He says doctors didn’t think what started as the flu would progress this far.
American Kristin Fox, 42, told how she fought for her life after being diagnosed with the flu in Ohio, United States. According to her, what it seemed to be something temporary has evolved into a bacterial infection.
The case began in March 2020, a few days before the lockdown caused by the pandemic and she was 38 years old. The day before she had gone to the emergency room feeling unwell and was diagnosed with the flu. After taking Tamiflu, she went home and the next day when she woke up she started feeling sick.
“I was on my couch and my best friend texted me,” Fox told People magazine. “He said, ‘How do you feel?’ And he texted her back and said, ‘I feel like I’m dying’ and that was the last text he ever received from me.”
Two hours later, the American looked for a friend who was a nurse. She came, she checked your vitals and said, “We need to take you.” According to Kristin, everything after going to the emergency room was “a blur” as she went into septic shock.
“Sepsis is a serious condition in which the body responds inappropriately to an infection. Infection-fighting processes activate the body, causing organs to function poorly. Sepsis can progress to septic shock. This is a dramatic drop in blood pressure that can damage the lungs, kidneys, liver and other organs. When the damage is severe, it can lead to death,” explained the Mayo Clinic, where she was treated.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in a typical year, at least 1.7 million adults in the country develop this type of infection and nearly 270,000 die.
“They put me in a medically induced coma. I was already turning purple,” she recalls. “They kept saying, ‘Something is masking an infection,’ but no one mentioned sepsis until the next day. They told me to prepare for the loss of a limb because they prescribed me so many vasopressors.”
Vasopressors can cause significant vasospasm with potential ischemia [falta de suprimento sanguíneo] in various areas of the body, including the upper and lower limbs. The woman says doctors expected she would lose some fingers or toes, but that their expectation “didn’t even come close” to what she actually lost.
On March 27, Kristin’s legs were amputated below the knees. On April 6, almost ten days later, it was the turn of her arms, just below her elbows. “I ‘celebrated’ my 39th birthday on April 9 in a medically induced coma,” she lamented.
Three years after the incident, the woman still classifies the entire experience as “surreal,” as she went to the emergency room with a bad case of the flu and then “woke up with no arms and legs” — in the middle of a pandemic global .
Resilience
-tocw9lnms6k7.png "The American tells how a flu caused the amputation of four limbs: 'I woke up without arms and legs'")
Despite the situation, she says she was motivated to fight for her life. “There is nothing that will change that. I will never get my arms and legs back. Then it was fight or flight time, instantly. That was the last thing that helped me get through this: I knew from the first moment it happened, my life changed forever,” she said.
The mother of two remembers what it was like to see her children for the first time after leaving the hospital. “I didn’t want my children to see what happened. When I hugged them and saw my children, they were crying. It was so scary for them,” she recalled.
After being discharged, Kristin underwent 12 grueling weeks of physical therapy, three hours a day, at the Rehabilitation Institute at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pennsylvania.
“I have to earn it because I have to be a mother to my kids,” she tells PEOPLE. “They could have mourned my death. They didn’t. I have to fight and destroy this therapy every day to be the mother they need me to be.”
As Fox thought about his children, he also thought about the broader impact of his recovery.
“I’m an administrator, I have students who look up to me, friends of my children, nieces and nephews — I had a lot of young eyes looking at me,” he told People. “And how I responded would ultimately determine the outcome of his mindset on that.”
“If I didn’t get into fight mode and play my game, it would end up affecting him,” Fox told People. “If I hadn’t responded well to the situation, I don’t think they would have been as resilient.”
Source: Terra
Ben Stock is a lifestyle journalist and author at Gossipify. He writes about topics such as health, wellness, travel, food and home decor. He provides practical advice and inspiration to improve well-being, keeps readers up to date with latest lifestyle news and trends, known for his engaging writing style, in-depth analysis and unique perspectives.
