My hospital bed revelations after getting life-threatening septic shock. LOUISE THOMPSON reveals what really happened during terrifying health crisis - and how it's changed her life
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The other night I found myself googling: ‘How many organs can you live without?’ (Quite reassuringly for someone who has had an organ removed, I discovered you could still live healthily without something like 50 per cent.). That’s just one of the strange places my brain has been to while I’ve been bed-bound following a health emergency so complex and still unresolved that, if I start writing about it now, this column is going to morph into a medical text. And no one wants to read that in the run-up to Christmas.
![[Sweet relief: Louise back at home with son Leo and dogs Toto and Koji]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/09/11/92954213-14173289-Sweet_relief_Louise_back_at_home_with_son_Leo_and_dogs_Toto_and_-a-3_1733744424111.jpg)
Here’s a summary, though: in the small hours of an October Sunday night/Monday morning (always a nightmare time for an emergency because of skeleton staffing in hospitals) I was rushed to A&E in a whole different level of pain to anything I have known before. I was critically ill and taken into surgery. I had peritonitis, which is inflammation of the peritoneum (or abdominal cavity), typically caused by bacterial infection either via the blood or after rupture of an abdominal organ. If treated too late it can be life-threatening.
. After theatre, I recovered in intensive care. My body was in a state of septic shock and had low blood pressure. I was hooked up to lots of machines – you get the idea. I couldn’t move, never mind get out of bed, so I had a lot of time to think. I had some dark moments, I had some lightbulb moments, I made some bonkers, heavy-painkiller-induced online purchases. But now that I am home and recuperating, I’ve had time to reflect on a few of the revelations I had while I was forced to step off the hamster wheel and just stop.
