‘I dread to think what could have happened’ to Sophie
Mother and daughter raising sepsis awareness
Three Cavan women were in Dáil Éireann last Thursday to raise Sepsis awareness and campaign for better diagnostic equipment in hospitals.
The Sepsis Warriors - Hannah Tormey, Sinead O’Reilly and Catriona Cahill - are going above and beyond to raise awareness of the life-threatening disease, which has affected each of their families.
The diagnostic machine they are campaigning for would detect bacteria, the type, and the level of it within your blood within 45 minutes. Normally, blood cultures can take 48-72 hours to come back.
One of the Sepsis Warriors, who has been described as the driving force behind the group, is Hannah Tormey whose daughter survived the life-threatening illness.
She knows first-hand the importance of having such equipment in Irish hospitals.
While the story has a happy ending for 18-year-old Sophie, her family are aware the outcome could have been much different. This is why holistic therapist Hannah, along with nurses Catriona and Sinead, are determined to spread sepsis awareness to help save as many lives as possible. Such is the mother of three’s resolve to educate people, that she mentions it to each person who enters her home.
“Every time I say who can get sepsis?” she told the Celt.
The question mostly receives the same response; “the elderly.”
“No, anybody can get it,” Hannah warned.
“There’s a lack of awareness, that’s why it’s so important [to spread awareness].”
She said that a “baby right up to an elderly person” can get sepsis.
“Everyone is at risk of getting it,” she reiterates.
It’s a fact that Hannah knows all too well. While she’s informed of the illness now, rewind back to January 2024, the mother of three was very concerned about her eldest daughter Sophie’s symptoms however didn’t know the cause.
At the time, Sophie was a “very active” and healthy teenager, working at McCabe’s shop and post office in Canningstown while also studying for her Leaving Cert in Bailieborough Community School.
She had rarely needed an antibiotic in her life.
But it started with a pain in her side, which she received an antibiotic from her GP to treat.
Three days later, Sophie’s symptoms got worse. Her stomach had started to swell at this stage and she also had a pain in her back, she was lethargic and was making constant trips to the toilet.
“She was just in really, really bad form, which isn’t her,” her mother recalled.
Another doctor’s visit revealed she had a urinary tract infection, which resulted in a stronger antibiotic.
Approaching day six since the symptoms started, Sophie began to “deteriorate even more” with a “very high” temperature. The Doc on Call put Sophie on a third, stronger antibiotic, diagnosing her with acute pyelonephritis of the kidney.
“That night she started to rave. She was delirious with a temperature, shaking. One minute she was all white, the next thing she was red with purple veins going through her [body].
“She started getting very confused and all she was saying was, mammy I’m going to die.”
After another GP visit, Sophie was advised to go to Cavan General, which she did immediately.
Hannah remembered it was a Tuesday. “She had received x-rays and scans, and was told there was “a bit of a cyst”.
Hannah recalls the hospital experience.
“In the A&E department, at 17 years of age, on a drip, in a corridor that was jammed with people.
“Acute pyelonephritis is all they kept telling me,” she recalled, adding that she was “not happy” with the situation.
“At this stage you’d think she was nine months pregnant, her stomach and her side were so swollen and she was getting sick.”
Now Thursday night, Hannah had spent three days in A&E with her daughter lying across plastic chairs with her head on her mother’s lap.
It was 10 days after the symptoms first started.
A paramedic known to Hannah told her to “demand” blood cultures.
She asked a doctor about that. “He turned around and put his hand on my arm and said, ‘you young mammies tend to exaggerate’.
“I begged him and begged him,” said a tearful Hannah. “‘I’m begging you; I’m telling you she’s dying’,” she said.
The doctored ordered the blood cultures.
Hannah walked back down the corridor to where her daughter was sitting, and waited for her name to be called.
“I went back down a little while later because she was getting worse. A nurse said to me, ‘I’m not going to tell you again, we’re under pressure and your daughter is not our first priority. There are people who are a lot sicker than her here.
“I said please listen.. and then she threatened me with security.”
After giving blood cultures, Sophie was discharged that night without results. They went home.
“Then the phone rang at some time in the morning and it was a doctor,” she said. “He said your daughter is seriously ill and we’re sending an ambulance for her.”
Sensing there was no time to lose, Hannah brought Sophie to hospital herself.
“When I got to The Lavey Inn, I remember turning my head to the left to look at the oncoming traffic, and she was purple.”
At the hospital, Hannah was informed her daughter had sepsis.
“When I got her in then, they did their best and got her sorted but there was no bed for her. She was on a trolley.”
Sophie was on a corridor, moved to a day ward and eventually into a ward with five other men.
“Now the men were amazing and everyone was so good to her but no 17-year-old child should be in a ward with five men,” she said.
Before being discharged, the mother and daughter learned that once sepsis enters your body “it never fully leaves”.
“It’s always lying dormant,” the doctor explained to Hannah. “I nearly got sick, it’s so dangerous.”
Now 18-years-old, Sophie still struggles with post sepsis syndrome, with “huge side effects”.
Her legs occasionally go into spasms, which leave her struggling to walk. She can also become “very tired”, not like her she was previously.
“The people who were meant to be looking after her didn’t diagnose her quick enough... They are meant to be saving lives.
“I understand they are under pressure; I understand that mistakes are made. We are only human and I make plenty of them myself but it’s not good enough.
“If I hadn’t of kept fighting, and used my voice, I dread to think what would have happened. But what about the other people?
“They are afraid to use their voice because you don’t want to cause a scene. My motto is trust your gut, use your voice and mammy knows best.”
With no follow-up clinics or services available for people after post-sepsis, Hannah started attending the Sepsis Support Group in Virginia, which they found hugely helpful.
Now the mother and daughter duo, along with The Sepsis Warriors, are determined to educate others about sepsis and urge the question; ‘Could it be Sepsis?’.
“I’m so determined to make change and bring awareness,” Hannah said.
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