SAN ANTONIO - – When many people hear the word sepsis, a response to infection, they might think of major surgery or trauma.
A local mom is proof that it can stem from the smallest of sources.
“Sepsis isn’t something that we talk about a lot,” said mom and University Hospital Nurse Educator Ashley Britsch.
However, for someone who almost lost her life to sepsis, Britsch feels she has to talk about it.
It started at a family trip to a river in 2019.
“I fell, cut my leg, it was my knee. Didn’t even think anything of it because it was just such a small cut. We had a great day at the river,” Britsch said.
She woke up the next day feeling flu-like symptoms and leg pain.
“Especially being in the medical field I thought, ‘I’m fine. ‘ll tough it out,’” she said.
Then later that day Britsch was violently ill.
“By Monday, my husband was like, ‘We are going to the emergency room.’ And I couldn’t even really respond back to him. I was nonsensical, didn’t know what I was saying,” Britsch said.
By the time Britsch got to the hospital, her organs were shutting down.
“They were looking for other sources of infection, thinking it was something else... that this little cut couldn’t possibly be what’s causing this 28-year-old person to be dying. Sure enough, it was just spreading and spreading. It was Strep A, toxic shock syndrome,” she said.
With infection to the bone, Britsch was in the hospital for a long time.
“So what they ended up doing was they took muscle from my calf and they were able to rotate it over. And then they took skin and did a skin graft,” she explained, showing her scars.
While a lot of her leg is still numb, she can feel her toes and those scars are daily symbols of how lucky she is.
“I think they said one in 3 people usually don’t make it through a specific Strep A toxic shock syndrome,” she said.
Knowing the following symptoms are crucial:
- High fever
- Chills/Sweating
- Fast heart rate
- Difficult breathing
- Pain in a specific area
- Altered mental status: confusion, disorientation
“Confusion or disorientation or lethargy. That’s a bad sign when you have an infection. I would just come to the emergency room immediately,” said Dr. Christopher Dayton, a UT Health Associate Professor who works in the University Hospital ICU.
Dayton gets the most serious cases and sees sepsis multiple times every day.
“We across our city and across the country are better recognizing it. And we have ways of alerting us providers. The teamwork aspect here is really important,” Dayton said.
It’s equally important to educate the community.
“In the patients that we catch it early, they may not may not feel like a big deal because we caught it early and we recognize maybe just that their kidneys suffered a little bit of injury because of the effects,” Dayton said. “If it’s allowed to continue, that’s when you start to have organ failure that needs life support. So earlier is better.”
Britsch learned the hard way, to let pride go and listen to her body.
“Don’t be afraid to go to the hospital,” she said. “I know a lot of people, especially medical personnel, are like, ‘I’m fine. I can ride this out.’ Don’t do that.”
Dayton said if it’s early enough in those symptoms and you want to make sure it’s not sepsis, you can even go to your primary care doctor or a clinic. If it’s serious they will be able to tell you and transfer you to the hospital.
He said things like pneumonia and even urinary tract infection can cause infections that lead to sepsis.
“That’s why vaccination is really important. Some of these, you know, viruses and bacteria that particularly cause sepsis, you can actually avoid them completely,” Dayton said.