My sister, Shari, died of sepsis and multiple organ failure on February 12, 2013. She was 54 years old. Shari’s ordeal started with a swollen middle knuckle the day after Christmas in 2012. She went to her primary care physician after the New Year, and he treated her for gout and then arthritis. Shari returned to her physician on the last Thursday in January 2013 with such intense pain she was admitted to the hospital. She improved almost immediately after a round of antibiotics. That Saturday, thinking the worst was over, a physician came to my sister’s room. “I’m not going to lie to you,” he told her as we all listened standing around her bed with our arms folded. “It would have been easier for you to recover from a heart attack.” He told her to expect the road to recovery to be long, and that she would need convalescent care once she was discharged. The next morning, Shari had surgery for an infection on her shoulder. That night she developed an irregular heart rate and went to the ICU, where she spent the last week of her life. Sunday night into Monday she was put on a respirator. There was nothing else they could do, the medical staff told us. Her organs were shutting down. Monday into Tuesday my brother, Tony, and I did not leave her side. As her medical Power of Attorney, I gave permission to remove the breathing tube on Tuesday afternoon. She died within minutes. As with any new drug or breakthrough, there’s always the initial hope and optimism. Though it is too late to help my sister and so many others who have died or lost limbs due to sepsis, we can only hope there will be those in the healthcare system who will advocate for this new drug and see that it is put to use quickly and accordingly. Hospitals, in general, need to develop better protocols in recognizing the deadly and debilitating onset of sepsis and be ready to treat it more aggressively and without delay. Anyone who has witnessed the damaging effects of sepsis knows too well how it spreads mercilessly through one’s body as quickly as opening a door to a room on fire. Since we were not charged a dime for Shari’s care—which totaled more than $300,000—I like to think it was, perhaps, the hospital’s way of recognizing that it had failed to identify the graveness of her condition and that the delay in treatment likely cost my sister her life. In August, researchers developed a biomaterial-based infection vaccine (ciVAX) that could be broadly applied to treat drug-resistant microbial infections, including sepsis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that nearly 270,000 Americans die annually as a result of sepsis and one in three patients who die in a hospital had sepsis. Perhaps this new drug, used effectively, will provide a drop in some of those grim statistics. Not a day goes by that I am not reminded of Shari. I walk alongside memories of her as though they were a river. Though I miss the sweetness in her soft smile and there’s a hole in my heart the size of the universe that will continue to expand no matter how many years she’s gone, I take comfort in knowing she would not return now, even if she could. <em>Betta Ferrendelli can be contacted at betta@opedge.com.</em>
