Kristi Pursell

Kristi was at the White House with her two kids for the traditional “turkey pardoning” ceremony the weekend before Thanksgiving. As vice-chair of Minnesota’s House agriculture committee, State Rep. Pursell was there to see the Minnesota-grown turkey strut free. 

They had “a whirlwind 48 hours” in DC, then flew home Monday for Thanksgiving plans with friends. 

But by the end of that week, “I felt kind of off,” Kristi says. She woke Friday with a fever that came and went despite fever-reducing medicine: “I couldn’t shake it, and I was very lethargic.” By Sunday, the fever was soaring, and she was vomiting and weak. 

“Typical Minnesotan, I kept thinking, ‘I’ll go to sleep and it’ll be fine,’” she says. “I didn’t want to be a bother on a Sunday. But then my body very clearly was telling me that something was really wrong.”

Kristi called her mom to take her to the Emergency Department. There, her temp was an alarming 102.9. “They thought the machine must be broken,” Kristi says. “I couldn’t stop shaking for them to get a scan of my organs.”

The ED team put Kristi on IV antibiotics and admitted her to the hospital, where “my blood pressure dropped so low they thought I was going to die,” she recalls. The care team began fluid resuscitation, infusing fluids to increase her blood volume and raise her blood pressure. 

Tests showed a startling combination of double kidney infection, urinary tract infection, and sepsis. It’s unusual for a kidney infection to show up on a scan, but Kristi’s infection was so severe that “it was so clear to them neither kidney was functioning,” she recalls. 

Fortunately, all three infections responded to antibiotics; Kristi didn’t need surgery. 

After four nights in the hospital, her labs and bloodwork had improved enough that Kristi was able to go home. “But I still felt like hot garbage,” she says. “It took a day or two more for my body to feel caught up.” 

Good thing: Her election campaign was kicking off in 10 days, with Minnesota’s Speaker of the House and legislative majority leaders coming to Northfield for it. “They said I’d be about 80% recovered by then, so I stayed on the couch all week to recover,” Kristi says. 

Onstage at the campaign kickoff event, “I got teary, thanking the staff of Northfield Hospital. I was coming to understand that I nearly died three times at the hospital, and they took care of me,” she says.

“It was much more drama than I would have preferred – such a private thing squeezed between two events of my life as a public servant.”

She’s still praising Northfield Hospital: “It was an incredible small-town experience, with a hospitalist I had known since we were in middle school in Rochester, Dawn DeBus – plus doctors and staff whose kids know my kids,” she says. 

“I had this beautiful feeling of being vulnerable and scared, and having my neighbors take care of me, people who knew me. I was so moved to get such incredible care without leaving my hometown.”

Kristi’s advice for others feeling progressively sick? “Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I didn’t want to put anyone out or draw attention to myself – a stubborn Midwestern approach. But it just felt like family, like community, the whole way through.”