Jackie Duda | Journalist
Sepsis Survivor

I taught English in Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland for nine years before launching a career as a freelance journalist in 2001. I wrote for The Washington Post, Woman's Day, Costco Connection, and other local and national health, lifestyle, and travel publications. My work also appeared regularly in medical trade journals such as: AMSA The New Physician, Impact, the Journal of the Academy of General Dentistry, MGMA Connection, Nursing Spectrum Magazine, American Institute for Cancer Research, and Drug Benefit Trends. I was an in-demand writer until 2012, when my career came to a screeching halt because of complications from a disabling clinical cocktail of Crohn's Disease, POTS, and Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. I had to use a wheelchair or mobility scooter to get any kind of distance from my weakened hips and legs. On May 22, 2021, an acute colon perforation quickly led to septic shock. I was immediately diagnosed in the emergency room at Meritus Medical Center in Hagerstown, MD, where I was intubated and flown to R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma in Baltimore for life saving surgery to remove half of my colon. I spent over a week in ICU and a month in the hospital learning how to walk and talk care of myself again. After spending the next year in intensive physical and occupational rehabilitation, I reached out to former editors and gave writing another shot. I also became strong enough to donate my wheelchair and scooter. Swimming was a game changer over the course of my physical rehabilitation. I'm back at my journalism career, and, working as a sepsis educator in my local community, along with being a sepsis and disability advocate. I'm also making my way back into working with addiction and recovery communities. My sepsis story appeared in The Washington Post in September 2023, and I was also interviewed by WBAL11 tv news at Shock Trauma about my sepsis experience. My work is appearing once again in national and international media outlets. I'm writing again for The Washington Post, Costco Connection, with a few new gigs with AARP and The Healthy, a Reader's Digest brand. I hope to publish my first non-fiction book in late 2025.