I am a mother of two to Flynn and Sophie and wife to Malcolm. At 34 years of age in early December 2023 my life took a drastic turn. After seeing a doctor a week earlier form suffering from a very sore throat and lost voice with no other symptoms, I was told I just had a virus. At this point it didn’t cross my mind to push further to ask for a throat swab to confirm if it was viral or bacterial. I rested and my voice did start returning to normal a few days later, so I thought I must be getting better. I woke up on the Friday morning 8th Dec with severe neck pain which was not like anything I had experience before. I took some paracetamol and ibuprofen and carried on with my day working, thinking I must have slept funny and I will be fine, but that evening I started feeling confused, dizzy, nauseous and started vomiting. I knew something was seriously wrong, so my husband raced me to hospital.
The next 24 hours were a bit of a blur. None of the medical staff could understand why I was going downhill so fast. It didn’t cross my mind to ask ‘could it be Sepsis?’ but they knew as I was admitted straight away upon arrival at emergency as I was vomiting, lethargic, had diarrhea and my heart rate was all over the place. After having a CT scan they could see there was something going on in my neck, but would need to operate to know exactly what was going on. I was transferred from Casey to Dandenong hospital the next morning where the plastics team were making plans to operate. After seeing the ENT team, we were told it could be necrotizing fasciitis. A deadly flesh-eating disease, as in the 6 hours between the first and second CT scan they could see it spreading in my neck. The pain in my neck was getting worse and I had never felt so hot, thirsty and dizzy in my life. As I was being admitted to ICU I went into septic shock. Nearly going into cardiac arrest twice. I was losing consciousness and fighting to keep breathing and keep my eyes open. I was pumped with the highest dose of adrenalin to keep my heart beating. They were able to stabilize me for surgery that evening. I told my family I love them, I had never felt more scared but was keen to move quickly with surgery as I was struggling. I went into surgery around 10pm and it lasted 4 hours. I was placed in an induced coma on a ventilator. The medical team told my family that it didn’t look like necrotizing fasciitis, and they removed two dead lymph nodes and drained turbid fluid that was pooling in my neck and also removed some soft tissues to send off for testing. My family were told they didn’t know what the next 24 hours would hold and that at that time, they had done everything they could for me, so just had to wait out the night on the highest doses of everything and even 8 different antibiotics.
The lab results came back which showed the throat infection I had was actually an invasive Group A Strep bacteria (iGAS) a serious Streptococcus bacteria. A very rare thing had happened, as it somehow spread through soft tissue from my throat to tissue in my neck to my lymph nodes. Timing was so critical between life and death and being in ICU at the right time my life really was saved possibly just by hours or minutes. Slowly I started responding to the treatment and they knew exactly which antibiotic would fight this infection. Each day my family came in I was hooked up to one less thing. My body become so swollen with fluid over those three days in a coma and on the ventilator. After 3 days I was woken and taken off the ventilator. It is still hard for me to remember everything that happened as I was so groggy coming out of the coma, but it took a few days to learn how to swallow again, due to a side affect of the ventilator. My lung collapsed as well, another side affect to the ventilator. I had a blood clot and fluid around my heart. I spent the next two weeks in hospital trying to regain my energy to learn how to walk and eat. The infection took a long time to fight, remaining on the antibiotics drip every 4 hours for 2 weeks. The incision in my neck cut through many nerves, which meant I lost the ability in my right arm to move my arm higher than shoulder height and had no strength in it to even lift a cup of water to have a drink. I had the next 6 weeks off work trying to regain my energy, build up my immune system and practice swallowing eating and drinking. It did take months to get my energy back to my original levels. I spent the next 5-6 months in rehab regaining the movement and strength in my right arm and head movement turning and looking up and down.
My family played a huge role supporting me, encouraging me to eat and feeding me, showering me, reassuring me, working on my breathing and coughing to help my lungs and my physio exercises for my arm and neck. Whilst the scar remains and I still having no feeling under my chin, right side of my jaw and neck down to my collarbone, I can happily share that I have no long-lasting side effects or health concerns due to the ICU team responding when they did. I am a survivor and want others to be aware that something as simple as a sore throat normally will just be that. We will never know if a course of antibiotics initially would have prevented this happening, but a simple throat swab upon visiting the doctor in the first instance would have shown a bacterial infection and could have been treated. Know your body well and advocate for yourself. Just because a throat doesn’t show any signs of pus doesn’t mean it’s not bacterial. Don’t wait if you do see the signs of sepsis – muscle pain, confusion, nausea, rapid breathing, fever, rapid heart rate. Timing is critical and always ask could it be Sepsis?
Warning: Sensitive Content
