IRISH star Diane Cannon has opened up about getting a horrific diagnosis that most people “don’t survive”.
The country singer was preoccupied juggling her work schedule last year and ignored the stomach pain she was experiencing due to this.
Diane is a country singer from Donegal[/caption]
The Donegal native told RSVP Country. “I was traveling so much and I had to put too much pressure on myself.
“I was exhausted and I was getting gallbladder pain but I ignored it because I was busy at work.”
When Diane did manage to get her scheduled surgery done, she thought that she would “bounce back” immediately and attempted to get “back on the road” right away.
Sadly, this wasn’t the case for Diane as she explained: “I got rushed back in, and I’d already left it too late.
“The sepsis had already spread to my liver and kidneys and through my whole body. I was very lucky. Many people who get sepsis don’t survive.”
Diane’s career and busy life was then put on hold for the first time in years as a result.
She said: “It’s taken me months to recover. It’s frustrating because my brain still works the way it always did. I want to go at full tilt. But physically, I’m still recovering. I can’t do things at the same pace anymore.”
Diane is still waiting on her gallbladder to be removed and she hopes to be back on her feet by the end of the year.
She added: “You don’t really realise the severity of it at the time but when you look back – yes it is frustrating, but look I’m still here and I’m very lucky.”
Sepsis is a life-threatening complication of an infection that can hide behind any infection at any age, making it difficult to detect the illness and can lead to multiple organ failure and death.
Earlier this year Carl Mullan shared his story-time on his “run-in” with sepsis to spread awareness for the signs and symptoms.
A few years ago Carl got a “very simple” sore throat that progressively got “worse and worse” as the days went on.
He explained: “After a few days of it not going away, I went to the doctor and found out it was actually glandular fever. Glandular fever itself, it’s fairly common and there’s no actual cure for it, so you kind of just have to ride it out and take whatever the doctor prescribes for it.
‘AWFUL’
“After about three more days, and just to warn you, this is where this story gets a little bit disgusting. I was so run down, I was in so much pain, I was taking anti-inflammatory stuff, it was doing nothing for me.
“I was in a bad way. At this point, I took a look at the back of my throat. It was covered in white and yellow patches and it was just so raw and so painful and it was just… it was awful.”
Carl admitted that he “shouldn’t have let it” get to that point and when he did return to his doctor, he was immediately rushed off to A&E and was seen straight away.
Who gets sepsis and what causes it?
Sepsis can affect anyone. The condition occurs when the body’s immune system has an overeaction to an infection.
As a result, the body attacks itself.
Some people are more likely to get an infection that could lead to sepsis, however.
This includes babies under the age of one, people over 75 years old, people with diabetes or a weak immune system (either due to treatment, a condition or genetically), people who have recently had surgery or given birth.
Any infection can lead to sepsis. But those more likely to are those of:
- Lungs, such as pneumonia.
- Kidney, bladder and other parts of the urinary system
- Digestive system
- Bloodstream
- Catheter sites
- Wounds or burns
The dad-of-three said: “I always remember the doctor audibly gasped when he saw the back of my throat. Because… it was in a bad way.
“They took some bloods, they put me on some pain medication and they gave me a load of antibiotics and I just waited for the bloods to come back.
“A couple of hours later, the doctor came back and sat me down and was like, ‘You’re really lucky you came into hospital when you did, you’re in the early stages of sepsis’.
“He basically told me that had I not come into hospital when I did, 12 hours, 18 hours later, I would have been arriving into hospital in the back of an ambulance.”
