Hilary Sheppard

On Wednesday September 24th, my mum was fine, having her hair done with my auntie by a mobile hairdresser, laughing and joking. My mum had emphysema but had recently had oxygen fitted in her house. She was feeling better than she had in ages.

Thursday, the 25th of September, my auntie rang my mum at quarter to 9 like she did every morning. There was no answer. After trying several times, my auntie got concerned so went to my mum’s, let herself in, and found my mum in her chair unresponsive and breathing with difficulty. She phoned the ambulance and me. I was there in minutes. We followed the ambulance to the hospital. My mum was in resuss for 3 hours. They said she had less than 50 per cent chance of surviving. They put her into a deeper coma, on a ventilator and so many drugs.

Friday, the 26th, they took her for another body scan and had to transfer her to mobile machines; 2 doctors, 5 nurses, and 2 porters took her to the body scan. By now they told us she was in septic shock. They couldn’t find where the infection was coming from. I told them my mum had a bang on her arm and there was a sore, and also that at times, she suffered with cellulitis, but they said it wasn’t that.

By the afternoon, they put her on a kidney machine too. She only had one kidney and it wasn’t working properly. By 7 that evening the doctor called me (I was the only child), my 3 grown children, my partner, my aunt, and cousin into a room. He told us he was very sorry but there was no more he could do. She wasn’t responding to treatment. Her organs were failing, the kidney had failed. Her blood pressure kept dropping even though she was on the highest drug they could give her for that without her having a heart attack. They said there was no way she would make it but if there was a 1 per cent chance she would she would be severely disabled. But his medical opinion she wouldn’t last the weekend.

So at half past 11 that Friday night, they stopped the blood pressure meds and turned down the ventilator. By 10 to 12 she died. It took 20 minutes. Her death certificate said septic shock due to a severe water infection.

Source: by Tracey Griffiths (Hilary's daughter)