Russell Chapman, who lives in London, got sepsis at age 21 – at the time, he assumed he had a trapped nerve after playing sport. The following day, he was dipping in and out of consciousness and believes he had a “near death experience.”
He wants to share his story to raise awareness about the symptoms of sepsis and its long-term effects.
When Russell was 21 years old and playing a game of cricket, he “dived for the ball and landed on (his) side.” Later that evening, his hip “started to twinge.” Thinking little of it, he went to bed but, at around 4:30am, his hip was in agony, and he began screaming in pain.
He explained:
“I thought I’d trapped a nerve but the pain was nothing like I’d ever experienced before—I could not walk. I had to literally drag myself to get to the bathroom.”
Living with his mum at the time, she recognised something was seriously wrong and called the doctor in the morning. Upon the doctor’s arrival, they “took one look” at Russell and based on a patient who’d had sepsis and exhibited similar symptoms, immediately called an ambulance.
During the ambulance ride to Colchester Hospital, Russell’s condition deteriorated. He began to feel “really ill,” his “temperature skyrocketed,” he felt confused, and his pulse rate surged to 180 beats per minute.
Russell believes that if his GP did not react so quickly he would not have made it. He said: “By the time I got to the hospital, I was crashing, basically, and I actually had a near-death experience—not in the sense of any sort of light at the end of the tunnel or anything like that. But as I was lying there, I could feel myself going, and in my mind, I was like, ‘I’m dying.’
It was such a calm, peaceful feeling, but then, as I was sliding, I guess by that time, the intravenous antibiotics were starting to kick in…I stopped feeling myself going and I started to come back, but it really was that close.”
“I just remember lying there with a nurse stroking my head because they really thought they were going to lose me. They did say actually they were quite surprised that I’d made it.”
Russell remained in Colchester Hospital for two weeks on intravenous (IV) antibiotics. By the end of the treatment, he recalled his forearm “looking like a teabag” because of the numerous injections into his arm. He can barely remember his first few days in hospital, as he was also on high doses of morphine. “Apparently I had visitors but I have no memory of them whatsoever,” he added.
It turned out that he had osteomyelitis, a serious infection of the bone, in his hip bone marrow that had progressed to sepsis.
Once home, Russell had to use crutches for three months due to the pain and noticed his immune system had taken “a massive battering.” “I suffered really with a lot of lethargy and everything like this,” Russell said. “I’d say it took me a good year to feel like I’d recovered.”
Before his hospitalisation, Russell was incredibly active, so he found it “really frustrating” that he became tired very quickly when playing sport again. He said: “It was one of those things – this is the situation and I have to deal with it. I can’t click my fingers and it’s gone.”
At the time, Russell owned a cleaning company and luckily, he had health insurance in place, so his livelihood was not impacted during his recovery. “I didn’t take a big financial hit, which was fortunate, and I had a small team of people still running the business, so it continued anyway,” he said.
Throughout his recovery, Russell had regular doctor’s appointments to monitor his progress and received considerable support from friends and family. He believes sepsis survivors should not “be afraid” to lean on their loved ones for support and talk about their experiences. “Just take each day one at a time, one foot in front of the other, and slowly you will get there,” he said.
To others going through sepsis recovery, he said: “Don’t expect to necessarily recover quickly, and there might actually be some after-effects which never leave you. For example, I never got the absolute full mobility in my left hip back. It’s mobile, but not as mobile as my other side, and that’s because of the scar tissue in the bone. So there are going to be some long-term effects, and just make sure you’re eating properly… and giving your body everything it needs to be able to naturally rebuild itself.”
