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On July 24, 2018, I needed a break between mom and my 5 year old son, Kao. So, I went to the nail salon to do a pedicure and relax. When the nail technician got to my left foot, she went too hard with the nail file and accidentally cut my big toe. He started to bleed all over.
Because i live with type I diabetesI am actually more prone to calluses and foot injuries due to poor circulation. I said to myself, Damn, that probably won’t heal well – it’s not good. But otherwise, I wasn’t worried about the injury at all. These things happen! We wiped my toe, wrapped it and let it dry. Then the nail technician painted my toenails and that’s it.
When I got home, my toe started to turn red and swell. The next morning it had exploded to almost double its size. My husband Kurt and I panicked.
As a former nurse, I knew I probably had a serious infection, so we jumped in the car and drove straight to the hospital.
In the emergency room, the medical team led a blood test and used a cotton swab to get a sample of the wound on my toe. It would take a day or two for me to retrieve the results of the bacterial culture test to determine exactly what was causing my infection. However, my white blood cell count was on the rise, which meant that my body was indeed fighting a major intruder. I was put on a strong antibiotic and sent home for IV treatment. They said to come back if the situation worsened.
When I asked them what “worse” meant, they told me to come back if my toe turned … black. And that night, it happened. my Temperature also skyrocketed to nearly 106 degrees Fahrenheit. My fever was so bad that I was shaking and my teeth chattering. I had terrible brain fog and naturally I was totally in a panic. We hurried back to the hospital.
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Two days after my pedicure, I had to have my toe amputated.
When we arrived at the hospital, the medical team called a specialist, who determined that the infection had moved to my bone and that I needed to have my toe amputated. I had surgery to remove it that night. I received more intravenous antibiotics and left the hospital to recover at home the next day.
As my foot healed, I tried to live my life as best I could and continued to receive IV antibiotics to fight the infection. Unfortunately, a few weeks after my recovery, my health deteriorated. I noticed that I was swelling all over my body. My back was hurting a lot and I was having trouble peeing. Only a little dribble came out when I tried to leave, and that was the cola color.
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At this point it was mid-September and we returned to the hospital where the medical team performed further tests. A serum creatinine test showed my creatinine levels to be high. Creatinine is a waste product that is usually filtered out of the blood by your kidneys; because I had a lot of it in my blood, it was a sign that my kidneys were not working optimally. I was readmitted to the hospital that day.
Over the weeks, my creatinine levels continued to rise and it became clear that my kidneys were failing. But the medical team didn’t know why. They took biopsies and found no kidney damage, but the tube-shaped cells that helped filter my blood as it passed through my kidneys were damaged. I had what is called acute tubular necrosis (ATN), one of the most common causes of kidney failure.
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Still, the medical team couldn’t figure out why my kidneys were failing, so they continued to monitor me and do tests. In most cases of ATN, your kidneys can recover with the help of dialysis to remove excess waste from your body. But my kidney function continued to worsen. I started to get really bloated, then I completely stopped peeing. Even with the help of a catheter, I couldn’t extract anything.
Because I had such severe and mysterious symptoms, the doctor went back to basics and asked if it was okay for him to do a full body exam to make sure we weren’t missing any. physical and external clue that could help in diagnosis. I agreed, and we realized I had red rashes all over my body. Even stranger, my skin was peeling in my ears and inside my navel – a clue that finally put all the pieces of the puzzle in place. “Holy shit. You have toxic shock syndrome, ”I remember him.
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Three months after my toe injury, on October 24, 2018, I was officially diagnosed toxic shock syndrome (TSS).
As my doctor explained, TSS is a complication that can develop after contracting particular bacterial infections, most often from strains of Staphylococcus aureus or what is called group A Streptococcus. And how did these bacteria get in and wreak havoc? The cut from my pedicure.
Once I contracted the infection, the bacteria released toxins into my bloodstream. From there they spread to my organs and started causing severe damage, such as causing my kidneys to fail. It made perfect sense, my doctor said; they just hadn’t researched TSS because it is * so * incredibly rare (we’re talking about 1 to 3 in 100,000 people in the US who develop it).
When I did more research on TSS, I learned that there were other cases like mine – we just don’t talk about it as much. Toxic shock syndrome is usually mentioned in the context of the use super absorbent pads and leave them in too long (and of course that’s the first thing I found when I googled it). This is because super-absorbent tampons have been linked to infection, as they facilitate the growth of bacteria when left on for too long, which can lead to the development of this potentially life-threatening complication.
But you can also develop TSS after getting any of these particular bacterial infections through a skin wound (* raise your hand *), infection after surgery, etc. The buffer factor is arguably a fairly poorly understood piece of the TSS puzzle (and, by the way, buffers are perfectly safe with proper use!).
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To be honest, life is tough and exhausting right now. But if I have learned anything from this experience, it is to never give up.
After my diagnosis, I was immediately put on dialysis three times a week. At that point we knew my kidneys weren’t going to get better, so my name was added to a kidney transplant list. I have been on dialysis for two years now and each session lasts about four hours. They drain all the blood from my body, wash it with a special filter and put it back. It’s a huge process to go through.
I also have a lot of migraines, I have nausea and vomiting, and I spend a lot of time sleeping and crying. But every day I remember that I have to keep fighting for my little boy and my husband.
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While this is a rare and bizarre event, it could have been avoided as well. As a person with diabetes, I knew that having someone work on my feet was risky because I was at a much higher risk of having a serious foot infection. But I didn’t expect to lose a toe and suffer from kidney failure just because I was trying to breathe to be a better mother and better wife.
I know how wild and rare my story is. Not all random cuts will lead to a nightmarish health situation, and that’s not my conclusion. Instead, I learned that you should always be your own advocate for your health, and if you know something is wrong, persist until you get the help you need.
As a former nurse, I am stubborn. At first I thought, Oh no, I’m fine, I can go home. But looking back, I wish I had stayed in the hospital and asked for more answers from the start.
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