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dave44widow

Member
Joined
Aug 26, 2008
Messages
7
Location
juneau, ak
so, anyone out there a widow like me following horrible medical/surgical care?
i watched my husband be an experiment for medical students for three weeks and i finally said stop! we are kinder to our pets when we put them to sleep when they are sick! i made the right decision for my husband because he is at peace, but not the right decision for me-how does one live with the sadness and emptiness? had my husband been a politician or an actor he would have received better care. doubtful that robin williams' cardiothoracic surgeon or ted kennedy's neurosurgeon left them in the care of a student and managed their care via cellphone, not that i wish anyone to receive horrible care.

i often wonder if there are others out there like me who have ptsd after watching the suffering their loved one had to go through after surgery. i continue to carry on and function, working and going through the motions of life but that is all. my husband had his surgery on my fiftieth birthday and his last words to me were, " this is your birthday present. i'll be better now." his last coherent words to me. he was a dear, sweet, kind man and no one should have to suffer so before they die. and, yes, i take antidepressants and have done the therapy route.

i'll stop now and see if anyone responds-am i alone or are there others that have had similar, traumatizing experiences with their loved ones?
 
My aunt is going through the exact same thing, a very healthy full of life man went in for gallbladder surgery two years ago and never came home! It was awful, the lack of care and concern from the doctors was just horrible. It went from a easy daily surgery to ICU, staph infection, life support to breathing problems to heart problems. (you would NEVER have thought he had been sick one day of his life) It is just such a shock and so painful for her and there daughter and son. We are still in shock after two years! My husband is in the medical field and he says it happens a lot more than you would think! Make sure of your doctors and make sure they will be on staff the week of any surgery, even on call! So sorry for your lose and many prayers for you!!! God Bless!
 
I'm so sorry to hear about the loss of your husband. I cannot imagine what you are feeling now but please know there are others here that have experienced similar situations. It may be a day or so before they come across your post and respond, but hopefully they will. You may find it interesting to read about surgeons at this site that rates doctors and accepts patient and staff reviews.

http://www.vitals.com/

Take care,
John
 
I am so sorry for your loss. I have a similar situation, though my son is not dead, but he is in the hospital in renal and heart failure (see my other post about Brian being in the hospital). He receives great care where he is now, but he is in this position because the pediatric cardiologist said "let me reassure you 100%, this is not a cardiology issue". Well his aorta was dissecting and he had a massive heart attack a few days later that has ruined his heart. Now he is also in renal failure. I most certainly have had PTSD and I just recently relented and went on anti-depressants. You are not alone and it truly sucks. I am so scared that I will have to make end of life decisions for my son, I can only imagine how hard that is even when you know you are doing the right thing. Again, I am so sorry for your loss and I think your emotions are quite normal and understandable. There is a lot of support on this site.
 
I'm so sorry for your loss. My grandmother went into the doctor for the flu, which turned out to be a mild heart attack. 3 weeks later she was dead from a massive infection, likely picked up at the hospital.

The toughest part of my own surgery for my family was when I gave them my end of life directive. My father couldn't talk to me and my mother and fiancee were devastated. Even my brother didn't want to have to make a decision.

I wish Brian all the best, and I know that I can't imagine what david44widow is going through - live your life to the fullest to honor you both. I know that it's what I would want if I hadn't made it through.
 
so, anyone out there a widow like me following horrible medical/surgical care?
i watched my husband be an experiment for medical students for three weeks and i finally said stop! we are kinder to our pets when we put them to sleep when they are sick! i made the right decision for my husband because he is at peace, but not the right decision for me-how does one live with the sadness and emptiness? had my husband been a politician or an actor he would have received better care. doubtful that robin williams' cardiothoracic surgeon or ted kennedy's neurosurgeon left them in the care of a student and managed their care via cellphone, not that i wish anyone to receive horrible care.

i often wonder if there are others out there like me who have ptsd after watching the suffering their loved one had to go through after surgery. i continue to carry on and function, working and going through the motions of life but that is all. my husband had his surgery on my fiftieth birthday and his last words to me were, " this is your birthday present. i'll be better now." his last coherent words to me. he was a dear, sweet, kind man and no one should have to suffer so before they die. and, yes, i take antidepressants and have done the therapy route.

i'll stop now and see if anyone responds-am i alone or are there others that have had similar, traumatizing experiences with their loved ones?


