Sometimes we tend to ignore common ailments like colds and infections, assuming that we will get better on our own. This teenage girl’s story is similar, but what happened afterward was horrifying.
Keep reading to learn more about this shocking story.
Katie Sullivan, an athletic 18-year-old gymnast and freshman softball player at Waynesburg University, was in a coma for a month. Her worried parents were beside themselves, thinking they would lose their beloved daughter.
“It was the most terrifying moment of my life. The most terrifying moment of my life to think that I would lose my daughter,” her mother Shannon remembers.
One month in a coma
A month after her coma, she finally woke up. Katie Sullivan said about her ordeal: “I am proof that miracles happen. My mom always says that I am a miracle because the doctors told her that I probably wouldn’t make it.” She continued: “I almost lost my life. I am happy to be here,” she said.
Symptom: Back Pain – Diagnosis: Urinary Tract Infection
The reason why the teenager was in such bad shape was unbelievable: a simple urinary tract infection! The urinary tract infection had gone untreated and had devastating consequences.
The teenager complained of only one symptom: back pain. She had been complaining about back pain for a month. Both she and her family associated the pain with her intense softball and gymnastics training.
Katie spent Christmas with her family and just a few days later, she had to be rushed to Allegheny General Hospital due to extremely low blood pressure and high heart rate.
At the hospital, they found that Katie had a urinary tract infection and the doctors told her parents that the condition was critical.
“When they did the tests, they found that she had a urinary tract infection for about a month that had actually created a hole in her kidney. It caused an abscess in her liver, in her back muscle, and behind her kidney. She was in septic shock,” her mother said.
Katie was put into a medically induced coma and placed on a ventilator as her brain began to swell. She also underwent several surgeries.
“This was incredibly scary. Katie is not someone who complains because she is very athletic,” Katie’s father, Tim Sullivan, told the media when his daughter went into a coma.
After a month, Katie finally gets to go home
Things looked bleak, but then she began to recover. Her mother shared a few weeks ago about her daughter’s recovery: “Today I asked her for the first time if she wanted to go home, and she nodded yes. Then they asked her if she was in pain, and she shook her head no. I told her that if she wanted to go home, she had to give a thumbs up, and she did.”
Doctors say she still has a long road to recovery ahead. But in the meantime, her parents hope their little girl can start playing softball again soon.
Now Katie is back home and almost fully recovered. “I was very excited to go home, I didn’t want to be in the hospital anymore. I wasn’t happy to be there, I was there too long,” she said.
Now she hopes to get back to normal life and enjoy her usual activities again. She said, “I hope to get back to Waynesburg as soon as possible to play softball again and pick up my old life.”
After this ordeal, her parents have one message for everyone. Do not ignore back pain!
Because in a million years, and I’m a nurse, I never thought she would be lying here with kidney failure, intubated, and getting a terrible diagnosis on her 18th birthday,” said her mother.
