Our beloved mother : Surviving Sepsis

5 years ago, our mother Mak  was diagnosed with diabetes type 1.
She is 65 years old. 
She is a Singaporean citizen by birth, currently living in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, with her daughters. Her late husband passed away 15 years ago, which also made the financial situation of our family harder.
Unfortunately, on June 22 nd 2020, the worst happened:
Our mother got admitted to the hospital for emergency treatment from a high fever, and very low blood pressure.

Due to the Coronavirus and its travel restriction, she was not able to return to her home country Singapore, and her emergency admission had to be done in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.




Initially, the doctors mentioned to us that she had a 50/50 chance of surviving the night.
She was immediately admitted to ICU, where she currently is.
The initial diagnosis was a bacterial infection, caused by a complication of her diabetes condition.
Her bacterial infection soon progressed to sepsis, which is a life-threatening reaction to an infection.
Her oxygen saturation dropped to 88% ( normal level of oxygen is above 95%) and she required oxygen through a nasal prong to breathe.
Due to sepsis, her systolic blood pressure dropped dangerously low to 70mmHg and she was started on noradrenaline to keep her blood pressure up and prevent further organ failure.





Despite this, she remained strong and kept on fighting for her life; while on noradrenaline and oxygen she remained awake and kept on fighting for her life, talking to her daughters and assuring us that she was gonna get through this, not to worry.

The doctors are confident that if they stabilize the situation and leave her in ICU, she will have a good chance of getting through this.

Right now, the doctors are testing the fluid and culture from her knee to find the source of infection. They are still not clear what is it, but they were somehow able to locate it around Mak's joint and the muscle around the knee.

As of June 24th, the hospital bill has already amounted to 3500$. According to the doctor's estimates based on how many days she will need to be in ICU, they have estimated that the total bill could be above 20000$.

Due to her old age, she requires 24/7 monitoring and assistance.

As a fighter, she deserves the best medical treatment there is, and unfortunately, our family is struggling to provide such treatments at this critical time.

Since CoVID happened and Singapore shut their borders, any chance of bringing her to Singapore to apply for treatment there has also become impossible.

This situation has been very stressful for all of Mak’s family: one of her daughters, Hajar, is an ICU pharmacist working on the frontlines of the CoVid19 pandemic, with very long shifts. Hajar’s day is now divided between battling the virus for all of us, and standing at her mother’s bed to pray and wish for the best.



This is the last chance this family has of making sure that Mak gets through this. We will keep praying for her, and hope that a small act of kindness from some of you might help our family to move forward from this.

Thank you for everything,

Mak’s Family