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Seventeen doctors dismissed my agonizing stomach pains as 'labor cramps' - but it was deadly sepsis from a botched c-section
Tammy Cox was given just four hours to live by the time doctors finally listened to her concerns. At 42, she had just given birth to a 'perfectly healthy' baby boy via c-section.
But within hours, the realtor had 'puffed up like a fish' and was doubled over in her hospital bed with violent diarrhea and pain. 'I could have screamed at the top of my lungs because it was so painful in my stomach area,' Texas-based Ms Cox, now 56, told DailyMail.com.
Doctors decided she was well enough to go home after 24-hours, brushing off her symptoms as 'normal' side effects of labor.
In the following days, she saw her abdomen and chest fill with fluid, leaving her feeling as if she was drowning and unable to move.
Despite calls with 17 different doctors about her concerns, Ms Cox's symptoms were not taken seriously. That is until one astute doctor spotted that her complaints were obvious signs of sepsis - when the body overreacts to an infection, with lethal consequences.
Ms Cox went into heart failure and was given just four hours to live from sepsis. She survived, but she couldn't hold her baby for the first six months of his life
Tammy Cox immediately became ill after delivering her second son via c-section in 2008. Doctors insisted that she go home anyway, and 17 doctors refused to let her come back to the hospital
Investigations would later reveal this to be the fault of the surgeon, who accidentally cut a hole in her colon, causing her body to be overwhelmed with deadly bacteria.
And Tammy Cox is far from the only patient to have this deadly immune reaction overlooked.
DailyMail.com spoke to four women who have narrowly escaped a cruel death from sepsis, the 'silent killer' that kills one American every 90 seconds.
They blamed doctors' failure to spot the telltale signs, which they attributed to allergies and 'overreacting'.
One woman told DailyMail.com that she and her daughter have survived the same situation 18 times.
Chloe Cummings, from Colorado, was just two years old when she cried out, 'mama, I can't see!"
The blonde, blue-eyed toddler had spiked a 104-degree fever, broken out into a rash, and oddly lost her vision.
Chloe's mother, Kimberly Cummings, rushed her to her local emergency room, where doctors held her down and administered two shots of an antibiotic.
'It was because of that that she survived,' Ms Cummings, 66, told DailyMail.com.
This was the first of 12 times that Chloe would suffer sepsis in her 30 years. And, remarkably, her mother has experienced a similar fate - Ms Cummings has endured sepsis six times herself, leaving her with organs destined to fail at any time.
'Why [Chloe] did not die, I have no idea. Why I haven't died yet, I have no idea,' Ms Cummings said.
While the Cummings' cases may seem extreme, sepsis has been shown to repeatedly strike the same patients over and over, as the condition weakens immune systems, making patients more susceptible after they have had it once.
Chloe (left) and her mother Kimberly Cummings have both survived sepsis 18 times combined, with Chloe first being struck at age two
Despite her family's long track record with sepsis, Ms Cummings said doctors have repeatedly dismissed both she and her daughter
Researchers say that the cases uncovered by DailyMail.com are part of a two-pronged problem: women with symptoms being consistently dismissed, and a lack of understanding of the red flags that indicate sepsis.
Some evidence suggests that women could face a higher risk of mortality than men. One Italian study in the journal Critical Care, for example, found that women with severe sepsis were 17 percent more likely to die than men.
However the data is mixed, with some studies showing the condition is more lethal for men.
But studies have also shown that time and time again, women are consistently misdiagnosed or ignored far more often than men.
A recent survey from the American Cancer Society found women with cancer were more likely to report not being taken 'very seriously' or seriously at all, compared to men.
Another older study found that women were twice as likely to have chest pain diagnosed as 'mental illness' than men.
This is compounded by the fact doctors are largely unaware of how to spot sepsis to begin with.
Dr Steven Simpson, Professor of Medicine at the University of Kansas and Chair of the Sepsis Alliance, previously told DailyMail.com: 'Doctors are not provided with enough information to help them to diagnose sepsis.'
