Left side shows a person lying in a hospital bed with breathing tubes and in a hospital gown. Right side shows a woman with blonde hair wearing a red blazer, black top, jeans, and sneakers, standing against a purple background with white text.

Hi, I’m Jackie.

I survived sepsis. And then I had to figure out what surviving actually meant.

In April 2015, a surgical complication led to septic shock. I coded twice. My organs began shutting down. My life became about one thing: surviving.

And I did.

But what I wasn't prepared for was everything that came after.

I left the hospital alive, but I didn't leave with a roadmap for what recovery might look like. There were changes in my body, my health, and the way I moved through the world that I didn't always understand. There were questions I didn't know to ask and connections I didn't know to make. I had survived something enormous.

So why did I feel like I had zero instructions for what came next?

That question eventually became Zero Instructions.

This isn't a story about having all the answers.

Because I don't.

Zero Instructions exists because I know what it feels like to be grateful to be alive and still need help understanding what happened to you.

It's for the survivor Googling something months or years later and wondering, Could this have something to do with sepsis?

It's for the caregiver who spent so much time keeping someone else alive that no one stopped to ask how they were doing.

It's for the conversations we aren't having enough, the questions we didn't know we were allowed to ask, and the things survivors often end up learning from one another.

I want this to be a place where you can come exactly as you are. Read someone else's story. Find a resource. Learn what questions you might want to ask. Feel seen. And maybe have one of those moments where you think:

Wait... you too?

A woman with blond hair holding a framed certificate from the State of Washington. The certificate has an official seal and a signature from Governor Bob Ferguson. She is smiling, and in the background, there is a bookshelf with books.
Side-by-side of a woman in a hospital bed recovering before and a woman standing and flexing her arm after recovery at home.

As I navigated my own life after sepsis, one thing became increasingly clear: surviving wasn't the end of advocating for myself. In many ways, it was the beginning.

That's what eventually led me to create the VOICE Framework:

Validate. Own Your Timeline. Inform. Connect. Expect to Advocate.

Not because recovery follows five neat steps. It doesn't.

VOICE is simply a place to begin when you don't know where to begin. A way to remind yourself that what you're experiencing matters, your recovery doesn't have to look like anyone else's, you can keep asking questions, you don't have to carry this alone, and you are allowed to use your voice. In fact, the rest of us are counting on it!

You survived the unsurvivable.

Maybe your experience looks nothing like mine. Maybe parts of it feel eerily familiar.

Either way, I'm glad you found your way here.

Because leaving the hospital shouldn't mean being left on your own to figure out the rest.

Surviving is only the beginning.

Jackie Yeagley
Founder, Zero Instructions

A handwritten heart and the phrase 'Jaque Yeahey' in white on a black background.