The Room Turned Grey – My Sepsis Symptoms

Looking back, I remember that The Room Turned Grey – My Sepsis Symptoms!

The day before I went into hospital with pneumonia and sepsis was a Sunday evening. At this point I’d been ill for nearly a week with what I thought initially was a cold. However over the previous two days, the weekend, I had seriously gone downhill and was debating with myself wether or not I ‘just had the flu’.

As I’d never heard of Sepsis before, I never thought of suspecting anything more serious. But looking back and knowing what I do now, there were some really obvious BIG WARNING SIGNS.

Ian had put our kids to bed and had gone for a bath. I remember two things.

Number one

I tried to watch something on the TV and I remember that I was having a hard time even seeing the screen, focusing or even concentrating on what was being said. It was like trying to watch something when you are drunk. Everything was in a haze.

Number two

The whole room seemed to turn grey. It was the curtains that I noticed first and then everything else. I remember lying there and thinking to myself, ‘this room is really dull, I haven’t noticed that before, have those curtains always been that drab, I’ll have to sort that out.’ 

Now maybe somebody else wouldn’t even have noticed such things but as an artist and goldsmith I am used to seeing the world in technicolour and this really stood out. So really this should have been a big deal. Of course the room hadn’t turned grey. It was the same shade of bright neutrals, warm woods and duck-egg blues its been for years. 

I now know that this was the Sepsis interfering with my cognitive function, causing my mind to do funny things. One of the symptoms of Sepsis is confusion. But if someone had asked me was I confused, I would have said no. On top of that I was still able to have some sort of conversation, sometimes grunting, but I could still talk. 

Actually nobody asked me in either of my two trips to A&E if I was confused as no Sepsis protocols were followed. Maybe if someone had asked me did I feel dizzy or was my vision impaired, then I might have thought about both these symptoms to have answered yes!

Its pretty mind blowing to look back and realise that Sepsis had even affected my colour perception!

#shadesofgrey #theflu #mysepsisjourney #sepsisvitality #lifeaftersepsis