DH came down with sudden onset chills and fever late one evening in Early April. Went from fine when he got home from work to shaking uncontrollably 3 hours later. From 10pm to 11pm I took his temp with no sign of fever on the thermometer but he could not stop shaking. His Pulse was up, Resp rate was up, and finally we get a temp of 101 to read under arm. So off to the ER we went. They thought it could be a PE (it wasn't) and they admitted him. The doc on the floor ordered a procalcitonin level and it was 28. It should be less than .05. Greater than 10 is considered a good indicator of sepsis and/or septic shock. His white count was WNL, but we all know that can be questionable with Chemo patients as what is there normal. He had no signs of infection, not colds, sickness,clear lungs, etc. The assumption is that it was via the port or his HAI pump. They actually did not start him on antibiotics until Dr.K got ahold of them and read them the riot act. Once ID got involved things got better. DH seemed much better after 18hrs of antibiotics, and after over 4 days the culture finally showed anaerobic, gram stain negative rods. The assumption is that it is something GI related. Coincidentally, he has had 2 bilomas on his CT scans and one "resolved" when he had a scan after this sepsis incident. Makes you wonder if it resolving resulted in this?
Anyone have mystery sepsis? Poor DH presents so oddly with symptoms it can be so hard to diagnosis. No one has ever walked in and been like "its this!" and been right. He would make a great patient for Dr. House.