Fangs and Fantine

(This is what I will end up with in about 6-8 months!!)

Since I wrote about my teeth earlier this month, so much has happened, I will fill you in on everything.

It was the 18th of January and horrendous weather in Castle Hill, Western Sydney, on the day that I was to have my upper tooth bone extended, it ended up being 43 degrees Celsius, and I wondered if you could have actually cooked and egg on the road that day? the bats were so hot, they fell out of the trees and died!

Anyway, I met with the two dentists who would be doing the surgery on my mouth and in no time at all, my mouth was SO numb, thank heavens! I felt a bit sick and had to swallow many times to get a grip on it. I had 14 injections but with 20 sites that they went in to anesthetize my mouth and these huge cage like structures so that they could work in there while I was in a twilight state.

There are 3 sites where they worked - one my jaw bone, another where they took pulp and the third one where they all came together and put the stuff into my gum - they cut a bit of my jaw on the left side and then they shaved that bit down until they had the amount of bone that they needed, then they put this bone with a bit of artificial bone and mixed it all together with the pulp and inserted it all together where they want the new bone to grow! Eeewwww!

I was a mess with a huge mouth, congealing blood in my tissues, while I was moaning - I tell you, it was not fun. We had to stop at the chemist and get my scripts filled, one was for anti-biotics and the other a pain-killer and I needed both of them. When we got home, I took both lots of medication and went to bed for a couple of hours.

The surgery has been a success in as much as the stitches are ready to come out and I am SO ready to have a temporary denture and I can't wait! For the first two weeks it was so swollen that I couldn't smile, but this last week, it is so embarrassing because I keep smiling forgetting about having NO front tooth!! I feel like a hillbilly and the poor people who I have smiled at, are going away with this terrible image of me, that keeps them shuddering for days!

By taking the anti-biotics, I got Thrush and having the pain killers gave me constipation! So, I am not a happy Vegemite to say the least!! However, I think that I have lost a bit of weight, as I can only eat things that are softish so I am usually eating Pasta with Chilli oil or Margarita Pasta or Salmon salad for dinner and my usual oats for breakfast. All's well that ends well, as they say!

**Forgot to say, I have been to the dentist twice since I had the surgery but my gum is still so swollen that it will take until the 11th Feb to get a temporary tooth that will stay in until my bone is thick enough to have the implant!!

Since then we have had Australia Day, which is always something special with my sister Ria and her husband Milt coming down for a couple of days. Milt was playing piano on the South Steyne (an old ferry docked at Darling Harbour)and they took me with them for the day. Ria, Stephanie and I went walking around Darling Harbour soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying the festivities. The fireworks were amazing as usual, but this time, it they seemed to be that much more beautiful, whether it was to mark our countries special day or just because they could, I don't know, but I had a happy feeling and was so proud to be Australian on that day.

My lovely friend Annie, took me as her guest to see Les Miserables at the Gold Class Event at the cinema! It was wonderful, not only seeing the show in big puffy lay back seats, but in such nice surroundings with such yummy food and drinks. This was a week after my jaw bone extension and I was unable to smile which in a way was good as no one was any the wiser about my teeth!

When I went to Rehab last Wednesday, they told me that I only had two more appointments left and that my lovely Lisa would be back the next time I went there!! I will be so happy to see her and find out what she has been doing for the last three months - but I know that she will be annoyed with me as I haven't worked with my saebo flex for the three months that she has been away from us - because I couldn't fit it myself and since the botox wore off so quickly the last time, it wasn't easy trying to do anything with my hand!

Anyway, I saw Clare for the last time on Wed and I can now sit on the floor and get up by myself! Not only that, but I have tried the exercise out doors to see if I fell over outside, I could get myself up which was the second part (the other one was being able to get down on the ground to do the adapted yoga at Rehab) of why we were doing the exercises! I had to go down on the ground and using a small wall, get myself back up, then using a lamp post get myself up, the using just the kerb, get up and finally if I fell over and there was nothing to help me to lean on or grab, to get myself up I had to do that and get myself up, by myself!!!! 

I can do all of those things now, since Clare made it clear to me, using a mirror, for weeks on end, that I had TWO legs and would be able to look after myself, as long as I looked at myself in the mirror every so often, and remind myself of the fact that as she told me and taught my brain to see me as I really am, and do the exercises every other day or so, I was now as good as I will get and that is a good feeling!

3.2.13

Tell it like it is....

