Dolores Black

On May 13th 2016 my Grandmother was taken into an emergency appointment with her physician due to rapid declining health; suddenly unable to walk, unable to eat, having delusions, etc. Her physician said she needed to be admitted to the hospital right away. Once she was at the hospital, they realized that her previously diagnosed (years prior) atrial fibrillation must have been to blame, since her heart rate was extremely sporadic.

After days of upping her dose on her a-fib medicine and adding a beta blocker into the mix, the hospital insisted that she was fine and ready to be discharged to a rehab facility to get stronger due to her weakened muscles. My family begged the hospital to not discharge her. She had only gotten worse since she had been admitted. Not only was her heart rate NOT under control, she had developed a deep, loud cough. We blamed this on the hospital keeping her bedridden the entire time she was there (5 days).

Once she got the rehab facility, it all went downhill from there. Her stomach was bloated and she hadn’t had a bowel movement in nearly a week. The confusion worsened and while she had very little appetite before, she flat out refused any type of food or drink after arriving at the rehab facility. The rehab facility would carry her out of bed and put her on an exercise bike wanting her to get the blood moving and gain some strength back, but she was so extremely sick that she couldn’t move. We watched her for 4 days get worse, eventually gasping for air and unable to talk. The rehab facility wasn’t equipped for such medical emergencies, so they informed us after seeing how low her blood pressure was that they’d need to transfer her to a hospital ASAP. This time was decided NOT to send her to the original hospital who dismissed her sickness and discharged her even after we begged them not to.

She was rushed to another local hospital at 1 am. When she came in, doctors and nurses were all over her, getting vitals, taking samples and actually working to find out what was wrong with her. It only took 10 minutes for the head ER doctor to come out and yell to his staff, “IT’S NOT A-FIB, IT’S SEPSIS!” Her body was rampant with sepsis due to cholecystitis (severe infection of the gall bladder) which in turn made her heart race uncontrollably. It only took 10 minutes for a doctor to see an abnormal lactic acid level in her blood while we watched her in the original hospital deteriorate over 5 days and had our concerns fall on deaf ears. We had high hopes; we thought maybe if they could remove her gall bladder we could fight the sepsis. But, it had already been too long and she was already too weak.

The doctors informed us that she wasn’t strong enough to have the gall bladder surgery, let alone just the insertion of a tube that would help drain the infection for the time being. She was so sick, and we eventually had to make the difficult decision to put her in hospice during her last days. She hadn’t eaten for weeks, couldn’t drink any liquids, and she suffered immensely. It was one of the most disturbing and upsetting deaths that anyone could witness. On June 2nd, 2016, she succumbed to her illness.

I have a lot of anger towards the original hospital who dismissed her pain, bloating stomach and breathing issues and discharged her like she didn’t matter. The only thing hospitals care about any more is how quickly they can turn a bed over and get the next patient in it. Total loss of compassion.

Source: Lindsay Sontag (Delores's granddaughter)