December 4th, 2006 by Atomictumor
Well, after an evening of picking up kids, heading to the bank, heading to pick up the death certificates, and heading to our Monday meal of Time-Out Deli (yum), here are what we have:
—
Printed, on the death certificate, are the 4 causes, in order of immediacy, of BJ’s death.
4: Cerebral Infailltion and herniation
3: Diseminated Intravascular Coagulation
2: Septic Shock
1: Pyelonephritis
A UTI, which BJ mentioned a week or two before getting sick that she might have. I told her to make a doc’s appointment, and she said she wasn’t sure if it was a UTI or not, and mentioned something to the effect of “Its just a urinary tract infection”.
It went to her pelvis, which explains her google searches for “pelvic tenderness”. This was a week before she got sick.
Would taking her to the doc earlier have prevented this? Maybe. Does it matter? Not yet, although I’m sure I’ll start riding myself about it in months and years to come, when she’s still dead.
Great.
December 4th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
I wish it could’ve mattered sooner, but just think of the other lives you might be saving down the road by someone reading this blog who might NOT have taken a UTI seriously, either.
Please don’t ever ride yourself for this. You loved her with every bit of your heart. Had either of you known, you would’ve handled it all differently.
Your children are beautiful, btw.
December 4th, 2006 at 6:52 pm
the “posted in pain” part is what got me … i am sorry.
December 4th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
“Does it matter?”
Uh, no. What matters is your health and the health of your sons.
December 4th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
No, it doesn’t matter. You can’t go back and change it. If it was her time, then there’s nothing you could’ve done to stop it (this is tip-toeing on the whole “Christ has a plan for everyone” type of thing.) Her passing will open someone’s eyes or better someone’s life. There is a meaning in it, somewhere.
December 4th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
Tons of people get UTIs and just like BJ thought they think it’s no big deal. It does no good to blame yourself or BJ for what has happened. Even if you had gone to the doctor that doesn’t mean she would be alive today.
December 4th, 2006 at 7:30 pm
A UTI?????? Geeze — This is not something that would even make the CDC’s most wanted — AT, nobody knew, I mean look how fast it moved — it was like the black plague or something. AT, you can’t own this. You are not a doctor — let the doctors own this one. They are the ones with the answers and are supposed to be objective to a “T” and do patient interviews and intakes. You did everything a good husband would do — beyond super human. Damn the would of, could of, should of. And the if’s too. This thing was moving like a bullet with impunity on it’s mind.
AT, in my book, you are a freaken hero who has stared down something that few of us will ever face. I know none of these word change anything — be mad, be anything, but don’t blame yourself. You fought for you and your boys — don’t gun yourself down for something that never would have occured to a room full of doctors.
December 4th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
My MexiChlo has had pyelo several times, and when she was 3 she was hospitalized with that and a nasty pneumonia. Little girls aren’t supposed to be blue and purple.
Anyway. Chloe will be 10 on Christmas Eve.
That startled me, seeing that there. Pyelonephritis. It’s a slinking word, twisty and strange just like kidneys are.
Right. You’re doing a good job. You know that.
December 4th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
You know, I don’t want to sound selfish when I say this… but BJ’s story is one I’ll share with my daughters when we talk about going to the doctor with “girl” problems. They need to hear it. I wouldn’t have thought a UTI could lead to anything as serious as your wife faced and have probably put off going myself in the past. I may even talk about it with my girl scout troop. Thanks AT for the post (and all your posts).
December 4th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
I hope you know that pyelonephritis was one of the things she was being treated for in the antibiotic cocktail she was getting. This wasn’t an ordinary kidney infection. This was something so catastrophic there was no treating it. It is extremely rare and beyond being clairvoyant, there is no way anyone could have known what would happen.
December 4th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
As most people have said, the UTI infection did NOT cause her death. She had underlying problems and the UTI was just part of the problem they had to deal with. Don’t start playing the “what if?” game, you need to be playing the “what now?” game. You seem to be doing that very well, so charge on! Oh, by the way, I know why Pigpen knocked out so quick…..his AC adapter came out! It’s lying next to him on the couch. Don’t you know little dudes have to be charged? LOL
December 4th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
How sweet you son looks sleeping on the couch. Precious.
