‘Real Housewives’ alum reveals scare with ‘deadly’ health care nightmare

Former “The Real Housewives of Orange County” star Vicki Gunvalson revealed she is lucky to be alive after a sinus infection misdiagnosis turned out to be pneumonia and severe sepsis.
The 62-year-old businesswoman opened about about her health scare on her podcast “My Friend, My Soulmate, My Podcast,” where Gunvalson said she experienced amnesia and stroke-like symptoms. Gunvalson detailed the alarming conversation she had with a medical professional who diagnosed her.
“I said, ‘Did I hear this right that I had a 10 to 20 percent (chance of) survival?'” Gunvalson told co-host Christian Gray Snow and partner Michael Smith on the podcast. “‘Yes, the sepsis that went to your body is deadly and you survived it. And so you’re going to be okay. It’s just going to take a while.'”
Doctors have treated the Bravo alum with antibiotics and steroids for several days. Gunvalson said she still feels weakened by a lack of energy.
“So I have pneumonia, which I’ve never had pneumonia in my life. My right lung is pretty compacted with junk,” Gunvalson said while emotionally distraught. “I’m having a hard time getting it up. So that’s my biggest thing.”
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
Gunvalson shared the chilling moments that led to her accurate diagnosis. On Thursday, she recalls being at a hair salon before undergoing about an hour or two that she does not remember. During that period Smith’s daughter Olivia found Gunvalson in the office speaking with a client.
“I had a client coming in and she said I was talking gibberish and I wrote an email out and the email didn’t make sense,” Gunvalson said.
The client, a retired ER physician, informed Olivia that Gunvalson was possibly experiencing a stroke and Gunvalson was taken to a hospital. Gunvalson said she was then misdiagnosed and treated for a sinus infection by medical staff who sent her home. Smith later arrived at Gunvalson’s home and discovered she was unconscious in a bathtub filled with water.
“One of the scariest things for me was when I walked in, for some reason, Vicki decided she wanted to take a bath. So she’s in the bathtub with water and I walk in and she’s pretty much passed out,” Smith said. “So I grabbed her, that was scary, and I grabbed her, pulled her out of the water, put her in bed.”
After sleeping for nearly 14 hours, Smith took Gunvalson back to the hospital where she was properly diagnosed and treated.
Sepsis is a serious condition that stems from a bacterial infection including pneumonia, a skin infection, a gastrointestinal infection or a UTI. When the infection spreads through the bloodstream it can cause symptoms like fever, chills, low blood pressure, elevated heart rate and rapid breathing as well as confusion and disorientation.
Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, previously told USA TODAY that sepsis can also cause the body to overreact to an infection where inflammatory compounds that help fight the infection also end up damaging organs such as the kidney, lungs, heart, or the brain.
While most people recover from mild sepsis, the Mayo Clinic says the mortality rate for septic shock “is about 30 percent to 40 percent.”
Contributing: Adrianna Rodriguez