Dave44 yup years ago my ex husband died in my arms in icu
he had 3 open heart surgeries in his lifetime,died at a young age
i was in icu and things went bad and i was seperated at the time
from him was married 10 yrs and what i saw and what they did will
stay with me forever and i have never even spending our 10 years of
marrige before seperation,never ever stepped foot back in that hospital
and 10 years of it was cosecutively there all the time,he was very ill
all the time with his heart and needed blood transfusions on a timely
basis,but what i saw and what i had witnessed i too have a hard time
speaking about what i witnessed and yet these things happen and did.
It too was a training hospital and very traumatizing and when i had my
own 2nd ohs in a different hospital in Jan and in icu the familiarities
of icu there still haunt me.Any icu is my reminder
Really i thought i was the only one and am so glad to see your
post on this,he too died in icu at that time and i do relive that
tragic scene alot and replay it in my mind,not something that you
ever forget ever.Very traumatizing event that took place,and i wasnot
ready for any of it i have 2 children from this husband and i remarried
now married 23 years 2nd marriage and im only 48 and been around the
world so to speak between 1st hubby heart issues and my own now.

I'm so sorry you had to go through this and my condolences to
you,but dont feel alone i have been there too.((HUGS)) to you
you have endured alot in life also,feel free to pm me if you need
a shoulder:)
 
My aunt is going through the exact same thing, a very healthy full of life man went in for gallbladder surgery two years ago and never came home! It was awful, the lack of care and concern from the doctors was just horrible. It went from a easy daily surgery to ICU, staph infection, life support to breathing problems to heart problems. (you would NEVER have thought he had been sick one day of his life) It is just such a shock and so painful for her and there daughter and son. We are still in shock after two years! My husband is in the medical field and he says it happens a lot more than you would think! Make sure of your doctors and make sure they will be on staff the week of any surgery, even on call! So sorry for your lose and many prayers for you!!! God Bless!

i am so sad for your aunt-gallbladder surgery should be so simple and in and out. i am a nurse and worked at a small teaching hospital when my husband died. i saw many things on a small level but not to the degree i saw for my husband. i wish i was strong enough to make big changes. i fought everyday to just help patient's navigate a overly complicated system for poor care, and this is an ivy league, well to do instituition. students have to learn but they need to be well supervised. i had some rather unfortunate experiences as a patient at the small teaching hospital where i worked and saw unfortunate and degrading things happen to other patients but nothing to the degree of what i saw in the SICU where my husband was treated. it was not just my husband who was treated poorly, it was universal but his surgeon was especially neglectful. nursing care was also substandard. i was embarrassed to tell people i was a nurse.

i have made a career change away from hospital nursing, if i could afford it i would no longer be a nurse at all. i could not stand the daily reminders of people being shuffled from one specialty to another and no one really seeing the whole patient, only the part that had been referred. my husband had three strokes but somehow, no one could focus on anything but his heart. when he died, that was probably the best functioning system in his body. no matter that all other systems, renal, respiratory,gi, neurologic, were failing; the focus was on his heart. i asked for an internal medicine consult and was told that the ct surgeons took care of their own. thank goodness for the neurosurgeon who was not afraid of the truth. my husband's brain was mush! the heart surgeons would have continued to torture him had i not stopped it. oh my, sorry to go on so.

i did not want my husband to have surgery where he did or when he did. i did not like the surgeon or his office. my husband and i argued about this and it makes me sad that our last week together had that tension. we had a wonderful marriage and i think more of that, but anger at the thought that some of that last good time was spent in disagreement.

my husband was my family. i hope your aunt and children will recover with the love and support of their family. it makes such a difference.

it has actually been over three years for me and i cannot believe that recovery is so hard. i do not know what keeps me going except my three dogs and cat. silly, but they are my reason for being.....

thank you for your support. i did not really expect much in the way of response.

my best wishes to your aunt and family and to you for being there for them.
 
I'm so sorry to hear about the loss of your husband. I cannot imagine what you are feeling now but please know there are others here that have experienced similar situations. It may be a day or so before they come across your post and respond, but hopefully they will. You may find it interesting to read about surgeons at this site that rates doctors and accepts patient and staff reviews.

http://www.vitals.com/

Take care,
John

thank you for your response. my husband's doctor is "renowned" and has glowing references all over the internet. however, when i went to the vitals.com site, the only review was from a nurse that had worked with the surgeon and has him pegged to a t-not a glowing report. i am a nurse and maybe that was the sense i had as i did not like the surgeon nor want my husband to have surgery at that hospital. interestingly enough, i wanted him to go to the cleveland clinic. perhaps he still would have had complications and died but i think it would have been handled very differently. it is not his death that is so hard to accept but the misery he had to endure. we lived in alaska for many years and he would go out fishing every sunday and people would ask me if i worried about him. i would so no, if he fell over and died, at least he would have been happy. not the case after three weeks in hell known as a SICU.

enough said and thank you again for your response.
 