December 4th, 2006 at 8:10 pm
i agree with damama … my friend who lost her baby girl when 8 months pregnant … the doc’s told her there was a sheath of some sort that protects the umbilical cord from getting twisted that was missing and that is how the cord was kinked and the baby died before she could even be born. my friend kept thinking “had i went into labor the day before, had i had the instinct to insist on labor, had i not moved just so to kink the cord … had i known we could have saved her …” and they couldn’t have, like damama said, short of being clairvoyant. peace bro … peace.
December 4th, 2006 at 8:29 pm
Yeah, guys, don’t get me wrong, I’m not beating myself up on this. I’m still sticking fast to my declaration of about a month ago that I’m not going to do that anymore.
I’m not really surprised at this. I mean, yeah, any way you cut it its going to have a root cause somewhere, I mean, it was just a freak infection gone awry.
The odds are the same as winning the lottery.
Whoo-hoo.
December 4th, 2006 at 8:29 pm
You can’t start thinking that way ,man.
Everone has done a wonder job of explaining why - but think of this…
If it were one of us wondering if we could have saved someone we loved by knowing something in retrospect, you’d call us out on it.
December 4th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
Yeah, ya won the shit lottery, that’s for sure. Yours was a bullet, mine was a slow moving train with my wife tied to the tracks. If we had gotten Anna to the doctor 2 months earlier, they would have caught her cancer before it had spread (and was still treatable with surgery). I don’t suppose I beat myself up over it per se, but I do have a deep longing to have a time machine that would take me back so we could find it before it spread.
What’s shocking about BJ is that we are completely unaccustomed to fatal infections in the industrialized west, with the possible exception of STDs. Death by UTI seems impossible in our society.
Pigpen is so fucking adorable. He looks like you. Thanks for posting the pics.
December 4th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
You have a real live sleeping angel in your house.
In addition to your “other” angel.
Soooo adorable!
Bless you all.
December 4th, 2006 at 11:25 pm
that little guy looks like he had a busy day.
December 4th, 2006 at 11:57 pm
Timsans right, in my book too you are a “freakin hero”. End of story, haven’t seen a clarivoyant hero yet.
Vickie
Oh and that little one is a little angel (at least he appears so while sleeping…)
December 5th, 2006 at 12:11 am
Ok, I think I need to clarify a bit. My definition of a hero is someone who displays uncharacteristic strength, power, insight or faith in a situation that most humans would melt/shutdown. Thus, on several levels you are a hero to me and some others. Its the only way we can express to you how glad/thankful we are for what you have shared because your sharing has helped us to grow. You give is hope to apire to be strong and to share our lives with others, no matter how hard.
Vickie
December 5th, 2006 at 12:28 am
AT, with that computer power supply lying next to Pigpen, he looks like he’s just been unplugged and put into hibernate mode. What a beautiful little boy. I’m sure MastaG is whatever the 10 year old equivalent of beautiful is but he’s too far away for me to get a good look. ;)
One of the many… the Mommy Bloggers!
December 5th, 2006 at 12:58 am
When I was 18 or 19, I had a similar thing. One day I went from being fine, to the next day, it stung a little bit to pee, and the next day, I was curled up in the fetal position holding my side, moaning, and wishing I could do anything to stop the pain.
I was given pain killers and antibiotics, which just barely kept me sane the next 3 days, and then I started puking everything. My parents dragged me back to the doctor, where the doctor decided they were going to inject the antibiotics directly into my but-tocks (said like Forrest Gump).. i told the nice lady doctor, that if she were going to do that, she’d better kiss me first, and then I passed out from the pain. I was in and out of consciousness for the next week, mostly out. Whenever I’d wake up, my parents would jam a couple of pills down my throat, I’d get some water, spend a minute or three online or on the phone, and then pass out again for another day or so.
