A family comes to terms with the sudden and unexpected death of the head of the household. The father in question died of a rare and often very deadly bacterial infection called necrotizing fasciitis, or "flesh-eating disease".
I thought that we were to remain a complete family forever..me, mom, and my dad; but last week, dad died suddenly; and all of a sudden, I feel as though I am in a nightmare I can't emerge from. My dad was not feeling good for a few days; but we really thought nothing of it; we just assumed that he was coming down with what appeared to be a case of the flu. But then, that night, he became deathly ill, wildly delirious with a high fever and intense pain; and we ended up having to call an ambulance on him; and he was rushed to a nearby hospital. He was very sick.
When we got to the hospital, we waited in the E.R. waiting room; we were worried because dad was never sick, and he was never been inside a hospital all that much (except to visit friends when they were in). Yet, dad was now in the hospital himself, and we didn't know what was going on, and we were understandably scared and upset.
We waited for what seemed like hours; but then a doctor came up to us.
"Are you the Wilson family?" he asked.
Mom said that we were. "Yes," she said, "We ARE the Wilsons. I am Anna, and this is my son, Regis. How is Harold doing? When can we see him? What is going on with him?"
"Well, Mrs. Wilson, I am Dr. Jantzen," the doctor said, "And your husband is very sick with what appears to be a case of 'necrotizing fasciitis', or flesh-eating disease. Did your husband cut himself in any way that you are aware of?"
Mom said no, but she was confused and puzzled. Whatever the doctor was saying, it didn't sound good, especially the "flesh-eating" part. "What exactly IS this 'necro'whatever 'fassee--sigh--tiss?'" she asked the doctor. "Is he still alive?" Whatever this stuff was--this "necrotizing fasciitis"--, it sounded obscene. Evil. Pure-t NASTY. IT was the stuff made out of nightmares, and whatever it was, even the sound of the name of the disease was enough to make my stomach churn.
Dr. Jantzen went on to explain that necrotizing fasciitis could occur when a bacteria germ invaded the bloodstream by way of a cut or an open wound, and when it invaded the body, it went out of control, and the person could become deathly sick in a matter of hours. He said that the affected area could become gangrenous, and the only way to deal with this aggressive and deadly bacteria was surgery to remove the dead skin tissue and desperate lifesaving measures. He went on to tell us that my dad was still alive, but he was still in a very grave state, and there was no telling as to whether he would ever survive or if he DID survive, it would be a Miracle, especially if he didn't sustain any damage or amputations. He said that he was in a coma and was not doing very well at the moment, but that they would keep a close eye on him and try to save his life the best way they possibly could.
Well, it turned out that dad DIDN'T make it. He died after being in the hospital for three days. He never regained consciousness. We saw him in the Isolation ward of the Intensive Care ward, and he had tubes in every part of his body; and he wasn't even aware of us, even when we were in the room for the brief times we were allowed to see him. He looked like he was dying, and he looked like hell, if you want my honest opinion. It scared both mom and myself to see dad looking like this, and we didn't know how to handle the sight of his lying there like a dead fish, hooked up to God knows what. He was just too far gone when he had been brought to the hospital, and the necrotizing fasciitis had run its deadly course through my dad's body. Three days after he had been in the hospital, he died. Unbeknownst to us, he had apparently cut himself while shaving, and the nec/fack germ invaded his body, making him very sick; and he just wasn't that strong enough to fight off the deadly germs invading his body. He was only 50 years old, far, far too young.
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Yesterday was the funeral, and I am still sitting around the house in a dazed stupor amongst my cousins and relatives; and while I am glad to see them all, I am still in shock, and I still find it hard to believe that early last week, my dad was alive, his normal, laughing, joking self, and then, a few days later, he bacame very sick, and he ended up in the hospital, where he then died after being there for three days. He died of a weird, nasty bacterial infection that mom or I had never even heard of, and now our lives were changed forever. Our lives would no longer be the same, and my dad would never again greet us with his zany personality or his jokes; and he would never again be able to come to my soccer games or my recitals or my other important "goings-on" at school. He would never again hold mom in his strong, but sinewy arms, and he would never again dance around the room with her doing their version of the cha-cha or the Lambada, and to think of dad now lying in a cold, hard grave underground made me very sad. It didn't seem fair that a stupid little bacterial germ got the best of my dad, but it did, and now my life as I knew it was over. Finito. Kaput. My life as I knew it was now history, and now I had to come to terms with my dad's sudden death.
Karen this was a terrible event that you handled very well. An excellent write,superbly done! I've heard of that flesh eating disease. In fact they showed one picture on pbs tv where one man over 200 pounds everything turned to liquid and melted off him in puddles around the operating table, before he died he had lost over 100 lbs in just hours.I never heard of anything like it. It left me chilled everytime I thoaught of it for days.
Afterwards, I thought oh wow! If only we could bottle that and take the harm out of it we'd never have to worry about weight again.;-)
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Rovella is a beautiful woman with a cold heart whom blames herself for an unfortunate old family secret that is literally ruining her life. This secret impedes a gorgeous woman from having happiness in her childhood, and throughout her life. Dark sec
