A Canadian teenager who mistook symptoms of septic shock for common medical completions woke up from a month-long coma to discover her limbs needed to be amputated.
Amalie Henze, 19, was living with Crohn’s disease and had a routine bowel surgery in the fall of 2023. Shortly after the procedure, the teenager began experience what she thought was normal symptoms of Crohn’s.
She was admitted to the hospital and was give IV morphine, feeding tube, and a G-tube – the same routine she would get every time she was admitted for bowel obstructions.
Henze started to get cramps in her bladder and as the nurse tried to take her blood pressure, they noticed her limbs had turned purple. She was diagnosed with septic shock and told she needed to be into a medically-induced coma.
‘After they realized that sepsis was involved, the doctors thought it was the best idea to put me in a medically-induced coma to give me the best chance at fighting the infection,’ Henze told People.
‘I didn’t know about the sepsis or the septic shock until after I finally came out of the coma, which was when doctors gave me the rundown of what had happened.’
Henze’s family and doctors braced her for the news her limbs needed to be amputated after she woke up.
‘I knew something was going on with my limbs because the doctors and nurses and my family were very conscious about not letting me see what my hands and feet looked like at that point,’ Henze said.
‘It was definitely overwhelming to learn that I had to get my hands and feet amputated. I remember when the doctors first told me. It was definitely a shock.
‘I think the scariest part, though, was probably when I did see what one of my feet looked like at the time because I just remember looking down and saw dark black.’
Her challenging recovery included being on a feeding tube, having a trach in and not being able to talk.
‘I was transferred three times. I was in the ICU at one hospital, then I got transferred to an ICU at a different hospital, because that’s where they had to do all of my amputation surgeries. And then from there, after I was really well-healed, they transferred me to the rehab facility for amputees,’ Henze said.
‘It’s hard to relate to a lot of people my age, but I think there was definitely a blessing through all of this to have gone through such a traumatic thing.
‘Through that happening, I’ve definitely learned who my actual friends are and who is willing to put in an effort to understand what I’ve been going through, as much as they can.’
She found reassurance through the difficult journey by learning about prosthetics and how she can live a normal life while sharing inspiring content on her TikTok account.
‘Being less independent has been really hard to adapt to because I’ve always been a very independent person. Having to rely on my family for a lot of my basic needs has been super hard,’ Henze said.
‘Because all of this happened, my Crohn’s disease was able to actually go into remission, which is super great because I’ve been dealing with so many medications trying to get it in remission, these past three years.
‘Now that I’m in a stable medical state, I’m looking forward to being able to do so much more. Last year, I was able to get my prosthetic and get used to it and now, I’m looking forward to meeting new people and getting to enjoy my life a little bit more.’