I am so sorry for your loss. I have a similar situation, though my son is not dead, but he is in the hospital in renal and heart failure (see my other post about Brian being in the hospital). He receives great care where he is now, but he is in this position because the pediatric cardiologist said "let me reassure you 100%, this is not a cardiology issue". Well his aorta was dissecting and he had a massive heart attack a few days later that has ruined his heart. Now he is also in renal failure. I most certainly have had PTSD and I just recently relented and went on anti-depressants. You are not alone and it truly sucks. I am so scared that I will have to make end of life decisions for my son, I can only imagine how hard that is even when you know you are doing the right thing. Again, I am so sorry for your loss and I think your emotions are quite normal and understandable. There is a lot of support on this site.

oh my, my heart goes out to you. whenever i hear of a young person so ill or dying, i am at least grateful my husband was able to live his life. it was horrible to lose him but it cannot compare to what you are going through. i, too, hope you do not have to make end of life decisions for your son. it is not a decision i want to have to make again. as i said, i know i made the right decision for him, but not the right decision for me. i wish i had something more positive to say about that part of it. it is an awful decision to make. and, knowing what i went through in three weeks with my husband and now with ptsd (i really was a strong and sane person before all this) i am imaging you have been through so much more. my blood boils when i hear things like what the pediatric cardiologist said to you. it is similar to what i was told when i questioned my husband's neurological status after surgery. what right do they have to be so supercilious and demeaning!

oh, it does no good to add fuel to the fire. my best to you and to brian. he is a lucky young man to have you there to advocate for him. not every parent is strong enough.

i will check in from time to time to see how you and brian are doing. thank you for taking the time to respond to me, how kind considering all you are handling now.
 
Dave44 yup years ago my ex husband died in my arms in icu
he had 3 open heart surgeries in his lifetime,died at a young age
i was in icu and things went bad and i was seperated at the time
from him was married 10 yrs and what i saw and what they did will
stay with me forever and i have never even spending our 10 years of
marrige before seperation,never ever stepped foot back in that hospital
and 10 years of it was cosecutively there all the time,he was very ill
all the time with his heart and needed blood transfusions on a timely
basis,but what i saw and what i had witnessed i too have a hard time
speaking about what i witnessed and yet these things happen and did.
It too was a training hospital and very traumatizing and when i had my
own 2nd ohs in a different hospital in Jan and in icu the familiarities
of icu there still haunt me.Any icu is my reminder
Really i thought i was the only one and am so glad to see your
post on this,he too died in icu at that time and i do relive that
tragic scene alot and replay it in my mind,not something that you
ever forget ever.Very traumatizing event that took place,and i wasnot
ready for any of it i have 2 children from this husband and i remarried
now married 23 years 2nd marriage and im only 48 and been around the
world so to speak between 1st hubby heart issues and my own now.

I'm so sorry you had to go through this and my condolences to
you,but dont feel alone i have been there too.((HUGS)) to you
you have endured alot in life also,feel free to pm me if you need
a shoulder:)

you, too have been through a lot. wouldn't you think in this world of "modern" medicine we would not have to be tortured or stand on the sidelines and watch it happen. the SICU my husband was in tried to keep families out. i refused to stay out. i guess maybe other families don't get to see the awful things that go on....i don't know, maybe there would be more of an outcry if they did. i wish medical people could be honest and kind to familes.

it is good to know that others have had the same experiences, although i wish no one had to have them. i thought i must be some kind of weak minded sad soul who could not see horrible things. i did fight so hard for my husband. i wish i had strength to fight for others.

thank you, thank you for your support.
 
<<i could not stand the daily reminders of people being shuffled from one specialty to another and no one really seeing the whole patient, only the part that had been referred.>>

This is so true!!!!! My son saw so many specialists when he first got sick. Each one would say "no, it's not this, go talk to (fill in the blank)" The last time he was in the ER before his heart attack, after cardiology assured me his heart was fine, I begged him for help saying that no one was looking at the big picture and that I was not a Dr but they were making me responsible for figuring this out.

I was a normal sane person before this too. I know I will never be the same again.
 
<<i could not stand the daily reminders of people being shuffled from one specialty to another and no one really seeing the whole patient, only the part that had been referred.>>

This is so true!!!!! My son saw so many specialists when he first got sick. Each one would say "no, it's not this, go talk to (fill in the blank)" The last time he was in the ER before his heart attack, after cardiology assured me his heart was fine, I begged him for help saying that no one was looking at the big picture and that I was not a Dr but they were making me responsible for figuring this out.

I was a normal sane person before this too. I know I will never be the same again.

our very expensive medical system at work with tragic results. i know this is a trite saying but i think our pets are better cared for-they cannot talk to us so the vet has to work hard to put all the pieces together. and they are primarily generalists, not specialists. you are so right about the whole picture not being seen-all of our parts, all of our systems make us who we are, not just our heart, brain, kidneys, liver, skin, bones-they all HAVE to work together. it just makes me so sad. sad that you were not listened to, sad i was not listened to, and so many people out there who are brushed aside by our "renowned" physicians.

i have struggled to be the same person i was before my husband's death-even my mother said-"you are not as patient as you used to be." no, i am not. i am finally recognizing it is not just the me that was with my husband that is not the same, but my whole being, apart from the life i shared with my husband that will never be the same.

you are still normal and sane because you care about your son. it is the medical system that is insane.

my thoughts are with you and brian.
 
yes, this is a heartbreaking thread. I am so sorry for your loss. what a sorry state of affairs we have come to when a patient is lost because of failure of the 'system'. Please take care of yourself. I have said a prayer for you.
 
