9 Comments
User's avatar
Cherry Coombe's avatar

Jacqui I am sorry it has taken me such a time to start reading your trauma memoir. I resonate deeply - and find myself going over the details of my own miraculous survival from Sepsis in 2022. I don't have access to a medical journal and still find it hard to accept what happened happened even though I experienced it in a hyper (non) reality - what was real to me was not real - and what was really real still now sends me spiralling towards a form of pts. All love. Great work. Xx

Jacqui Gatehouse's avatar

No apology required Cherry - I am so behind on my reading too as I've been lost in recording all the posts. Your archive is very much at the top of my list - especially as I can have the pleasure of listening to your book too! Strange isn't it that we both got sepsis the same year - I can totally understand how you feel about the real/unreal. Thank you for your kind words - sending love and hugs right back to you.

Mary Gatehouse's avatar

I am so glad I have read this when calm and thoughtful - Jacqui this is a roller coaster ride. I know I am biased but it is so well written. The most important thing is though - is it helping you ? I know it is helping us to understand a major trauma - but I hope it is therapeutic for you and Kim. Lots of love, Aunty Mary

Francis F's avatar

Unbelievable story ! Terrifying

Jacqui Gatehouse's avatar

Totally! There are a lot of preconceptions about these wild infections that you have to already have some sort of health issues such as diabetes to be at risk. And yes of course that can contribute, but they can also affect people who are seemingly totally fit and healthy. Yet few of us realize that…

CD13's avatar

Dearest Jacqui - your writing is excellent but the ordeal you have gone through is truly terrifying!!! Reading the first three chapters, I actually wish it was fictional and not something you had to go through.

Seriously well done for reaching this point in your recovery where you can write about it with such clarity and ‘detachment’.

Look forward to reading more - and terrified to do so at the same time…

All the best,

Charlotte

Jacqui Gatehouse's avatar

Thanks so much for the kind words Charlotte! Lovely to hear from you. I am lucky to have had the help to be able to process so much of the emotional trauma that this experience put me through. Sometimes (like this week) it is still hard to deal with reading about what happened in such a graphic detail. Even if I wrote it! But it's like peeling an onion - each time I revisit those events it lets a little more of the attached emotion ebb away. I hope that what I write can help someone else out there on their journey through whatever trauma they have experienced or maybe are even currently experiencing.

Wendy Varley's avatar

"I thought I was the funniest person in the room." I guess that was part denial, part survivor instinct kicking in, Jacqui, but this sounds like the most grueling ordeal imaginable. Such a gripping account

Jacqui Gatehouse's avatar

I wish I knew, but I have no memory of acting like that. Maybe I have a hidden desire to be a comedian that I’ve never recognized consciously!