in A&E. At one stage, I was in so much discomfort that I asked for pain relief, but unfortunately it didn’t materialise. I saw a locum doctor who didn’t appear to see much urgency in the situation or to be in a rush to move anything on. Eventually, in desperation, seeing how much pain I was in, my son rang his partner, who’s a nurse at the same hospital. He came down and had some conversations, highlighting possible risks, and that appeared to make a difference in terms of getting me called through.
After that, I don’t remember anything very much at all. I know that I was taken through to resus and then into the intensive care unit. In resus I was treated by a doctor who I later saw in ICU. She told me, when she saw me again, how very ill I had been, how very fast my sepsis had progressed – from having a conversation to being gravely ill -and how worried she had been. She was so worried, in fact, that when she went off shift that Saturday night, she had apparently not stopped thinking about me and had rung the next morning to check on my progress.
At 4am the next morning, the hospital rang my son Josh with the ‘You’d better come down now’ call. It was very hard for him because at that point the medics weren’t sure I would make it at all, and if I did there was a chance my leg would have to be amputated. He thought he would have to make some significant decisions on my behalf. My wife was also worried sick, still trying her best to get back from Poland. And my blood pressure was so low that the doctors were unable to treat my sepsis with the necessary drugs.
Over the course of the next week, my family were told on multiple occasions that I could still die and that I was not out of danger. I do remember that, but don’t really remember registering the importance and significance of it. To me, it was a bit like they were telling me what I was going to have for tea. It must have been a really dreadful time for my family.
At the end of that week, my family was finally told that I was out of the danger zone, by which stage my lower left leg was black and yellow in colour. I was treated incredibly well in ICU – I can’t fault the care that I was given. Also, the tissue viability nurses came and worked on me extensively and my leg began to heal better than expected.
After two weeks in ICU, I told staff that I had some pain in in my pelvis and that I was concerned, because that was the site of my existing tumours. I wasn’t given a scan, but after some fairly cursory examination, they concluded that there was nothing to worry about, and that, although I had been up and about with the physios, the pain was probably down to the fact that I had been so bed-bound for two weeks. I was then transferred onto the standard medical ward for two days and then discharged home.
As far as the sepsis was concerned, there was no real follow up after that. I had an appointment the following week at the cellulitis clinic and was then signed off. Longer term, I was told that I could go back to ICU if I felt that would be helpful in terms of mentally processing what had happened to me. But nothing beyond that.
Once I got home though, within 24 hours, the pain was so bad that that became my sole focus. I couldn’t eat or sleep and told my wife I wished the sepsis had killed me. It was impossible to know what the cause of the pain was: was it sepsis-related or cancer-related or something else entirely? I felt that I was passed between the GP and my oncologist and it took over a month to get a CT scan and the results. The CT scan of my pelvis showed that the pelvic pain that I was experiencing was wholly cancer-related. I wondered whether it was purely coincidental that I had sepsis at the point where my cancer became so rampant. There was also no obvious reason for my cellulitis, no obvious cut or entry point that could have caused the initial infection.
Following the results of the scan, I was admitted to Bolton Hospice to implement a pain management regime. At the time of writing I am still in the hospice. I was visited in there the other day by the doctor I had seen in ICU. She spoke to me again about how desperately ill I had been and the shocking rapidity of the infection taking hold, she told me how close I had been to death in those first hours.
I suppose my feeling is that just putting this message out there is important: if it can prompt somebody to say ‘that’s what happened to me’, or ‘that’s what happened to my relative’, to build a body of evidence that then prompts the right research to happen. And more widely, I think if I had known about sepsis previously and really considered it as a possible side effect of the treatment that I was consenting to, I could have been better informed at A&E. I could have told them that I’d just finished chemo and highlighted the fact that sepsis was a potential side effect, rather than just glibly signing the consent for it. Making my family aware too would have been really valuable. You are then able, if you find yourself in a situation where you potentially have sepsis or someone else does, to shout about it and ask to be checked sooner, rather than later.
Post sepsis, I would just say that if you can find the mental energy to accept what’s happened to you and do what you can, that’s the most important thing. It happened. I can’t change it. It is as it is. For me, I’ve made a decision that I’m not going to be a grumpy old man constantly saying, ‘Why me?’, but I’m going to look at what we can do. Life isn’t going to be the same, but it’s still life, and that makes a huge difference.
I left the gym having done a workout that day in early April, and now I’m in a wheelchair, and I’m unlikely ever to get out of it. I was a really active, healthy 50-something year old. The physios have now got me a self-propelled wheelchair, and I see that as a cardio workout. It’s all about adopting a different mindset and looking at what I can do. I’m self-propelled! It’s all exercise. I’m slow, but I will build it up…My wife and I can’t go away on holiday anymore as we used to, but we are foodies, and we can go to some really nice restaurants and enjoy those.
Smile. Enjoy life. Make the most of it.
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Charity comment:
Stuart’s sepsis story speaks powerfully of resilience. He and his family have made a choice to live life to the full, despite the huge challenges with which they have been presented.
In terms of sepsis awareness, his key messaging is about being better informed and advocating for oneself and others – being equipped to talk clearly to medics about what is wrong with you or a loved one in clear terms and get the treatment that you or they need as a result.
Sepsis is a not uncommon side-effect of cancer treatment , when infection can attack the body at the point when it is most vulnerable and the immune system is at its most suppressed. Stuart’s hope is that by helping to inform others he can perhaps help them to avoid becoming as ill as he did in April 2025.
You can read another story of sepsis during cancer treatment – that of Martin Weaver from Edinburgh – here
Sepsis Research FEAT was very sorry indeed to learn of Stuart’s death in late June 2025. The charity is so grateful to Stuart and his family for sharing his story to help raise awareness and to push for research in the future to improve the prognosis for cancer patients. We send Julie, Josh and Joel our condolences and very best wishes.