Untreated UTI causes hole in college athlete’s kidney, family says. ‘She is a miracle’
When an otherwise healthy 18-year-old college athlete began complaining of back pain and feeling sick on New Year’s Day, a trip to the hospital quickly followed.
Before long, family members were in search of a miracle for Katie Sullivan, a freshman softball player at Waynesburg University in Pennsylvania.
The hospital visit revealed Sullivan had an untreated urinary tract infection, which caused “abscesses in her liver, kidney and back,” her mother, Shannon Schweitzer Sullivan, said in a Jan. 5 post on Facebook.
The Monaca, Pennsylvania, native was placed on a mechanical ventilator to help her breathe. By Jan. 6, she was put into a medically induced coma due to her worsening condition that involved brain bleeding, her mother revealed.
“We weren’t given much hope,” Katie’s mother said in an interview with WPXI. “We brought all our family in. Hour to hour, we went out and celebrated that she didn’t deteriorate.”
Sullivan’s vitals improved while she was in the coma, but her family was still searching for a miracle.
The family received its wish Tuesday, Jan. 9.
“The update I have been waiting over a week to post,” her mother said. “We got our miracle. Our baby has woken up and is answering questions appropriately by shaking her head yes or no. She is moving all her extremities and squeezing hand and wiggling toes like they ask.”
But despite Sullivan’s noticeable improvement, family said she has a long road to recovery.
Sullivan was taken off the ventilator Jan. 10 and was off her dialysis. Plans were arranged for her to be moved out of the intensive care unit Thursday, Jan. 11, according to Schweitzer Sullivan.
The college athlete will continue her physical therapy as her recovery progresses.
“She is a miracle before our eyes,” her mother said Wednesday, noting that her daughter was hungry for Chick-fil-A.
In her interview with WPXI, Schweitzer Sullivan stressed the importance of not ignoring back pain.
“Even if you think it’s nothing, please get it checked,” she told the outlet. “Because never in a million years, and I’m a nurse practitioner, would I think she would be here with renal failure, intubated, and being given a dire diagnosis at 18.”
Other signs of urinary tract infections affecting kidneys include high fever, shaking and chills, nausea and vomiting, according to the Mayo Clinic.
This story was originally published January 11, 2024 at 12:16 PM with the headline "Untreated UTI causes hole in college athlete’s kidney, family says. ‘She is a miracle’."