It was almost two weeks after I first started feeling it, before I was able to stay out of my bed for more than an hour, and almost 3 weeks before I even felt good enough to leave the house for a tiny bit. I didn’t return to my new job till 5 weeks after, thank those guys so much, I had just started like 4 days before I fell ill.. I thank them so much for not dumping me at that point, since I did end up working for them for 11 years.
December 5th, 2006 at 5:52 am
I thought I remembered you in a previous post, back when she was still fighting for life, that she had surgery a month or so before she got ill? Am I imagining that? If she did have surgery, did she have a catheter? A friend of mine got very ill one Christmas after giving birth, then having surgery to have her tubes tied. It ended up being a UTI/kidney infection/e.coli from the catheter they used during surgery :(. After a week in the hospital on every antibiotic they could think of, thankfully she pulled through. I’m sorry BJ wasn’t so lucky :(.
December 5th, 2006 at 7:23 am
I love the comment about Pigpen being unplugged. Too funny!
You’re my hero too, AT.
December 5th, 2006 at 7:44 am
In college, I had set a date with a girl. She got a cold, refused to go to the doctor, and when she finally went, her spinal meningitis was not treatable and she died. Like other commenters have said above, going to the doctor may or may not have helped and it is neither here nor there. However, there are better ways to break a date…talk about rejection!
MSN Money had an article yesterday that said “[t]he uninsured are more likely to die prematurely than the insured, with various studies putting the mortality rate for the uninsured somewhere between 1.2 times to 1.6 times the rate for the insured.” I have not had insurance for 10 years and have not seen my doctor in nearly as much. Despite my best efforts, I have been laid helpless to get insurance. Cathy has a medical issue right now that is being ignored and it pains me but I cannot do anything about it right now. I think about BJ and you daily. Then I think about how differently Cathy and I would have been treated at the hospital. Walking into a regular doctor’s office and saying, “I am paying cash” gets you looks of disbelief, delayed service, and interns instead of doctors. There would have been no heroic means for us at a hospital. We may not have even been admitted.
I am in company with over 45 million people. 45 million people that delay preventative appointments. Something in our health care system has to change.
December 5th, 2006 at 8:37 am
Man, you’re preaching to the choir there, Doug.
December 5th, 2006 at 10:00 am
Oh my God. I had no idea UTIs could progress to the point where they were potentially fatal. I get them all.the.time. and ignore them just as frequently. I won’t be so cavalier about them again.
December 5th, 2006 at 10:14 am
Tennessee is the 47th healthiest state in 2006.
http://www.unitedhealthfoundation.org/ahr2006/Findings.html#Findings
December 5th, 2006 at 10:18 am
OK, it is true that you’ll “never know” if that could have made a difference, but that is the way life is about many things. I truly hope that you’re able to not let this eat you up too much. How many of us would have done the same thing she did and thought it was minor? I hope you can find peace about it.
December 5th, 2006 at 11:55 am
Okay, see, now, this is exactly what I mean when I say, “Holy shit, that could have been me.” Not to personalize your situation, just to open my eyes to how random life really is. I spent 9 days in the hospital with pyelonephritis at age 19. Apparently lived through it. Everyone’s response at the time, and still now, has been, “Wow, nine days? You must have been really sick.” Must have been.
Thanks for that little dose of reality for the day.
But, I hear ya, too, it had to be caused somewhere, and it looks like everything just sort of broke. Not enough duct tape or WD-40 in the world. So you fix what you have now - you live your life now, and you pretend that you have some control in the world, and you move on. While your kid sleeps on the couch and the other one waits for you.
December 5th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
I feel paralyzed not knowing the right words to say, yet I don’t think it’s fair to you if I say nothing. I just found your site today, from Suburban Turmoil. I’m so sorry. I’ve gone through absolutely nothing remotely comparable, but I do remember replaying events leading up to traumatic events (including the death of my father) over and over. I know it’s not your intention, but sharing what you’ve shared has made on impact on so many lives. Your strength, your humor, your love is admirable. Many lessons for us. Wishing you peace and continued strength.
Your sons are beautiful, by the way.
December 5th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
“Tennessee is the 47th healthiest state in 2006.”
Yes! At least we made the rankings!