As you may know, I’m one of Canada’s advocates for spreading the word about sepsis. As a survivor of it, I’ve gotten to know the major organizations fighting to get the illness recognized by world health bodies, and to have World Sepsis Day, September 13, endorsed as an official day to alert even more people to this potentially – and often – fatal infection in the blood.
So what do sepsis awareness advocates do on World Sepsis Day? Some of us take part in an international webinar. I’ll be traveling to Toronto to join fellow survivor, Raymond Schachter and his wife, Dr. Beverley Schachter. Beverley is a psychologist who will interview us both about our experiences. She was also there when Ray went into a 13-day coma and endured several surgeries, and this was despite a proper diagnosis of sepsis. My issue was misdiagnosis, despite my intuition knowing otherwise. We have a half hour to tell an international audience of mainly health care workers why and how they should pay more attention to this condition.
I won’t even suggest that you listen because it’s an arduous registration process and not really for public consumption. But I’ve seen some of the info and we are going to be heard in just about every country. The webinar goes for 24 straight hours and it has been a mammoth task for the organizers. Kudos to the people at World Sepsis Day who are on a mission that I’m happy to contribute to, even in a small way.