All the while that I have been writing this blog, I haven't really given you a look at my life as it is now, and someone asked me a couple of days ago to answer these questions as though a journalist was asking me; - how do I feel now? Do I get depressed? Have I got my life sorted? Do I have a man? What would I be doing NOW if I hadn't have had the stroke?!! All of these questions have been going around and around inside of my head since then, so, I decided to TRY to answer some, if not all of them, here goes......

As the days have passed and I am back at work two days a week (which I love), would I have been where I am now, if it wasn't for this job? Of course not!! I am so fortunate to work for a company that prides itself on it's ethics in all areas - but if the stroke hadn't have happened I think I would be in a much better position in the company career wise, financially and socially. 

I would love to travel again now that I have had the all clear medically, but I can only just scrape by and couldn't imagine saving enough to book a ticket and go anywhere! If I do get enough money to travel somewhere, I know that I will have to make allowances and that pisses me off! I will only be able to go where I CAN go. I couldn't do the Camino de Santiago, I couldn't go to the Amalfi Coast because it is too steep and I couldn't go to Machu Picchu, BUT I could go to one of my favourite places of all time: New York. I could go to Paris, Florence or London to see my long time, gorgeous friend Kerry-Lee, so, there is a whole new world waiting for me if and when I can get it together with finances!

Romance is a long way off even if I wanted a new man! I have had to face the fact the men don't like women with disabilities! Even though my disability is not that extreme, they don't like it!!! They are allowed to be down, sad and weak, but that's them and for women, we just have be strong and fearless and keep on keeping on, because they don't like disabilities!!! Hello and excuse me???? I will be strong and fearless for my children, but men, can go and get!!

I have met many men and women, who have had strokes among other things, but I have to tell you, the very few men that I have met who have stayed with their wife or the mother of his children (if it is they who have the disability), can be counted on one hand and the rest of the men can't be seen for dust, when the chips are down, the women are usually on their own. So. I don't think for a minute that there is someone in shining armour waiting in the wings for me!

My social life is sporadic - although I have wonderful girlfriends that I see often, they don't always have room or a place for me. It would be different if I could drive, but not doing so, really limits me to things around public transport, and sometimes that is not what I want to do! Sometimes I just want to scream so loud as though I was losing my mind, but reasonable people don't go on that way Grrrrrr! I get mad, sad and totally rad because.....it isn't fair! It isn't fair to any of the stroke survivors, the quadriplegics like Christina Symanski, the paraplegics, the people who have weird and wonderful diseases the people who aren't as able as others - it isn't fair!

I have a lot of special tools that I use to make my life easier like my bread board that is made for disabled people with a set of prongs that hold things tight so I can cut the with my one good hand, I have splaydes to use instead of forks and knife (can't used them), my bathroom is modified to make it easier for me to grab onto something if I feel like I am going to fall, and so on and so forth, so, you see even though I have wonderful family and friends, it is still difficult to be me!! When girlfriends ask me to come and stay with them for the weekend whether we are staying in town or going away, I generally say that I am busy because I know what is going to happen and it is all too hard so, in the end I just stay home, and of course after a while, they stop asking me to come out with them. It would be different if I could just do anything, like I used to be able to do, but now if I am not in my own home, everything is just that much more difficult.

My sisters have been a huge support, especially my eldest, and I feel blessed to have her and them as my sisters, but once again, it isn't enough. Everyone has their own lives and has things that have to be prioritised. The fact that I live in Sydney and three of my sisters live in Newcastle makes it hard to have a meaningful relationship with them.

Ria has a gym and has to spend a great deal of her time there plus she has a husband, a son who has a baby 6months old and a daughter about to come back to Australia after spending 6months in Sth America, so, I think that she has quite enough to do without being stuck with me.

Terina has a husband and two sons, who are just growing in to being young men, and she is also a teacher and puts a lot of effort into her classes and she has finally been able to relax and start enjoying her life after a fair few black years, and the last thing she needs is to be looking out for me!

Melissa lives in a whirlwind and has so many jobs and other things that she has to do that it is amazing that she hasn't cracked up before now! She is a flight attendant, works at the airport, does the books for her husband business and the books for Ria's business as well as being a mother to a daughter that she tries to do everything she can for, so, again, the last thing any of my sisters need is me hanging around!! Especially as our mother who is 80 and lives quite near all off the sister's in Newcastle, likes to go driving or to lunch or some such thing.

