I really do not know exactly where I contracted C. diff, I was not on any antibiotics, we just did a lot of traveling with my son’s baseball team.

In April I received my last COVID vaccine. One month after the vaccine I was having issues with stomach cramps and regularly loose bowels that soon became daily diarrhea within the 2 weeks that it started. My diarrhea started to smell foul and most of the time was green. I went to the ER because I was getting so weak that I thought I was dehydrated. I specifically mentioned that I was having green-colored bowels and ongoing diarrhea for weeks. If I had known then about C. diff and its symptoms, I would have made sure they took a stool sample. At the last minute, they said I was NOT dehydrated (because I was living off of Gatorade & Pedialyte at this point already), said no stool sample was needed and sent me home.

The following week while at the store, I felt a sudden change in my body that was not normal. I felt a sudden hot feeling come through my body and then my vision looked like “3D”. At 3:00 am that same night, I woke up to go to the bathroom and I felt like I could not even move my body with severe fatigue that came over me. I felt my legs so heavy like there was cement on them and I felt like I was “losing it” mentally. I drank 2 bottles of Gatorade and felt a bit of life come back into my body. The next morning I could not take the feeling of “I’d rather just die” and went to urgent care, and that was when a stool sample was done and I found out I had C. diff. I was put on vancomycin, which did not work, metronidazole, which did not work, and then was sent to see a GI doctor. By this time, I was constantly dizzy every day and kept feeling like I was having panic attacks (which I never had in my life) and I was put on anxiety medicine. I was just home lying down all the time from the severe fatigue and I missed a whole week of work. Finally, I saw a GI doctor and was given probiotics and fidaxomicin, a $5,000 medication that I was lucky my insurance covered.

I finally started getting my life back to normal a month and a half after all this started. I now have palpitations (I have no clue if C. diff caused them) and have to take medicine to regulate my heart rhythm. After 2 months my dizziness started getting better, but I still have a few issues feeling dizzy at times. I still have occasional loose stools so I am going to see my GI doctor again to check up on the C. diff.