Last Chapter For Jeff
My brother Jeff died last week of complications arising from a shoulder operation, during which an Ohio hospital gave him a blood transfusion with hepatitis-contaminated blood.
He was a 50-year-old blue-collar rebel. He parachuted, flew planes and rode motorcycles when he was a younger adventurer.
He leaves behind a wife, a son and two daughters.
I haven’t been able to write a thing about this until now, and I still find I’m unable to say much. He was on a list to receive a liver transplant. Some doctor thought he was strong enough to be able to handle interferon in order to fight off the hepatitis before a new liver came.
He wasn’t strong enough. They took him to the hospital with a serious staff infection in his shoulder, which spread throughout his body. He got pneumonia and his kidneys failed.
It is extremely difficult for me not to believe that the American medical/insurance industry failed him if it/they did not kill him outright.
I still have work to do learning to deal with his loss, but it’s his widow and his children who will continue to suffer from this.
I hope he and I can put in a vegetable garden together someday if it turns out there really is such a thing as heaven, they have something approximating dirt there and they decide to let me in.
→ B.Dunn, Apr 02, 2006, 06 52 pm
Sorry to hear about you loss. Hope the family is well.
— Scott Freiman May 3, 09:24 pm #
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I am sorry for your loss Bob. My sister went into the hospital in Oct of 2004 for an emergency gall-bladder removal. She stayed until July 1, 2005 (her birthday) when she died. We still don’t know why. She got pneumonia twice, a rare? blood infection, diabetes (from being on IV’s), her kidneys failed, her blood pressure dropped, she slipped into a coma twice, and AFTER all that, she got better, went to a rehab center to learn how to walk so she could go home. The family visited on her birthday (even took her cat), at 8:oo p.m. she was awake, co-herent, and responsive. The family went home and the nurse found her deceased at 2:00 a.m. She was 51, no husband, no children, but 9 siblings and a mother and dad all came together (first time in 20 years we were all home at the same time) for the funeral. What a horrible reason for a long over-due reunion. It’s been 10 months and I am still angry. How can someone go thru all that and die with no explanation?
— denise Peace-Wheeler May 11, 10:35 am #
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