My Story
I lost my wife of 27 years to complications following scoliosissurgery. It was a rollercoaster that started back in March 2014. Thesurgerywas long, but successful. We had planned on having thissurgeryfor over a year, and I was so relieved when I got to see her in ICU after 9-1/2 hours in the O.R. The risky part was over.After about a week, she was admitted to the rehab hospital to begin P.T. She wasn't progressing as fast as expected, but eventually she was discharged. But something wasn't right. On Easter Sunday, I took her to the E.R., and she was diagnosed with kidney and liver failure. After another week in ICU, the doctors discharged her and we were back on our way home. Dehydration and too muchacetaminophen, I was told.Next came our follow-up appointment with the orthopedist. "We have a problem," he calmly said. Some of the pedicle posts near her neck had pulled out, and she now had a compression fracture in C4. Back tosurgery. It was successful, and we're finally on the road to recovery.Then another setback. While on the ortho floor, her heart started racing and they called a code. Blood pressure plummeted, and then spiked up. She had a dozen IV bags hooked up to her and the doctors and nurses worked all night to stabilize her blood pressure. "We think she has a pulmonary embolism," I'm told. Another CT scan. No embolism, the doctor says she may have had an aortic dissection.Things worsen, we life-flight to a heart hospital that perhaps can perform a tricky operation to repair the dissection. But after we arrived, the doctor examined her and says her liver and intestines had their blood flow stopped for too long, and the organs have died. There is nothing to do but stop the medicines and let nature take its course. This takes about two hours.The first couple of weeks, I was so numb I'm not sure how I arranged a funeral, greeted friends and family, and took care of the "business" part of dying. The phone was ringing off the hook, and food, cards and flowers poured in. To make matters worse, the day of the funeral, our (her) little dog died suddenly. I'm not sure how she knew, but I think she died of a broken heart.After a few more weeks, the phone stopped ringing, and the flow of cards slowly dried up and stopped. An endless stream of medical bills now takes the place of sympathy cards. Everyone has pretty much returned to their normal routines. Except me. I am officially alone.
Replies
Steve, oh my Lord I am so sorry. Your tragedy absolutely breaks my heart. You have been through so very much and while I did lose my Frankie, I didn\'t lose him tragically this way....I am so sorry for your pain must be insurmountable. I completely understand about friends/family just filtering out and going about their lives. It\'s true, people can be so wonderful and usually are when something like this happens, the love that pours in is overwhelming but so is the tragedy you\'re dealing with, and it seems when the caretaker needs it most is when everyone has gone about their own way. During the planning of the funeral and just after the death we are numb, walking around like a robot just doing what we can to get through. Reality hasn\'t sunk in and wont for quite a while for some. It didn\'t sink in for me until just about a month ago. Frank died November 17 2013 and as I type that to you I just cant believe it. Some days it seems like it\'s been 20 years, some days it seems like it\'s been 20 minutes ago.
Steve I pray you find comfort and peace throughout all of this. Please continue to write here, it has been so cathartic for me.
Hugs to you,
Cindy
Hello Steve,
I can relate to what you are going through. Wen my husband was ill friend and family visited. A few months after we are left alone. I guess one has to content with the loneliness.
Some days are better than others. I feel your pain. Be gentle on yourself.
Hope the kids and grandchild are well.
Christine
Dear Steve:
I just read your description of what happened to your wife in the hospital. It is so shocking and that \"aortic dissection\" diagnosis is so horrible. My husband Roy died a day after an apparent heart attack, when he went in for a cardiac catheterization and just stopped breathing and they called a code. He only lived for about one hour after that. The aortic dissection only showed up on the post-mortem exam. It\'s horrible and so frightening that something so tremendously dangerous can happen while they were in doctor\'s care. I understand your shock and grief completely. I personally am also feeling guilt because when my husband had chest pain and we went to the ER, we also kept telling them about his back pain and some vision changes, but they were treating the apparent heart attack and no one even mentioned aortic aneurism or aortic dissection as a possibility, and it was just one day later when he died from it. I wish I had pressed harder to ask if it could have been anything other than a heart attack, and maybe they would have treated it appropriately. My feeling at this time is that the aortic dissection is so terribly deadly that they probably could not have done anything to save him even if they knew what it was, but it\'s horrifying to think about that too. I\'m sorry to maybe overshare, but I haven\'t really known anyone else who had a loved one with an aortic dissection diagnosis. thank you for being open about it. I hope you are doing OK or as OK as possible. I\'m trying my best to process the shock and think through the events and make peace with it, but nowhere near there yet.