I look over my life now, as I have written about it, and I see just how angry I seem to be, but I am not. I have just written it like it is. I am not depressed anymore but you can't get away from the fact that a lot has changed and most of it not in a good way, but hey, I can do all sorts of things that I never would have though possible a few years ago! That weak, frail person, who lived in a wheelchair and depended on other people for EVERYTHING, has healed, grown up and now 'she flies with her own wings'. I am lucky!! I tell myself that every single day, it could have been very much worse and I am very, very grateful.  

20.1.2013http:/strokeofluckandgenius.blogspot.com

Crowning Glory

I told you that I would save this next story for another time, but that time has come!

I have two porcelain crowns and a bridge which are in the front of my face(not very nice I can tell you!) that have given me some angst over the past few years. I have always looked after my teeth, but have had absolutely rubbish teeth for as long as I can remember and have spent a small fortune on them over the years and I am still spending heaps now.

You may remember my talking about a dentist who I was seeing quite a while ago, who worked in the same building where I worked? After I had been seeing him for a while I was not very happy with the dental work I received, even though the person was nice enough. I asked around to see whether anyone knew of a different and good dentist, and my friend Annie had just been going to a wonderful young man, so, I decided that I would go and to see him and made an appointment for the next week.

On the Friday I went to bed and woke up with a jolt, with something in my mouth - I spat it out and in the dark, tried to make out what it was and thought......OMG!!! Is that my tooth????? It wasn't, it was three teeth that are joined together forming the bridge, and they had fallen out doing - nothing!!

I went into my daughter's room and tried (with me not being able to speak well at the best of times) to say to her, "look what's happened to me"! But, she didn't understand so a comedy of errors took place and after a while she looked at my face and then shrieked...."ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh it's terrible, horrible, Mum get it away from me". Nice type huh!! She hid her face away and kept on saying, "what are you going to do?" I didn't know - I was just after someone to tell me that everything was going to be alright, not hiding from the grotesque thing that was me!!

After much debate we went to bed then and as soon as we woke up, my daughter rang this new dentist and told the receptionist what had happened, and by an incredible stroke of luck (no pun intended!) there happened to be a free space in the afternoon! When we got there, the dentist remembered that I was supposed to be seeing him later that week and commented that it would not be good if I had had to wait for almost a week for my appointment with no front teeth!

Dr* took a couple of x-rays to see why they had actually fallen out and then he came and said "the good news or the bad" and me being me, said "give it to me straight and I will take the bad please". He showed me the teeth and pointed out to me that the other dentist had ground my teeth down so far that they didn't have enough tooth left to hold on too! He said that it was a miracle that it hadn't come out before now and he would have to do something some remedial work on them. I had to have the Dr* glue them back in for now, because the next day I was meant to be going to Chris's memorial and there was no way I could go looking like I did!!

We talked about the options that I had with my teeth the next two times that I had to see him. I will have to get two new crowns at a later stage, but the most important thing at present, is to work on how to be able to have an implant but because the bone under my front tooth had been badly damaged and has receded, there was not enough of it left to hold an implant, which was the only way I could overcome this problem and it didn't look too good at this stage. Dr* spoke to a couple of his colleagues and together they came up with a plan to save my teeth - if I was agreeable to it.

I was extremely nervous when Dr* sent me to Castle Hill to meet his colleague (who was one of his university Dentistry teachers) and have him have a look at my gum/teeth and talk to me about the conundrum that we had and what they were suggesting to do about it, which was - to cut my gum and put some mesh and some artificial bone shards to fill the space underneath where my implant would go and build it up this way.

They would then close the gap in my gum with stitches and hope that the bone would grow and after 6 months, hopefully, I would have a new thicker bone that they could do something worthwhile with, like - give me a gorgeous new implant!

That all happens this coming Wednesday and Friday, so, I will keep you up to date on that score.

13.1.13

Things will get better

Rehab is something that I can't get away from and sometimes I am really fed up with it and want to take some time off or stop doing any more Rehab!! However, when I actually think about the almost 6 years that I have (and the 'family' of professionals that we have at the Royal Rehabilitation Centre Sydney), put into the exercises, I have to go back and do them again!

I have always been told that the only person who misses out from me not doing any rehab, is myself, and ain't that the truth! The couple of weeks that I had off over Christmas and New Year, gave me some much needed space to consider what my options are and I know that I am SO lucky to be able to go to the Royal Rehab Centre SO I just have to pull my head in and go for it again!

