Robert Palmer

My husband and I spent 2 weeks vacationing in China the summer of 2014. The last week he felt crappy, though continued sightseeing. On the last day of our trip he stayed in bed with chills and a bad cough. He didn’t want to see a doctor in China but would once back in the States.

We left that night on a flight from Shanghai to LAX. By the time we arrived at LAX, he was in a lot of pain and walked very slowly through customs and slumped against a wall waiting for our baggage. I wanted to go straight to the ER, though he just wanted to go home to bed. That night, after being awoken by a crackling sound coming from his lungs, I woke him up and said he must have pneumonia and I’m calling an ambulance. He wanted me to drive him to the ER instead.

We arrived at the ER at 2 in the morning. His blood pressure was low (he always had high blood pressure). The nurse tried to put an IV in his arm, though he was agitated and kept pulling it out. He had blood on his lips and I thought he had bit his lip. I found out later that he had blood in his lungs.

They asked him on a scale of 1-10 what was his pain. He said a 10. They felt he needed to be transferred to a bigger hospital as he was very sick. They took him by ambulance at 6 am. By the time I got to the CICU at the bigger hospital, they had medicated him.

The doctor informed me they were trying to figure out what was wrong with him. They didn’t know if it was a bacterial or viral infection seeing we had just come from China. A half hour later, the doctor came out to tell me that he has sepsis. His organs were shutting down and he probably won’t make it. He died at 11 am. He was 57. We were only married for 8 months and 4 days. He had MRSA bacteria and Group B strep in his lungs as well as having pneumonia. (Sepsis and MRSA, Sepsis and Group B Strep) The doctor said when we arrived at LAX, he had 85% chance of mortality due to septic shock. I had never heard of sepsis.

Source: by Nancy Palmer (Robert's wife)