My father, 55, was admitted to the hospital on Friday, January 17, 2003, due to low blood pressure and heart irregularities. They believed he had a mild silent heart attack. Once he arrived at the hospital, they found he was severely anemic and gave him blood transfusions to get his iron level stable so a simple test, an upper GI, could be performed. They believed at this point that he had a slow loss of blood flow in his abdomen, possibly an ulcer. By Sunday morning, his iron levels were stable and he was going for the procedure early afternoon. However, by late morning, he began to feel excruciating pain in his shoulder. From that point on it was all down hill. Test after test was performed as he was placed in a drug induced coma and put on a vent. The bacteria was growing so rapidly and the four antibiotics that ran through his IV were not helping. At this point he was in renal and liver failure and his heart just stopped. By 4 pm on Sunday, he passed away not being able to fight off this terrible bacteria, just 29 hours after the first symptom appeared. This is such a horrible bacteria and a terrible way to see someone you love die.

He is sadly missed by my mother, myself, my sister and three grandchildren. We all loved him very much and are trying every day to deal with the pain.