False Peak – when antibiotic resistance is a bigger threat than cancer
Laila Hudson (told and voiced by Laila)
“Until then, I thought it was a cancer that would kill me. Now I wondered whether resistant infection might be a more imminent threat.”
Laila, 31, with advanced bowel cancer, on her experience of drug resistant sepsis.
This is the story of a young woman, who developed an antibiotic resistant infection while undergoing chemotherapy for advanced bowel cancer.
Chemotherapy can weaken the immune system making patients less able to fight infections. Antibiotic resistant ones, in particular, pose the greatest threat.
Here, in her short digital story, told by Laila herself, and drawing on parallels with hiking in the Scottish Highlands, Laila leads us along a perilous path nobody would choose to take – sepsis, emergency surgery, and its impact – indefinite postponement of some crucial cancer surgery.
And all because she had an infection that was resistant to multiple antibiotics.
She shares her innermost feelings about the importance of keeping antibiotics working, especially for those who have no other options and for whom it is the difference between survival or not.
How healthy people use antibiotics can make all the difference to whether bacteria (and the infections they cause) become resistant to antibiotics.
Laila survives to share the story of her resistant infection. Not everyone does.
