Ashley DeSkeere, a 43-year-old teacher from Texas, had never imagined that a simple, everyday part of her life could nearly cost her everything. It began on a quiet morning last month, when she woke shivering violently, waves of nausea hitting her with such force that she was vomiting every half hour. At first, she chalked it up to a stomach bug, a lingering memory of the family wedding she had attended just two days earlier. But within days, the sickness escalated beyond anything she had ever experienced. Her blood pressure plummeted, her breathing became labored, and fear, raw and unrelenting, gripped her heart.
By the time she arrived at the hospital, Ashley was fighting for her life. Doctors diagnosed her with toxic shock syndrome (TSS), a rare bacterial infection that affects only about one in 100,000 people. In her case, it was triggered by a tampon she had worn for eight hours at the wedding, a decision so ordinary it could have happened to anyone. “I was very scared,” Ashley recalls. “I told my husband I thought I was dying. I have never felt so awful in my entire life.”
The next five days were a blur of IV lines, antibiotics, and fear. Ashley was hooked up to six different intravenous antibiotics while doctors worked tirelessly to stabilize her blood pressure and rid her body of the infection. Each time a nurse checked her vitals, each time a doctor adjusted her medications, Ashley could feel the thin line between life and death tightening around her. “Multiple doctors told me I was very lucky to make it to the hospital. Most people die after two days. I came in on day two and a half. Any later, and I might not have been here to tell my story.”
TSS is insidious. It can strike without warning, sometimes from tampons, sometimes from skin wounds or other infections. In Ashley’s case, the tampon she had worn, something she had used safely for 25 years, had created a perfect environment for bacteria to flourish. “I typically change them every four hours, even at night,” she says. “For something like this to happen to me, eight hours doesn’t seem like enough. It terrifies me to think about it.”
Recovery has been slow and arduous. Even now, weeks later, Ashley feels the lingering exhaustion of the ordeal, the muscle weakness, and the mental fog that sometimes makes her wonder if she will ever feel truly normal again. Yet in the midst of this fear, she has found a renewed appreciation for life, family, and the fragility of health. “I am just grateful to be where I am today and getting better. It has been a rough recovery and harder than I thought it would be, but every day I am getting better and better.”
Determined to protect other women from the same terrifying experience, Ashley has become vocal about TSS and safe tampon use. “If you do want to use tampons, change them very frequently,” she warns. “Change your tampon every time you go to the bathroom. Never wear one with higher absorbency than you need. I will never use one again. It is just not worth the risk.”
Friends and loved ones, moved by her story and the suddenness of her illness, have set up a GoFundMe to help with her mounting medical expenses. But more than money, Ashley hopes her story carries a warning and a lesson: that even in the most ordinary moments, life can shift in the blink of an eye, and the smallest decisions can have unimaginable consequences. And in that awareness, there is a strange beauty, a reminder to cherish every moment, every breath, every heartbeat.
