Krystina Pacheco: Texas mom, 29, goes into septic shock after C-section, loses hands and feet
PLEASANTON, TEXAS: A Texas mother who almost died after giving birth was reunited with her son, 2, and daughter, who is now 4 months old. Krystina Pacheco, 29, of Pleasanton, Texas, gave birth to her daughter Amelia on October 24, 2022, via routine C-section.
However, upon arriving home two days later, the mother-of-two started to feel feverish, experienced shortness of breath and vomiting. She was given ibuprofen by a nurse, considering that these symptoms were a part of her post partum journey, but Pacheco still claimed to feel terrible.
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Krystina Pacheco suffered a septic shock
When Pacheco visited a doctor, he immediately sent her to a nearby emergency room. She was then flown to a hospital in San Antonio where doctors discovered she had septic shock, an exceedingly serious disease in which the body reacts violently to an infection. During septic shock, the body experiences dangerously low blood pressure and recent surgical procedures or infections are high risk factors. According to Pacheco's husband, Jacob, the illness started to impair her heart, lungs, and kidneys.
"I just remember I couldn't breathe anymore and I couldn't see anymore and I just started slowly fading out," Pacheco told ABC News. She added, "My husband, I could just hear him saying, 'Please come back to us, please, your babies need you. I need you. I need you to be here and help me with our babies,' and that's the last thing I remember."
The situation worsened to an extent that Pacheco was on the verge of dying as doctors indicated low survival chances. "They didn't want to tell us how close she was [to death] but you could see it in their faces every time I asked," Jacob said, adding that doctors at the time gave his wife a 20% survival rate. He further remarked, "It was scary."
Krystina Pacheco's hands and feet were amputated
Pacheco was saved, however, the treatments and medications she received to cure the disease and save her life also stopped the blood flow to her hands and feet, necessitating their amputation. "My hands and feet were black. They looked like a person who had gotten frostbite," Pacheco said, adding that her medical team had done everything possible to avoid getting to this point. "I was just breaking down and being absolutely crushed," she said, of learning about the necessity for amputations. Pacheco added, "And crying with my family, crying with Jacob, and just being sad that my life would no longer be the same."
'It's an emotional thing to experience'
In January 2023, she was sent to TIRR Memorial Hermann, a rehab facility in Houston, where she overcame the challenges of adjusting to her new reality. "She's really, really strong. She's kicking rehab butt, for sure," said Jacob. He added, "We're waiting for the healing process to happen on her legs, but her arms are doing really well, and hopefully we'll be starting the prosthetic training."
"It's a roller coaster, I'm not going to say I don't have my bad days, because I do," Pacheco told KHOU. "It's an emotional thing to experience." In addition to mothering her children, she said that she's made progress with little personal care things that most people take for granted. "I've gotten into putting on makeup by myself, I put my contacts in by myself, brush my hair," she shared.