The last time I was talking about Rehab, I was getting more botox from Dr Zeman and having my hand cast (again!) and saying how much it hurt because Lisa had to wrap my arm in such a way, that my tendons got stretched - and that really, really hurts! Since then, I was using my Saebo flex (hand) and everything was going along nicely, but the botox wore off so much quicker than it ever has before and after a little time, I couldn't put my hand inside the Saebo anymore.

Unfortunately for me, lovely Lisa has been moved up to the top of the hill (the temporary hospital until the new one is completed) and out-patients don't get to see her at the moment, but I am having a consultation with the fabulous Dr Z next Wednesday and I should know a bit more at that time, I will keep you posted on that score.

I have been having some more Speech Therapy with a lovely young woman named Jo, because even though I can speak more or less ok, I talk (mumble) much to quickly! Jo has told me many times that no one knows what I am talking about so please, 'slow down'!! 'Think about what your tongue and mouth are doing before you try to speak' - (we do so much to speak that you wouldn't believe it!) so, I have paragraphs that she gives to me that have different sounds and phrases and ARE helping, but again, it comes down to how much I practise and how much better I want to get at speaking.

After I have had a hour with Jo, I move on to Clare for physiotherapy and try to kneel down on the floor - it is very hard and I spend a lot of time - crying again!  Apparently, I have what is called 'limb neglect' which is something that I had never heard about until someone mentioned the book by Lisa Genova (who wrote "Still Alice", about a woman who got early onset alzheimer's) called "Left Neglect" in which she wrote about this very strange affliction and Clare said that it was what I had!!

I don't 'see' my leg and it is as though I don't have two legs, until someone mentions it and sometimes I know that it's there and sometimes - I don't. Lisa and Clare would like it if I could do an adapted yoga that has been beneficial to people who have had a stroke, but in order to make use of this type of yoga, I would have to be able to get down on the floor and get back up again! Very, very hard! We have been trying to kneel before a mirror and teach my brain to observe and use my other leg since before Christmas. I was quite nervous about it, but would you believe that this week.....I could do it!!

So, thank you again to the Angels that are the professional staff at Royal Rehabilitation Centre Sydney.

11.1.2013

Bunny Boiler???

A heap of really funny things have happened over the last couple of weeks and I think I will just let you decide who was the lamest.

My youngest daughter has been doing the HSC this year and had been working so hard (for her!) that she thought that she deserved a pet. She whined and wheezled her way around me asking for a Tea Cup Chihuahau that is so gorgeous but I am not THAT silly! We had cats before the stroke and one after the stroke and guess who was the patsy who ended up looking after them??? Right, it was me! This time I was pleased with myself and no matter how she pleaded and cried, I just said "no".

Then one day, she was looking at a pet site when she said to me, "Please Mum, can I have a bunny to love, they don't do anything except hop around and love us", please, please, can I have a bunny, just like this one"?? It was a mini Lop eared bunny - black, gorgeous and already toilet trained to go to the bunny litter after it was fed. So, I looked at the lovely bunny and thought, "she said that it doesn't DO anything, just hops around and be's lovely and will love us" - yeah right!!!

At first, the poor little thing was so traumatised with having to leave her brother (I certainly couldn't have two of them!!) and I was feeling so bad, that I let her come inside to be with me when my daughter went to schoolies at the Gold Coast in QLD the very next week!! I let her come into my room and hop around the lounge room and just be with me when I was home so that she wouldn't think about her brother etc and be lonely but I hadn't had a phone call that I was waiting on that week, to tell me when I had to go to Rehab, so, I waited and waited and thought that nothing was happening when I got a text message.....'what's wrong with your home phone Wendy, I have been trying to ring you for....' - OMG!!!!!

That's right, the bunny - named Duckie, had bitten though the telephone cord!!! Then when I was tracing the cords back through the house, I found out that the TV in my bedroom was kapput as well as my mobile phone chord!!! I was stomping around telling her that I was going to put her outside and she needen't look at me like that etc, but she is little and lonely and didn't mean it and I love her and my daughter would be so annoyed.....and so I let it go.

