Lyn Whiteway thought she had the flu but she had actually developed a life-threatening condition known as sepsis, which many Australians know little about.
Thankfully she went back to hospital where doctors finally diagnosed the condition just in time — 24 hours later she would have been dead.
WATCH VIDEO ABOVE: Australians film tongue twister for World Sepsis Day.
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For World Sepsis Day on September 13, Australians such as the now 78-year-old Lyn are sharing their stories of developing sepsis from common infections — such as COVID-19, respiratory viruses and urinary tract infections — to highlight how it can affect anyone.
Whiteway said she began feeling unwell with flu-like symptoms in 2014.
When she woke on the third day of feeling ill, she was unable to put any weight on her left leg when she tried to get out of bed.
“The pain was excruciating,” Whiteway said.
“I felt really ill. I thought I was going to die.”
Her husband called an ambulance and she was taken to an Adelaide hospital, where she was told she had a virus.
She was sent home to rest, despite raising concerns that she couldn’t walk.
Unhappy with the diagnosis, Whiteway’s husband took her to a GP who gave her antibiotics.
The doctor said if she wasn’t feeling better in 24 hours, she needed to return to be immediately referred to hospital.
Whiteway ended up at a private hospital but, by the time she got there, her condition had rapidly deteriorated.
“I don’t remember much about the first week at all, I was hallucinating and in an enormous amount of pain,” she said.
“I can’t ever remember being in such bad pain before except being in labour.”
Doctors eventually diagnosed Whiteway with sepsis, a serious condition that occurs when the body has responded improperly to an infection.
She was put on IV antibiotics — and ended up having to continue taking antibiotics for another 18 months after she was released.
“The second week I was in hospital, both my GP and the two doctors looking after me all came in at different times and said, ‘If you had got to this hospital 24 hours later, you would be dead right now’,” she said.
Whiteway continues to live with long-term impacts of sepsis, which she was told damaged her lungs.
She becomes breathless easily and frequently ends up in hospital with bacterial infections.
More Australians killed than road accidents
Sepsis Australia said only about 61 per cent of Australians have heard of sepsis, even though it kills seven times more people than road accidents.
Whiteway is sharing her story for World Sepsis Day to raise awareness of the condition that kills 8700 Australians each year.
“I think every week there’s a report somewhere of another child who’s been taken to hospital because the parents were so worried, and that child’s died because they haven’t been diagnosed — that’s why I’m so passionate about this,” she said.
Infectious disease expert Dr Sanjaya Senanayake said inflammation caused by sepsis can lead to organs failing and ultimately death.
“We’ve been fine-tuning our bodies for thousands of years to deal with infections and a lot of the time it does the right job, on other occasions it gets a bit too furious, a bit too overactive,” he said.
“There are people who in a few hours are almost dead by the time they reach the emergency department.”
People who are immunocompromised or have pre-existing conditions are more vulnerable to sepsis, but it can affect anyone.
Some of the signs include fever or chills, uncontrollable shaking, rapid breathing, rapid heartbeat, a rash, becoming drowsy, confused, disoriented, or not passing urine.
“The risk of death increases by 8 per cent with every hour that passes before you start treatment — don’t muck around with that stuff,” Senanayake warned.
He said the goal is to make the public aware of sepsis and its symptoms, just like they have become much more aware of the signs of heart attacks through public health messaging.
Sepsis Australia is inviting people to film a sepsis tongue twister — “I’m sepsis susceptible and susceptible to sepsis” — with #sepsischallenge and post it online to raise awareness of the condition.
“(It’s) a preventable condition, the sooner you treat it the less likely someone is to die from it,” Senanayake said.
“Anyone, any age, any gender, any nationality can get sepsis.”