It was a life-or-death situation, and Dan Perkins lived to tell his story.
Dan Perkins was no stranger to kidney stone pain. He had them in the past, and always passed them. In July 2023, he started having the pain again and let it slide because he thought they would pass and he would be fine. “It was not a big deal to me,” he says. “I planned on being uncomfortable for a little bit until they passed. But I was wrong.”
After seven days of enduring the pain, Perkins started getting chills and shaking. Alarmed at his condition, his wife drove him to Southwest Healthcare Corona Regional Medical Center. As she was checking him in, Perkins passed out.
An alarming diagnosis
Once they triaged him, doctors discovered that Perkins had developed sepsis. Sepsis is a very dangerous response to an infection in the body. Sepsis can lead to tissue damage, organ failure and death. For Perkins, this was a life-or-death situation.
“When I came to, the doctor was asking me all kinds of questions, like, did I know who I was, where I was, why I was there,” he says. “But I kept going in and out of consciousness because of the pain and my organs were shutting down. The kidney stones caused a urinary tract infection that led to sepsis.”
Perkins says his pastor stopped in to pray for him just before the doctors told him they needed to intubate him to stabilize his condition. “I could not get enough air, my heart rate was up and down, and I was experiencing atrial fibrillation. I told my wife that I might not come back from this,” he says. “She asked the doctors if I was going to be ok, and all they could tell her was they don’t know. I was that far gone.”
Brought back from the edge of death
Once stabilized, Perkins was moved to the ICU, where he was in and out of consciousness for four days. “At one point when I came to, I was told that I carried on quite the conversation with the doctor about Pink Floyd,” he chuckled. “But on a serious note, I have to say, the doctors and nurses took excellent care of me. They saved my life. I was on the brink of death, and they brought me back. I am so grateful for everything they did for me.”
Perkins says after four days in the ICU, he was transferred to a regular room. “The food was good, the care was great, heck, I didn’t want to go home,” he says. “I was finally getting out and around in the hospital, and the nurses and doctors were all very uplifting, and thrilled I was alive! Everyone from the ICU and ER came by to say hello and visit with me, telling me they were so happy to see me recovering. Even the CEO stopped in. Some of the nurses and doctors told me they get a lot of patients in very grave condition and close to death, but they work very hard to bring them back. I am fortunate to count myself as one of those patients.”
All told, Perkins was in the hospital for about six days. He progressed substantially from being on a ventilator to walking several laps around the hospital before he was discharged.
“This is something you never want to go through, but I could not have had a better experience. The ER, ICU and hospital is very well-run, and the staff is outstanding,” he shares. “I was in the right place at the right time, and I highly recommend Corona Regional Medical Center. They truly saved my life!”