Michael B.

My beloved husband, Michael B. was a victim of septic shock on July 18, 2016.  And my life will never be the same, I lost the love of my life, and my soul mate. He had COPD & A-fib, but was doing well, all things considered. (Sepsis and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease)

The nightmare started on July 16, 2016.  Although he was feeling “exceptionally well” the previous day, around 5 PM that Saturday – he called me in from my yard work, and said he was in extreme abdominal pain. We thought it was the esophagus pain he normally had, and it would go away in about an hour. It was becoming clear this was not going away, and he was getting sweaty & felt dizzy.  I drove him to Emergency, and after they ruled out a heart attack in triage, he was brought into a room in ED, and he was basically left there for 7-8 hours. I begged the doctors to help him more, I don’t remember if they even took blood work, just kept giving him IV pain meds. The pain was not letting up, and I spoke to the new doctor after the shift change around 11 PM, and he said his vital numbers were OK, his BP was high – but that was expected because of the pain. The doctor told me he felt he had a “good prognosis” and he felt confident he would be OK, and after midnight I decided to go home to rest, after he fell asleep – I didn’t want to wake him because he was getting relief from the pain.

When I got home, I called the hospital and talked to the nurse who was attending him in ER, he was still there, but they were trying to get a room for him. This was about 1:30 AM. Sometime between then & 3 AM – they got him into a room.

At 4:30 am I got the call everybody who has a loved one in hospital dreads. The doctor told me my husband woke up about 3 AM having trouble breathing, had to be intubated and was in ICU. I immediately called his sister and her husband who lived closer to the hospital than I did, and they went down and called me to report on his condition. Jim sounded a little more hopeful that Michael was stabilizing a little. By the time I got to the hospital, the doctor gathered us family members into a side room and told us my husband was a very sick man. Among the issues he listed was sepsis, and that they had him on a broad spectrum antibiotic and were trying to isolate the actual bacteria. His kidneys were starting to shut down, not producing urine, and his blood pressure very very low.  I was in shock, and the staff did not give us any hope for his recovery.

We kept vigil during the day, and by evening – they were going to try dialysis. We went home with a little hope, and the kidney doctor called me at home, sounded a little more encouraging, and said they’d call me in a few hours. That call never came, but another doctor called me after 1 AM, saying they couldn’t do the dialysis because his heart was going into Afib and his blood pressure was too low. They didn’t expect him to last the night. I called his sister and her husband again, and they were on their way. Before I could get ready to go down, I got another call saying his heart stopped – did I want them to do CPR? Yes – of course – try anything. Ten minutes later – he called again, and said he was sorry – they couldn’t restart his heart. My beloved husband went  home to be with Jesus @ 1:57 AM 7-18-16. My life died with him.

I feel that the ER did not recognize the fact that he had the start of sepsis.  It was documented in his medical records that he did have diverticulosis in a hospital CAT scan in 2014. WHY didn’t the staff see that in his records that this hospital had access to?

The cause of death on the death certificate was listed as septic shock from gram negative bacteremia resulting from diverticulitis.  By the way – we were NEVER told that he had developed diverticulosus from the 2014 CAT scan.

Source: Karen (Michael's wife)