A couple of days later, I got dressed in a reasonably new dress and went to work, when Marci said, "what's wrong with your dress?" She often has to fix up my outfit because I have a subluxioned shoulder (one side is lower than the other) and I just thought that was what she was fixing......after a few minutes, she said, "something is wrong with the hem on this dress, it looks like something has chewed it".......say no more!!! Duckie was nibbling on my dress that I had hung on a coat hanger on the clothes line the day before and I had been walking around with the nibbled dress on for some hours!! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

My daughter came back from schoolies and was not feeling very well so she went to my Dr the next day, only to be put into hospital for the next couple of days due to a virus and through that her Asthma. So, she had only spent a few hours with Duckie and then went into hospital, so, she was very excited to be coming home and finally be spending some time with her bunny....... only to find out that Duckie had eaten her Haviana thongs!!!! Duckie is also now, untrained to go to the bathroom in the litter tray since I haven't been able to put her in or take her out of the litter tray, so, yep, sucked in!

We have to start the training all over again but she really is a great pet, providing that we keep her out of the house where there are cords, clothes, thongs and .........so, who was the lamest??

 7.1.2013

Family fun and feasting

I think that I would like to tell you about my lead up to Christmas and New Year because they were awesome!

As I have said before, I am still lucky enough to be working two days a week at Screenrights, the company that I was working in before I had the debilitating stroke. Believe it or not, they kept a job opening for me! I have been so happy to dress up, make my way by bus and go to work, that I probably would do the job for nothing - but don't let on to them!

We have always had an end of year luncheon and this year was no different, except that one of the women at work had suggested to Marci that they should book 'Tastevin' in Darlinghurst which was one of her favourite restaurants. What a gorgeous restaurant it was, overlooking the main street, with windows all across so that you could see the people outside. The food was French with an Australian twist and we all had a great time mingling and chatting away with people that we didn't get to spend a lot of time with during the year.

Many years ago, Kylie had organised that everyone who worked at Screenrights, gave $5 to be sent to a Charity that we had chosen, and also brought a fun gift to go into the 'Stocking' and be used as a Secret Santa or Kris Kringle gift. These gifts range from the ridiculous to the sublime and everyone joins in the hilarity of the occasion. Being a Friday afternoon, the company allowed us to have Monday off as well, so, we were all able to be organised for Christmas!

Although it rained for most of the day, the girls and I went over to their Dad's house for Christmas lunch and we all had a wonderful time together and then my younger daughter and I drove to Newcastle to spend some time with my Mum and sister's.

On Boxing Day, we all went to Terina's beautiful Federation home in Charlestown, to welcome her son Joe, home from looking after the elephant's in Thailand and have another Christmas lunch with another Secret Santa! It was fantastic to hear of Joe's experiences with the elephant's and for him to speak so well, was marvellous! The food was superb, the wine wonderful and the conversations hilarious! It was such a gentle and fun loving day that you couldn't ask for more.

On Thursday, my sister Maria or Ria, had her yearly 'do' where everyone and anyone drops into her home bringing food, fun and Bocce! (I used to be on a Bocce team before I had the stroke, but the bocce balls are so heavy that I can't throw them anymore). As the day gets longer, and we start getting tipsy, then we start to sing Christmas karaoke......finally finishing off with.... limoncello - what a day!!!

To bad for me though, because I had gotten a text from my dentists, telling me that I had to come in tomorrow and have some casts of my mouth done as the specialist who was going to be 'growing me some new bone' had become free and it would all take place early January (*That is another story for next time)! That meant that I had to catch the train back to Sydney the next day and go to the dentist to have the plaster casts done and of course, they were doing track work on the Newcastle/Central Coast line Grrrrrrr!!

Anyway, Maria and Milt came down to Sydney on NYE as Milt plays on the South Steyne, an old ferry that is moored at Darling Harbour. He went to work and Ria and I walked over to the Lindt shop and had some yummy chocolate drinks and some food from Adori the restaurant next door. Ria managed to get another table in a fabulous place for the 9 pm fireworks, so we stayed there and had more food and another sister, Stephanie, came along as well! We chatted until our cousin Cindy and her husband Livio came to meet us and then we all were lucky enough that Macca (the man who owns the Sth Steyne) invite us to come on to the boat and watch the midnight fireworks!

NYE was fantastic and I could just tell the 2013 was going to be my year.

6.1.2013

Sepsis - what's that??

Last year was not a bad year, but it wasn't good either! Not for me, but for others who I have loved.

