We welcome guest blogger, Christina A. Cole. Christina is a mother, federal public servant, patient advocate, and author of Through the Ashes, which shares her experience of surviving sepsis and rebuilding her life. Her advocacy focuses on understandable communication, patient safety, and support for patients and families after discharge. More information about Christina can be found at christinaacole.com.
In 2023, at age 35, I developed septic shock following a hysteroscopic myomectomy, a procedure to remove uterine fibroids.
After surviving septic shock, I had to learn a language I had never expected to need. Medical terms became part of conversations about my body, my future, and my family. I had spent more than 17 years in federal public service working within complicated systems. Yet understanding the system keeping me alive was a different experience altogether.
I was 35 when septic shock and cardiac arrest changed my life. I spent weeks in a medically induced coma and woke to necrosis and a future of surgeries. My recovery has included bilateral transmetatarsal amputations—partial-foot amputations—and the loss of several fingertips. Three years later, I have undergone 18 procedures. I recently came home from another hospital stay after further procedures on both feet.
Each return home brings relief. I want to be with my husband and son, to take part in everyday family life, and to have a day that is not organized around a hospital. But I also come home with a body that needs time and a mind trying to make sense of another interruption. I am learning, repeatedly, that being discharged does not mean I understand everything that comes next.
That is one of the hardest parts to explain. From outside, the sequence can look straightforward: a crisis, treatment, survival, home. From inside, there are questions that continue long after the immediate danger has passed. What happened to me? What does this mean for the life I want to live? How do I explain what I do not understand when I am exhausted and in pain?
I did not feel adequately prepared for life after sepsis. During my original hospitalization and discharge, I struggled with unfamiliar medical language and a lack of education about what I had experienced. My family was also trying to understand a frightening situation. The people who loved me were becoming part of my care while carrying their own fear of losing me.
Over time, I learned to research, prepare questions, and advocate for myself. Those skills matter to me, but developing them has taken effort during a period when my energy was already stretched. A patient’s ability to ask a polished question should not determine whether they receive an understandable explanation. Sometimes the question begins as uncertainty that the person cannot yet put into words.
As a mother, I think about care in relation to the life it allows me to participate in. Coming home means being closer to my son. Recovering means trying to have enough energy for the ordinary moments we share. A treatment plan becomes more meaningful to me when there is room to talk about those priorities alongside procedures and appointments.
I want healthcare conversations to make space for that connection. Explaining what a term means, asking what the patient has understood, and identifying where they can take a question afterward may seem like small parts of an encounter. To someone recovering from a life-changing illness, they can make a difficult next step feel more manageable. I do not expect every uncertainty to disappear. I want to understand what is known, what remains uncertain, and who can help me work through it.
My experience has shaped my writing and patient advocacy. It has also made me more aware of the work that happens at home, away from the clinical encounter: trying to rest, coping with pain, adjusting expectations, and finding a workable rhythm as a family. That work deserves to be recognized when we talk about recovery.
Today I am home again. I am grateful, still healing, and still learning how to live with the consequences of what happened three years ago. I share my experience because survival opens a new set of needs that can be easy to overlook. I hope we can make understanding and support part of what patients take home with them.
