Out-of-Hospital Recovery Continues in Statesboro, GA

May 11th was the exciting day I got to move back home to Statesboro, GA. I was so ecstatic to get back to my old life, working at the job I loved, and being surrounded by my friends. I was only two months of being out of the hospital so I was still in my extensive recovery period. I was still so weak and extremely skinny that you could see my rib cage and every bone in my body. I only had 8% body fat and for woman my age anything below 19% is considered low.

My surgeon re-routed my stomach to the left side of my body and attached it to my small intestine. He also had to cut out a small part of my stomach so my body was trying to adjust to the new changes. I didn’t eat solid food for 22 days in the hospital so my stomach shrank back to the size of a baby. It also went back to the functionality of a baby’s stomach. I had to eat every two hours on the dot or my stomach would hurt extremely bad for hours. Now I know why babies cry when they’re hungry because their stomach literally hurts. I had to stretch my stomach out again so I could only eat small amounts at every meal. If I ate too much then I would have the worst pain for hours. Eating was trial and error for a few months until my stomach got used to eating real food again. I endured a lot of pain but I was very thankful to be eating solid food because my surgeon predicted me never eating a solid meal again a day in my life.

During these few months my recovery consisted of a lot of resting, eating every two hours, walking Gentilly Trail daily, and the little bit yoga I could do. I was very sad for how weak and fragile I was, if the wind blew hard enough I felt like I would blow away. My entire life I was athletic so this was new for me.

I had so much determination to gain my strength back so I walked daily from the time I was released from the hospital. Walking was the most I could handle physically and at this point I could walk a mile so that was exciting! I walked on Gentilly Trail every day and this was the trail I had been jogging on for years while I was in college. I wanted to try jogging and boy was that a mistake. I could only take one step and I felt like I was going to topple over. Jogging felt so foreign to me and my organs still felt like they were on the outside of my body. This made me so sad because I ran track, played basketball, was extremely active all of my life and at 23 years old I couldn’t even jog. My heart was broken but I was so thankful to be out of the hospital and walking on a trail in nature that my tears were a mix of happy and sad.

​I have practiced yoga since 2013 and loved it since the first day I stepped on my mat. I had a gnarly scar from my sternum to my pelvis that kept me hunched over for months because it was extremely tight. My organs still felt like they were on the outside of my stomach so I never thought I was going to be able to practice again. I couldn’t even do something as simple as baby cobra or bend over to touch my toes. I would just sit on my yoga mat and cry, they were happy and sad tears once again; sad tears because I couldn’t move my body like how I used to but happy tears because I was so thankful to be out of the hospital and even sitting on my yoga mat.  

Meet my best friend Shelby! My first day back to work and you can totally see the excitement on our faces! 

May 22, 2016 was the exciting day I went back to work at my job, A Smokin Place! I didn’t care how tired or weak I felt, I was just so excited to get back to work and being around the positive vibes the shop has to offer. I just wanted everything to feel normal again. I was striving to have my old life back, and kept wishing known of this had ever happened to me. Nothing felt normal, my body, my mind, my heart. I had so many unanswered questions that I was longing for the answers to.

Thank y’all so much for reading my Septic Shock Story and my trials during my extensive recovery period. I am so grateful to be alive today to share my story in hopes to raise awareness of this silent killer we call SEPSIS! God Bless!

Peace and Love, 
Tory P.