I am Dulce from Mexico. I am 32 years old. I was a very healthy, athletic person who always took care of my health.
I am a psychologist and writer, and I want to raise awareness about sepsis in Mexico.
I had been having stomach pain and occasional nausea for about 8 months, accompanied by a lot of shaking and coldness in my body and stomach. The doctor said it was gastritis, but the standard gastritis treatments didn't work. I left Mexico for 3 months to visit family, so I didn't treat that discomfort any further. I returned to Mexico because I was going to Turkey, but I still had the symptoms.
Four days before leaving for Turkey, on February 17, 2024, I had an endoscopy, and my stomach appeared fine. But just hours after the study, I started to feel a lot of chills, vomiting, and shaking. I felt like I was going to die. I was very confused, had a fever of 40° Celsius and a blood pressure of 60/20 and I couldn't breathe. I was sitting on the floor enduring the symptoms because the doctor who did the endoscopy said it was a panic attack, but in reality, I was already in septic shock. I lost my sight and strength at that moment and passed out.
My dad and sister were with me, they quickly picked me up and took me to the hospital. I was lucky enough to be diagnosed immediately with sepsis because my leukocytes were a thousand times above the normal limit, my oxygen was very low, my blood pressure was terribly low, I suffered terrible dehydration due to the fever and dangerous blood clots roamed around my body. However, the doctors could not discover the cause of the sepsis. They destroyed my veins because of the many tests they did to diagnose bacteria, viruses, and fungi but there were no signs of a source of the infection, and my body was collapsing. My body was filled with clots, my lungs were filling with water, the fever wouldn’t go down despite the medication and my heart developed a mitral valve prolapse. On the third day, I was getting pneumonitis and pulmonary atelectasis.
They treated me with antibiotics and serum. When I got better from sepsis and my tests were better, they sent me home, but I still felt terrible and could not eat. Since the doctors couldn't find a cause, they said that the stomach pains and nausea were a psychosomatic thing.
I went home, but I couldn't eat. Therefore, I was admitted again to the hospital to be fed intravenously. I could not eat anything, I was already malnourished and weighed only 88 pounds, but they did not find a cause nor give me a solution to my problem. When I was no longer anemic, they sent me home again, but I still felt terrible. We had to hire a nurse to give me medication at home and to somewhat control and bear the symptoms. Effectively, I was dying at home.
My sister found another doctor and I went to him. He admitted me again to the hospital and he finally found the cause of the sepsis, an infection of the pancreas (pancreatitis) caused by the gallbladder, which he removed. With the cause removed, my pancreas slowly recovered.
My life changed completely after this experience. I fight every day to be the person I was before, I was left with physical and psychological after-effects like post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks every day, insomnia, waking up in the middle of the night, I have episodes of terror, I developed a terrible fear of any type of diseases, I am still undergoing treatment for my lungs for my obstructive pulmonary disease. I get tired easily, and I get dizzy, among other ailments.
After 4 months I am still visiting doctors and I am waiting for studies to verify that my immune system is functioning well.
I want people to be aware of their health. Here in Mexico, it is very common for people not to take infections seriously. They do not investigate diseases in depth, much less take care of themselves to avoid getting sick. Most people in Mexico have the idea they will heal themselves and thus avoid going to the doctor or taking the correct medicines.
The doctors said that if I had taken a few more minutes to get to the hospital, I would have died.
The article above was written by Dulce Vizcaino and is shared with her explicit consent. The views in the article do not necessarily represent those of the Global Sepsis Alliance. They are not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. The whole team here at the Global Sepsis Alliance and World Sepsis Day wishes to thank Dulce for sharing her story and for fighting to raise awareness for sepsis.
