The story of my mother: Maria Ickstadt, written by her loving daughter, Rita from Germany.

It all began Nov.12, 1997, when she started having pains in her right arm. The doctor she went to see that day treated her for thrombosis and sent her back home, but by Nov. 16th her condition had worsened to the point, where she became erratic, and too disoriented to even make a simple phone call.

The next day a neighbor found her in her apartment, and called an ambulance to have her taken to the hospital. Again, the doctors suspected a thrombosis.

As soon as I received the call I rushed to the clinic, to find my mother still in the emergency room. By now she didn't even recognize me, she was in terrible pain with her right arm swollen nearly double in size, black, blue and green in color, and covered with open blisters. It was obvious that the tissue was deteriorating.

About on hour later, following her examination she was taken to the ICU. 3 more hours passed before we were told that she had to be operated on right away and for us to come back later in that evening. Around 9 pm we were informed by phone that my mother’s condition had worsened, but yet to wait until the next day before coming to see her. Of course we weren't going to wait, and rushed back to the clinic.

Little did I know what I about to see. We was shocked, as we saw our mother lying there, hooked up to machines, with her arm showing a large incision, for the purpose of staying open, with blood coming out of it, dripping on the floor, while at the same time she was given a transfusion.

The doctor told us that her condition was critical, since the infection already has spread throughout her body, poisoning her blood. The illness was too advanced. We were told to prepared for the worst, that she might lose her arm. At that time, the possibility of my mother having to have her arm amputated seemed like a terrible thought but looking back on it now, it would have been next to nothing, compared to what soon would happen..................................................

What a heartbreaking experience this was, to watch my mother suffer. One week earlier she was well, and now her health was gradually deteriorating. The next day at 6am, we were told that mother was dying. Her cardio vascular system had collapsed, and yet another operation was performed on her. Miraculously she survived! Not only did she survive the operation, she seemed to get better a little more each day, and when they finally took her off the Respirator 2 weeks later, followed by moving her out of the ICU after an additional 2 weeks, we were ecstatic!
Unfortunately moving her into a regular hospital room was probably the worst thing that could have happened to her. Due to the lack of sufficient nursing staff on German hospitals, the care for the patients is often inadequate. Needless to say that my mother was "just another patient", and not enough time was spent to her.

I have to add that my mom was a diabetic. Because of this dreadful illness she was to weak to even more her left arm, to help herself, much less to feed herself. She was unable to pick up a cup of tea, so she couldn't drink, as she was also unable to eat. The trays were just picked up and moved out of the room after some time, and none of the nurses even intended to feed my mother.

I witnessed a doctor trying to draw blood from her, yelling telling her to drink more, cause she couldn't get the needle in her arm, since "she`s so dried out"! After a major protest on my part towards the doctor, my mother was finally given a a cup with a drinking straw, but which didn't help much.

Soon physical therapy started to help my mother walk again, but to no avail. About 6 weeks later her lungs collapsed, and she was moved back into ICU....and again, she recovered. Back in her regular room, I brought her a little TV set, because of her poor eyesight due to her diabetes which had gotten much worse by now, she was only able to watch TV if it was right in front of her, but which was constantly moved. "out of the way" by the nurses.

Again, 2 weeks later, her body and strength started giving out. We noticed it first...the doctors didn't. She seemed to be in a mental fog.

Around the beginning of March, the hospital called me, asking to me to come in. My mother was moved back into the ICU. One of the doctors complained her being "lazy, but that they were confident to "get her back in order". As I walked into the room, I was not prepared to find her again on the respirator. This time she was put again in a artificial coma. It was plain to see, she was dying. The last 3 months flashed before me, and I didn't want to believe that all this suffering and her tremendous pain was for nothing.

It was right then when I heard the name of this horrible illness that has stricken my mother, for the first time: "Necrotizing Fasciitis". So far we`ve been told that Moms illness was caused by "Streptococcus" or an ordinary skin bacteria. Now we finally knew, and yet, nobody was able to tell us anything about NF. Through the Internet I found the NF Foundation which can provide all the information I couldn't attain otherwise.

Thanks to a very helpful doctor at the Uniklinik Frankfurt/Germany, I was able to come across a German medical newsletter with many articles about NF. I did not want my mother to stay in the hospital she was in, so I called different doctors.

I also found out, that people with this disease often get a myositis, which would explain her ongoing muscle weakness. So I went to the hospital with all this information I had and asked the doctor if he tested my mother for Myositis. Surprised I even asked the question, he told me that Myositis was such a rare disease, and I replied....: "so is NF". He finally agreed to run the test on her, but it was too late, I never found out about the results......

Shortly after our conversation my mother got infected with a multi resistant virus.......she never woke up again.

The hospital didn't even notify us still after her death, telling us, it "happened unexpectedly". Not too long before she died, I went to see my Mom, just to make sure I didn't miss my last chance to say good bye to her.......................... and now it was too late, she had to die alone.

I was outraged.

Outraged at the hospital, the nurses, and the doctors.

But what good would it do my mother now?

We were asked if we wanted to have an autopsy done on her, but we all agreed, that's not what we wanted.

During the, last weeks of her life, after having to endure 25 operations in 3 1/2 months, she just wanted to die....... ............and finally rest peacefully.