Paige Bush remembers getting ready for work one recent morning when she began to feel ill.
Her condition worsened rapidly, and she soon became severely disoriented and physically sick all throughout her home.
“It hit me out of nowhere,” the 28-year-old said. “I couldn’t remember how to do stuff that I should remember how to do.”
The next thing she remembers is waking up in the emergency room at Schneck Medical Center in Seymour.
What happened in between is what Bush, her family and doctors say saved her life.
When Bush became ill July 16 and got into her truck, she was preparing to take her son, Brylin, to her grandparents’ house before continuing her day to work.
The two were all alone at their Freetown residence as Bush’s husband was at work.
The 5-year-old quickly noticed something was not right and sprang into action.
Bush and her husband, Michael, each serve on the Hamilton Township Volunteer Fire Department, so the first action Brylin took was to use the fire radio he has seen his parents use during emergencies.
That device was a little too complicated, but he then spotted her cellphone and called his grandfather, whose house Bush was going to drop him off at.
“She was getting sick,” he said, adding he was not scared during the incident. “I called papaw because mommy was sick.”
Bush’s father-in-law then drove over and rushed her to the hospital.
Blood tests showed she had severe sepsis from a bacterial infection in the port above her right collarbone.
Bush has had hemophilia A her entire life, even though it was not diagnosed until she was 16.
The condition does not allow her blood to clot correctly, which requires two infusions a day. That leaves her vulnerable to infections because of the number of times her port has to be accessed.
It’s the second time she has experienced sepsis, but this case was far worse.
“Doctors told me if I had not sought help in the next four or five hours, I probably would have been dead,” she said. “I was much more sick this time than when I had it in 2016.”
But thanks to her son, Bush survived the illnesses. She was admitted to the intensive care unit, where she received fluids and antibiotics.
She also had a surgery to remove the port.
Bush did not see Brylin until the second day she was in the hospital.
“I was just so happy to see him,” she said. “It was pretty impressive what he did because kids get scared like we do, but he didn’t. He knew mommy was sick and had to get me some help.”
Bush knows one thing is true. Had her son not been there that day, the worst could have happened.
“If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know what would have happened,” she said.
Brylin, who is heading into kindergarten this year, already has an idea of what he wants to be when he grows up.
“I want to be a police officer,” he said.