Joseph Ponsi

My Dad’s medical history, which spanned over a four-month period, is a complicated one. He went from a spry 72-year-old over the summer to not being able to get out of a hospital bed. Dad had urinary issues over the summer that were misdiagnosed at first as a UTI. When the antibiotics didn’t help he was misdiagnosed again. This time his doctor thought it was BPH or benign prostatic hyperplasia. After two surgeries to try and correct it, he was then diagnosed with a rare cancer that effected his urethra and bladder. Hearing this news was heartbreaking for all of us.

My Dad was terrified. His father and two brothers passed away from cancer. My sister and I immediately contacted doctors at MSK to get my Dad an appointment. Unfortunately he never made the appointment as he had a stroke a week later and ended up in the hospital. Dad lost the use of his right hand/arm and partial paralysis in his right leg. The stroke also affected his speech. He was in the hospital for 35 days. For the first two weeks after the carotid surgery, he tried so hard to feed himself with his left hand. He tried so hard to communicate with us. He was determined to get out and move on to rehab. All the while the cancer diagnosis in the back of our minds. Every day there seemed to be another complication whether it be his creatinine levels going up or his hemoglobin dropping. He was fading before our eyes… This was not my Daddy.

There was nothing anyone could do for him and it was breaking our hearts. On the last day of his life he had dialysis as well as a blood transfusion. Two hours later he started with the chills and then a high fever. One of his nurses noticed his fever and immediately called the hospitalist. The next thing I know there are half a dozen people in his room taking different tests. Dad lay there with no ability to speak or tell anyone what he was feeling. He was just moaning. I will never forget. I wish I could but something like this is so hard to erase from your mind. I had heard a doctor say to a nurse “sepsis.” I immediately asked if he had an infection and was told they are looking in to that but most likely… I had no clue what sepsis was but immediately googled it. My heart dropped.

An antibiotic was ordered but showed up three hours later and by then it was too late. It turns out Dad contracted a bacteria called Enterobacter cloacae which caused his sepsis. We sat around Dad’s bed holding his hand while he was given a morphine drip to ease the pain. Dad passed away four hours later. We will never know how soon the cancer would have taken my Dad if the sepsis hadn’t occurred. It is so unfortunate that Dad never made it to see an oncologist or rehab. He was dealt a really bad hand, two major health issues simultaneously. It is still a shock that he is gone.

Source: Kimberly Karcich, Daughter