Actress Ashley Park is recovering after receiving emergency care in three hospitals overseas, having spent a week in the ICU, and enduring “excruciating pain,” she shared on Instagram Friday.
“As I sit here processing and recovering from the first few weeks of 2024, the only word I can think of is grateful,” the Emily in Paris and Mean Girls star wrote in her post, accompanying a photo of her hooked up to tubes, her eyes closed, and being embraced by her partner Paul Forman. “I am grateful that my health has improved despite what we had initially been told.”
After getting tonsillitis while traveling abroad during the holiday and New Year’s season, Park says the condition “spiraled into septic shock which infected and affected several of my organs.”
What is septic shock?
Septic shock, which affects about 230,000 people in the U.S. each year, is a clinical emergency and the most dire stage of sepsis. It occurs from the body’s inability to fight off infection, causing severely low blood pressure even after the admission of fluids.
It can lead to organ failure and death, according to The Cleveland Clinic. Symptoms of sepsis include heavy breathing, fever, fast heart rate, and chills. When advancing to septic shock, symptoms become very low blood pressure, heart palpitations, lightheadedness, cool limbs, and an inability to urinate.
Septic shock is usually treated in the ICU with antibiotics, fluids, a breathing tube to help oxygen flow, and, in some cases, other medication or surgery.
“I hesitated to share what’s been happening as I’m still in the throes of recovery … but I now know I’m safely on the other side of the worst,” Park writes. “Thanks for reading this. I’m sorry for being so absent recently to so much and to people in my life. I love you all. I’m healing and I promise I’m gonna be ok.”