I'm sorry to read you are in so much pain. The odd thing is I read your post from a couple months ago just the other day, so was so surprised to see your name.
 
I can read the pain you are suffering in your post. I am so sorry for the loss of your husband and the way in came about. There is no excuse for the way he was treated. Hugs & prayers are coming your way right now.
 
Your post has struck many nerves for me. I helped my husband with his medical conditions for years and years. He was in and out of the hospital so many times throughout those years and under the care of many doctors of all specialities.

He had many very shocking situations with his care, in and out of the hospital, things that made me shudder, and still do. We both became very proactive with his care. We had to, to make sure he survived.

There were all kinds of things that happened from hospital filth, stupidity, mistakes to overt neglectful and unkind care. It was bad enough that when he was hospitalized, I felt that I had to be there every moment, and surprisingly, the ICUs were the absolute worst, and overnight in the ICUs was double worst.

Some of the things that happened still make me furious because they were so preventable. We fired several doctors and nurses too. In the end, Joe was taken care of by the best of the best. And I appreciate every one of the excellent doctors he had.

He survived a very long time because we were so proactive. But even with proactivity there were times when his care was so poor that he almost lost his life.

It will take a long time for you to find peace with what has happened, but I can tell you that you will get there. It has been almost 3 years since Joe passed away, and I am feeling much more peaceful. However, I can still summon up those old feelings if I dwell on some of the nastier things too long. Gradually I am able to put those into the background.

I believe that anyone who has witnessed a loved one develop critical conditions while hospitalized will have memories of the final days that are poignant and disturbing. Even with the best of care, so much of what is done to save someone's life is massively upsetting, all of the tubes going into and coming out of every orifice, all of the monitors and machinery, the IVs, everything causes angst. And when life can no longer be sustained, it is a letdown.

Do things now for you, and things that give you pleasure and make you relaxed. Allow yourself time to heal. I understand how you feel.
 
My prayers go out to each of you that has suffered loss, too often without reason. It would be inappropriate and perhaps dangerous for us to mention specific doctors or hospitals where we believe care was sub-standard. But if we have had quality care, from good doctors and staff, each of us should comment to that end, so that others may have that information. There are a lot of us now, and we have a great resourse of information we should share. Maybe there should be a forum marked something like "Recommendations".

My surgery was done by Dr. Robert March at Rush University in Chicago. It was all good.
 
I should also add that poor care did not happen in just one hospital, it happened at times in every one that Joe was in, from Boston, Mass. to Albany, NY to Schenectady, NY. There were also moments in each situation of extraordinary care from doctors and nurses. It wasn't all horrible.

But enough of it was that I urge everyone to be on guard at all times. You never know from one day to the next what may go wrong. And I am not being an alarmist. There have been way too many posts on this forum reporting the same things from all over the world actually.

You must advocate for yourself, and if you cannot, there needs to be someone else who will step up to the plate and do it for you.
 
I'm very sorry to read your post. I often think of what my life would be like if I lost my husband or child and simply can not imagine how terrible it would be.

My father died in March of this year. He went in for a routine surgery and never came out- never even had the surgery. My sister was with him as he lived on the East Coast while I live on the West. It was awful. Each nurse I spoke to told me something completely different- almost as if they were reading some else's chart. My sister told me terrible things. I bought a ticket to go out there, spoke to him, told him I was on my way- that I would advocate for him. He died an hour later. No one knows why- not even the ICU doctors. As I've read the reports it is clear that some people treated him for TB- which he did not have. They even put him in isolation for a time. It was increasingly clear that they were looking at someone else's chart while caring for him. My sister spoke to an attorney who said that because of his age it would be next to impossible to sue. Her reaction was to ask "just because of his age it makes it all ok?". I've been dealing with my own stuff and haven't really gotten involved yet. I've just been reading reports here and there and it is pretty horrific.
I think that people should be held accountable for mistakes. Maybe they need a refresher course..or.. if the error is grievous, perhaps a career change is in order- and I don't think the age of the patient should matter.

I don't know if this type of post helps-- but know you are not alone. My father's widow-- my step mom-- isn't dealing well with his passing. I've never seen such agony and true grief before. It isn't right. nothing makes it ok. Those who are left behind... it is worse for them..because those who have passed are at peace.
 

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