Doug Cantrell

My father passed away 9 weeks ago with what I believe was sepsis.

Six weeks prior to his death, he came down with what he thought was a stomach bug. He had a high fever, chills, diarrhea, and just felt bad in general. After a couple of days he thought he was over it. The symptoms returned two weeks later and lasted 24 – 48 hours. Once again he thought a recurring stomach bug and thought he was over it.

One week later the episode, as he called it, happened again and started coming and going more frequently. He remembered he had eaten raw oysters around the time he first got sick and thought he might have a parasite. This revelation came to him shortly before he died. He never got around to getting the meds for it. He continued to become sick more frequently though continued to work.

The weekend before he died, I know something serious was wrong but he would not see the doctor. I was in constant contact with him until May 1st when I could not reach him for several hours. We discovered that he had collapsed in his apartment. He was in shock and rushed to the hospital. They found he had a heart attack within the last 12 hours. He was in complete renal failure, could not stabilize his blood pressure or blood sugar.

My father was transferred to ICU where the doctor there told us he was septic. He said the heart attack was just a symptom of what was going on. My father died 15 hours later when his heart stopped and he could not be revived. His extremities had turned blue and he never did wake up. They wanted to rule his death myocardial infarction but with all the circumstances surrounding his death we requested an autopsy. The medical examiner picked up his body and later he was cremated. After much waiting we finally received the autopsy report only to find out an autopsy was not performed. They did an external examination and ruled his death a heart attack. I know he died from sepsis but we don’t know the cause. He ate raw oysters, had a UTI during that time as well as teeth cleaning for the first time in many years.

I believe in the end, after my research it was probably the UTI that caused the sepsis. If he had gone to a doctor he might still be here today.

Source: by Marie Crawley (Doug's daughter)