"I felt that something was completely wrong"

Lilian Robert is the mother of three adult children and lives with her family and her dog in the canton of Schwyz. She has a background in the medical field and has also completed a degree in psychology in recent years. Her goal was to open her own practice for psychological counseling.

But in June 2023, her life changed drastically. “From one minute to the next, I was catapulted from a healthy life into an intensive care unit,” says Lilian Robert. At the time, she was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in psychology. While studying for an exam, she took a break, sat down on the terrace, and fell asleep in the blazing sun. Hours later, her husband found her there: with a fever over 40 degrees, barely responsive. An undiagnosed bladder infection had developed into pyelonephritis and eventually into sepsis. “I suffered. But thanks to the antibiotic treatment, I was able to recover by June.” Despite this setback, she managed to make up the missed exam and complete her studies.

The following fall, Robert went on vacation with her family. But during the second week of the vacation, she began to feel increasingly weak. “The trip home was incredibly exhausting, and my suitcase felt like it weighed a ton,” she says. Back home, she went to sleep—the next day, she tried to go to the lab she was running at the time. “I wanted to push through because it was the first day back from vacation,” she says. But she couldn’t. She called her husband, who took her straight to the hospital.

“This second bout of sepsis completely changed my life,” says Robert. “I was much sicker than I was during the first episode.” The situation was very serious. She recalls: “When I was in the ICU, I felt that something was very wrong. I thought: If I fall asleep now, I won’t wake up again.” It felt as if something inside was giving way. An overwhelming weakness. She also developed atypical pneumonia, which permanently damaged 20 percent of her lung tissue. She spent a total of six weeks in the hospital, five of them with a high fever ranging from 39 to 41 degrees. After that, she spent several weeks in rehab. She still suffers from the aftereffects today.

A year later, Robert suffered from sepsis again, this time due to pyelonephritis. “You become more afraid of infections and even more cautious,” she says. In her case, there was no follow-up care for the sepsis. “I try to lead a reasonably normal life anyway.”

Lilian Robert has been living with multiple sclerosis for 17 years, and her treatment has weakened her immune system, making her a high-risk patient. Since her episodes of sepsis, she has been receiving disability insurance (IV) benefits. She was unable to open her psychological counseling practice as planned because she can only work on a limited basis. “It takes time to accept that,” she emphasizes. “But I’m looking on the bright side: I can put my knowledge to use in other ways.”

Despite her medical training, Lilian Robert didn’t know what sepsis really meant. “I was familiar with the term and the symptoms, but not with the reality of it. Only now do I realize how quickly sepsis can become life-threatening.” She has written and spoken extensively to process her story. And she urges: “We need to talk about it—because it can happen to anyone at any time.”