Cases are on the rise, up 20 percent between 2019 and 2021, according to the most recent CDC data. But despite this, the US has no comprehensive strategy for tackling the problem. In fact, a quarter of US hospitals have no sepsis protocol whatsoever.
And because about a third of all sepsis cases are caught in a hospital, it can mean that doctors have to admit wrongdoing and face litigation.
Sepsis occurs when an infection causes a freak overreaction of the immune system, in which chemicals in the bloodstream go haywire.
Instead of sending infection-fighting white blood cells to attack a foreign invader, it targets healthy tissues and organs such as the limbs and the lungs and kidneys, leading to organ failure and, at times, amputations.
Sepsis is responsible for 300,000 deaths and is the leading cause of hospital death in the US.
Yet, a third of Americans have never heard of it, according to charity Sepsis Alliance.
For every hour that treatment is delayed, the chance of death increases by four to nine percent.
After two days of struggling to catch her breath, Ms Cox's husband Brad rushed her to the hospital, where a doctor immediately saw her and asked, 'where the hell have you been?'
Scans revealed a 10-pound absess on the right side of her stomach and a five-pound absess on the left side. 'He goes, "You're septic, and I don't know if we can save you. Our clock is saying you have less than four hours."'
Ms Cox did not learn what caused her sepsis until she looked at her medical records. Her OBGYN had torn her colon during the c-section and never told her
'I have a healthy baby - of course, he's almost 16 now. And I'm alive and it has made me obviously very strong, but it took many, many years and lots of anger to get over this,' Ms Cox said
'And I'm looking at him like "What? I have been complaining since I had my baby last week. Everyone sent me home from the hospital, and now you're telling me I have four hours to live?"' Ms Cox said.
Doctors removed two and a half liters of fluid from her chest and lung as a result of sepsis-induced pneumonia.
However, the sepsis also resulted in cardiomyopathy, a disease that causes the myocardium (heart muscle) to have trouble pumping blood to the rest of your body. Over time, this can lead to heart failure.
'[The doctor] goes, "With cardiomyopathy, you don't get over it. You basically die. You're going to be on drugs the rest of your life, and we don't know how long that's going to be. You could live a week or you could live a year. I would put my affairs in order,"' Ms Cox said.
Miraculously, she survived, but it would be years before Ms Cox learned what caused her to go septic in the first place.
As she and her husband prepared to sue the hospital and doctors, she finally got access to a pathology report from her c-section.
Over 2,000 pages of records that the OBGYN had torn a hole in her colon during the procedure, which caused stool to leak into her abdomen and infect her with E coli bacteria.
'That's why I felt sick immediately. I had E coli all through my system. It was so vile,' Ms Cox said.
She sued the doctor responsible for the injury and won, though it has taken years to come to terms with the consequences and side effects, such as permanent scarring.
'It took many, many years and lots of anger to get over this,' she said.
Stacey Shields, 54, was repeatedly told that she just had allergies and bronchitis. In reality, she had pneumonia and later sepsis
Ms Shields said that despite spending weeks in the hospital and months in rehab, she only learned she had sepsis by looking at her medical records
Stacey Shields, 54, of Illinois, could hardly eat in late 2022 without coughing up excess mucus, and her legs started to swell, also known as edema.
Doctors initially attributed it to allergies, and a battery of tests like x-rays, bloodwork, and EKGs, though everything came back normal. 'They didn't really give me the time of day,' Ms Shields told DailyMail.com.
Even as her blood pressure plummeted, providers insisted, 'no, you're fine.'
The team prescribed antibiotics and water pills, diagnosing her with bronchitis. While the swelling initially went down, by March 2023, Ms Shields could hardly walk and ended up passing out at home.
'I couldn't get up,' she said. 'I had no muscles. I had nothing.'
She spent 12 hours on the floor before a neighbor came over to help her up. Doctors later told Ms Shields that if the neighbor hadn't come over, she could have died.
Ms Shields spent five weeks in the intensive care unit with pneumonia, which led her to go septic and be put on a ventilator. As sepsis ravaged her body, her kidneys, lungs, and liver all shut down.
