“Getting sepsis was the worst experience of my life.”

Hi, I’m Tom and I was asked by Sepsis Research FEAT to share my experience of sepsis, which I suffered at the age of 15.

It was a typical day at school back in February 2019 when I suddenly felt slightly ill. I headed to the medical centre and they found my temperature was quite high so I got the bus home and tried to sleep it off. I went into school as normal the next day but barely made it through the day so I decided to take the next day off to rest. The next day I got worse though – I was extremely fatigued, didn’t have an appetite, I wasn’t able to move and I started developing what I can only describe as a stabbing feeling.

My health deteriorated pretty rapidly by the Friday, with piercing abdominal pain, and I found it extremely difficult to move. I just wanted to sleep it off and hoped it would all go away. It didn’t though and my temperature increased to 42 degrees and I then passed out. When I finally came to, I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience – I woke up with feeding tubes up my nose, high-flow oxygen, and an IV drip.

The bright lights and 3 paramedics in green proved my ‘let’s just sleep it off and hope it all goes away’ idea hadn’t quite gone to plan! I wondered how this had happened to me – it felt like a bad dream. I had to be wheeled out of my bedroom and taken by ambulance to the A&E of my local hospital. It was here that I was diagnosed with sepsis.  

I knew about sepsis before the diagnosis but I didn’t understand the severity of it. My family found it difficult to comprehend and I was in disbelief. Why me? A relatively fit and healthy teenager. This shouldn’t be happening to me and it just came out of nowhere. All we could do was let the medical staff do what they needed to do and wait.

The next four hours in the hospital were spent in critical care. They then transferred me to another ward where I spent 4 days being nourished by a drip and fluids. I spent 8 hours with staff trying to learn how to walk again – it was mentally and physically draining. I pushed through and once they were happy with my progress, I was discharged and taken home. I still had to go back to the hospital every day for 2 weeks to receive IV antibiotics.   

The diagnosis happened just as my school broke up for the holidays so I never really told anyone at school or my peers what had happened. I didn’t see many people when I went home which I didn’t mind as it allowed me to take the time to rest and recover.

My treatment consisted of a mix of intravenous antibiotics, fluids, and specialist diets. I had lost a lot of weight so was given special food to try and increase my weight. I wasn’t given the correct amount of antibiotics after I was discharged and the sepsis returned, which was devastating as I had to go back onto oral and IV antibiotics for 2 weeks. The staff at the hospital were amazing though, they were so kind and patient with me.  

Getting sepsis has been the worst experience of my life so far and just shows how quickly your health can deteriorate. It’s been almost 3 years since my experience and luckily I’ve made a full recovery. I want to use my experience to help raise awareness of what is an extremely dangerous illness. Not enough people know what sepsis is and recognize its symptoms. Even if they do they often think it only strikes older people.

My story shows it can happen to absolutely anyone – it doesn’t matter how healthy or how old you are. That’s why it’s so important for people to know the symptoms so that they can be treated as soon as possible.

Although I wasn’t aware of Sepsis Research FEAT at the time, they’ve made me feel empowered to help others going through sepsis and increase awareness within my local community, including my school.

My message is simple. Just be aware. Sepsis can look like a very simple illness, but it can develop extremely quickly. Be vigilant and know the signs. Make sure you have a close support network too as they’ll help you get through tough times. NHS staff and my girlfriend at the time were a great support to me and I wouldn’t have recovered as quickly as I did without them.