19-year-old Amalie Henze has been through quite the roller coaster in her life so far. At 18, the TikTok star was dealing with the effects of Crohn's disease. Per PEOPLE, she was figuring out her education and working part-time helping to plan weddings. Unfortunately, one terrible infection would change Henze's life forever.
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"I'd been in and out of the hospital at that point, pretty frequently, for constant obstructions in my small bowel. I was trying to manage that and figure out a plan to finish high school and just continue my life," Henze relayed to PEOPLE. "On October 8th, when I initially went to the emergency room, my mom and I thought that I was having another bowel obstruction because the symptoms, for the most part, were the same."
Henze would slowly discover other symptoms over the course of her examination. "I got admitted and it was the same routine we did every time I got admitted for bowel obstructions. ... It wasn't until I got admitted into an actual room that I started to experience other symptoms I never had before with bowel obstruction."
Nurses then noticed that Henze's hand started to turn purple. That's when Henze started going into septic shock. From there, Henze was in and out of consciousness, placed into a medically induced coma to give her the best fighting chance. After three weeks, Henze finally woke up -- to less-than-ideal news. She was going to lose her hands and feet as a result of the sepsis.
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After the initial procedures and months of recovery, Henze had to adjust to her new way of life. "It was definitely really strange. I had to relearn everything because there was so much I couldn't do independently. I had to learn to rely on my family members a lot more to help me do basic things, like going to the washroom, showering and eating."
However, through it all, the TikTok sensation managed to come out of an immensely difficult situation with a lighter, reflective perspective. "My biggest takeaway is that I don't know if it happened for a reason, but I feel like this happening to me was definitely an opportunity to realize I can help inspire people by sharing my story. For septic shock, there's only a 28% rate of survival. The fact that I was able to survive it definitely means something."
