Brooke Pacifico

Tragedy struck our family Oct.4, 2016. My beautiful daughter had become septic. No one knew. We just thought she wasn’t feeling well. She just wanted to rest a bit. She said she was ok and told her fiance to go and run his errands. When he got back 5 hrs later, she was in bad shape. I told him to call 911.

When I got there she was on the bathroom floor holding her belly. Her eyes weren’t focusing on me when I tried to talk to her. Paramedics were only focused that this was possibly an overdose even though I told them she didn’t use drugs. They gave her Narcan. It did nothing. She went into cardiac arrest. They stabilized her and got her to the ER. They made us go into a private area. The doctor couldn’t leave her side as she was still crashing. 4 more times, which I was not aware.

It tooks hours for toxicology reports to come back. Again, focused on drugs.
She had organ failure. They said she was critical and put her on a ventilator.
She was on dialysis as well. The hospital chaplain was with us. We prayed but I was numb. They kept saying she’s very critical but I just kept saying, do something, help her. I never really thought she could die.

She died the next day at age 28.

Now, we learned from the pathology report what caused the sepsis. It was from enterocolitis. Brooke was constipated her whole life. Never could get any real help from her doctors and pediatricians. “Drink water, eat more fiber” is all we got. She just learned to live with her chronic constipation. Over the years, her intestinal walls had thinned out so much that fecal matter seeped in, killing her.

Our family was completely devastated as you can imagine. I tried to get this info out there in my local community but our news station and newspaper didn’t seem too interested. I wanted to let people know that if you’re living with constipation, don’t assume it’s just the way your body is. Brooke had no idea what was happening inside of her body.

She was a beautiful person inside and out. She was a caregiver and loved animals. She loved life but was taken way too soon.

Source: Kelly Pacifico, mother