However, Ms Shields said that the most debilitating part was the delirium. 'I don't remember anything from the hospital,' she said. 'I was so delirious and hallucinating for at least two months. It was horrible.'
Despite doctors spending weeks telling Ms Shields she was 'lucky to be there,' she only realized she had sepsis when she looked at her medical records. 'Not one person told me or ever mentioned the word "sepsis,"' she said. She was, instead, just under the impression that she was suffering side effects from the pneumonia.
Some experts have suggested that doctors may be reluctant to tell patients that they have sepsis because about one third of sepsis cases are acquired. This means that, in many cases, doctors would have to admit fault, which could open them up to litigation.
Ms Shields spent seven months in rehab, learning to gain her balance after sepsis stripped away her muscle mass. She still suffers bouts of brain fog but is mostly concerned with spreading awareness about sepsis and preventing other patients from being dismissed as she was.
'People need to know about this,' she said.
Over the years, Ms Cummings estimates she has rushed Chloe to the hospital for sepsis at least 12 times, though it's difficult to keep track.
Sepsis has severely weakened Chloe's bones over the last 28 years, though she has still managed to stay active and play sports throughout her life
Ms Cummings has survived sepsis six times, with her organs becoming progressively weaker each time. She calls it an 'ongoing nightmare of management'
This is because sepsis can leave the body more vulnerable to repeated bouts - Sepsis Alliance, for instance, estimates that one-third of sepsis survivors end up back in the hospital within three months, usually due to repeated episodes.
In many patients, sepsis causes permanent damage to organs like the lungs, brain, and heart. In Chloe's case, the condition has attacked her bones. Growing up, something as innocent as falling off a swing could result in a fracture or dislocation.
'It is so heart wrenching to see your daughter go through this, but then to read about other people whose children have died, and you wonder why yours didn't,' Ms Cummings said.
'I don't know why my child is still alive.'
But despite Chloe's long track record with sepsis, Ms Cummings has long had to advocate for her daughter, as doctors have dismissed her as a paranoid parent.
In one instance, when Chloe was 21, Ms Cummings saw a sign hanging up in the hospital displaying the signs of sepsis. Many authorities use the acronym TIME, which stands for temperature, infection, mental decline, and extremely ill.
'She had everything that was on there,' Ms Cummings said. 'They should have called the sepsis alert, and they did not do it. I had to tell them to call a sepsis alert.'
Instead, doctors assumed Ms Cummings was overrreacting or 'being hysterical,' blaming Chloe's condition on basic illnesses like the flu.
It would be over 20 decades of advocating for Chloe before Ms Cummings would go into sepsis herself.
In 2016, she underwent a hysterectomy - a surgery to remove the uterus - as a result of uterine cancer. Despite suffering itching, low oxygen, and vomiting, doctors forced Ms Cummings to be discharged just 24 hours later. About a day after that, she couldn't breathe and had to be rushed to the ER.
Ms Cummings recognized what was happening, though no one told her she had gone septic. The next thing she knew, a cardiologist told her she needed a heart transplant.
'I had been told nothing before that at all,' she said. 'I just burst out crying because I don't know what's going on. At that time, not only is my heart failing, my kidneys are failing, my lungs are failing, and my liver is failing. I had gone into septic shock.'
Doctors managed to treat the sepsis, though it has come back for Ms Cummings five more times.
She now has to constantly be viligant of both hers and her daughter's symptoms, should either of them get struck down again.
The repeated bouts have put her into congestive heart failure and kidney disease, and the most recent episode caused a heart attack.
'It's just a reminder that you do not come away from this with unscathed,' she said.
And each time, Ms Cummings wonders if this will be the time she is left to die. She recalled one instance where a male doctor yelled, 'Why do you think you have this?' at her, and another where hospital staff left her stuck in bed with, attached to two IVs, hallucinating because her temperature was so high.
'My doctors have no strategy for managing this whatsoever because that's how healthcare is here in the US. It's been an ongoing nightmare,' she said. 'I know Chloe and I have been dismissed.'