#etametaphobia

[exhaustedwriterartist]

Could you explain how Mazie deals with Sepsis? I’m not entirely sure how it works and would love to hear more about it

Absolutely! I'll go into more detail when I collab with Nya for the big lore drop, but I'll share the medical side here:

Trigger/content warnings: illness and descriptions of illness (obviously), eating disorder, descriptions of eating disorders, mentioned vomiting

Also, this is extremely long-winded but I am nothing but thorough.

To start off here is a definition of Sepsis from the Cleveland Clinic: "Sepsis is your body’s extreme reaction to an infection. When you have an infection, your immune system works to try to fight it. But sometimes your immune system stops fighting the infection and starts damaging your normal tissues and organs, leading to widespread inflammation throughout your body."

There are many different causes and ways to get sepsis, and even a cuts can lead to sepsis.

Mazie got sepsis shortly after the invasion. The reason being she ended up in a disgusting river that was teeming with whatever washed into the river after the invasion, and Mazie neglected to really patch herself up after getting injured while fighting alongside Casey. So open injuries + nasty water = high risk for contracting sepsis.

Sepsis has three stages, the last being septicemic shock, and each stage slowly worsens over a period of a few hours to a few days. Each stage also lowers chances of survival and lengthens recovery time.

Without spoiling, by the time she shows symptoms, she is in Draxum's lab. She is quite upset with Draxum at this point, part due to her hatred, grudge, and frustration with him, and partly because her illness is making her delirious and agitated. Some symptoms include her heart rate gets faster, her breathing gets faster, dangerously low blood pressure, a high fever, severe inflammation to her muscles and joints, tissue deterioration (especially around her injuries), and more! She doesn't let Drax help her or even make sure she's okay, until she reaches the final stage, and passes out... And wakes up feral, out of it, in pain, suffering, and faced with a sheep man desperately trying to keep her alive but who she believes is an enemy.

Snapping out of her feral state takes some time, and recovery takes her months. When she is aware and awake for the first time, she can hardly move, and there are a multitude of other problems that come along with Mazie_s next challenge: Post Sepsis Syndrome!

Here are some symptoms that Mazie spet deal's with that Sepsis.org (yes that is the website name) says are common symptoms of PSS:

Difficulty sleeping, either difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep, fatigue, lethargy, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, disabling muscle or joint pain, swelling in the limbs, repeat infections, particularly in the first few weeks and months following the initial bout of sepsis, poor appetite, reduced organ function, eg kidney, liver, heart, panic attacks, flashbacks, nightmares, loss of self-esteem, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The loss of appetite turns into a big problem over time, turning into an eating disorder. It gets really hard for her to eat most solid foods, it's like there's an invisible wall that keeps her from being able to swallow or eating at all. Thankfully, liquids and liquid foods don't give her as much grief (emphasis on "as much"). She dreads having to eat but forces herself to when she's around others. When she's alone though, it gets much harder. What makes it worse is that Mazie has to eat something to keep Draxum's medicine down. Unfortunately, she can't always keep it dow and it comes back up before it has a chance to help with her pain, or she has bad stomach pain. Either way she is suffering.

She slowly recovers from her eating disorder along with PSS, but it definitely takes her time, being honest with other and asking for help, and allowing others to help her. Slowly, others begin to find out about her her struggles, and much to Mazie's surprise, they aren't angry at her for hiding this.

Anyways, I hope this makes sense and helps clears things up!

Thank you for asking Moo!!!!