In August, a very good friend who had a bad cold that wouldn't leave him, he just kept getting sicker and sicker. This young man, of 34 years, had had a pace-maker ever since he was a young child, so, he had a lot of experience with being sick and even going to hospital, thought that he was fighting with the same problem again, so, he took himself to the Royal North Shore hospital to see a doctor.

The doctor put him straight into hospital and called his parents. They then proceeded to work on him, after telling him that he had a very bad case of pneumonia and it would be to his benefit if they put him into an induced come for the time being. They needed to fill his body with the drugs that would hopefully help him with the infection and they thought that they could bring him out of the coma after that time.

Friends and family gathered around and were visiting him every hour of every day, hoping that they were going to be the ones who were there when he woke up. The staff in the ICU were inspirational and if I ever had to go to another hospital, (please noooo!) I would be very happy knowing that I was going to the fantastic RNSH. They did everything that you could ask for, they talked to Chris as if he was awake and they had to shave, wash make him look as pretty as possible, we all knew that Chris was a bit ....vain!

I started thinking about how long I had known him and all the things that he did to make him special to me.

I first met Chris 12 years ago, when he was working as the 2nd Chef along side of a girl friend called Dee and another friend called Doug. They were funny, loud and such wonderful quirky people that you only had to watch them work to know their food and coffee, would be superb - and it was.

They worked together for the next 6 years and I was lucky enough to be considered their friend and their 'Sydney Mum', being that much older than they and with two children myself. Sometimes when my girls had gone to their father's place for the weekend and I was at a loose end, Chris would ask me over to his place to watch a video or play some games on the Playstation and have something yummy, that he made to eat.

Dee got married and Chris was in a relationship with Miwa. He was entranced by everything Japanese, including, Astro Boy, the Playstation and Miwa!

During the next couple of years, Dee started working in the horticulture field and had a baby; Chris went from restaurant to restaurant honing his skills enough to cook with The Iron Chefs - he thought that he had made it and I had the stroke.

Being Chris, he was a source of fun and laughter, even when I wasn't anywhere near my best and he told me many times, "we're here for a good time, not a long time", I wonder if he knew???

As time went on, they helped us to understand that if Chris was to recover, he would not be the Chris that we had known. He would certainly loose his fingers and toes if not more and that meant that he wouldn't be able to be a Chef - he would not be very a happy man at all. As well as these extremities that were affected by gangrene, his liver, lungs and kidneys were all in a bad state with the kidneys being on dialysis 24/7 and himself being on life-support. I remember that all of us at one time or another over the next three weeks, were sure that he was just sleeping and we would talk to him as though he was listening.

He never woke up.

Chris died of Sepsis - a horrific infection of the very blood that flows around our body and is supposed to keep us alive - I am putting a link to the Sepsis Organisation to help people to understand what this hideous and potential fatal complaint can do.

This is for Christopher Mack Galloway R.I.P.   -    29.3.1978 - 11.9.2012

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http://www.sepsisalliance.org/faces

Pneumonia

Sepsis and septic shock can result from an infection anywhere in the body, including pneumonia. It is known that in the United States, health care–associated infections (HCAI) affect 1.7 million hospitalizations every year. And, the two most common conditions are sepsis and pneumonia. In February 2010, a study published in theArchives of Internal Medicine, confirmed the high costs resulting from caring for patients: an more than $8.4 billion per year. In addition to this, the study found that such infections cost an average of an extra 11 days in the hospital and $33,000 dollars, per person.

Sometimes called blood poisoning, sepsis is the body's often deadly response to infection or injury. Sepsis kills and disables millions and requires early suspicion and rapid treatment for survival.

Worldwide, one-third of patients who develop sepsis die. Almost 20% of patients who develop sepsis after surgery die. Many who do survive are left with organ dysfunction and/or amputations. (What is the prognosis (outcome) with sepsis?)

The most common source of infection, among adults, is the lung or lungs.

Famous People Who Developed Sepsis Following Pneumonia:

Actor Jeff Conaway

Born October 5, 1950, died May 27, 2011 due to sepsis from pneumonia.

Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets

Born September 24, 1936, died May 16, 1990 due to sepsis from pneumonia.

Definition of Pneumonia

Pneumonia is an infection in the lungs. The infection can be only in one lung, or it can be in both. There are several causes of pneumonia but the most common are:

• Bacteria
• Virus
• Fungus

Left untreated, pneumonia can be deadly. In the days before antibiotics, it’s estimated that about one-third of those who developed bacterial pneumonia died.

5.1.2013