My father, Richard Mason, lost his life to NF on August 28, 2003. He first felt flu like symptoms on Tuesday, August 26th, and died on Thursday. My father's NF started internally through decay in his teeth.

Richard Mason was a healthy 74 year old man who had never been hospitalized or been sick in his life. He worked at the same job for 28 years and never missed one day of work. My father started to feel like he was getting the flu on a Tuesday. By Wednesday, he had a terrible sore throat and chills. It hurt so bad that he could hardly talk or swallow. He went to the emergency room and waited for three hours before finally getting to see a doctor. The doctor checked for strep throat, determined he didn't have it, and prescribed Ibuprofen.

I went to the store and bought my father sore throat medicine and Theraflu. When I went to his house at around 5:00 on Tuesday, he looked and felt terrible, but was still convinced he had the flu. He had trouble swallowing even a crushed ibuprofen. I went home and called Ask A Nurse stating my Father's symptoms. She stated that since it was probably a viral infection and there was not much you could do except take the ibuprofen and gargle with salt water. I went back to my Father's house at 8:00 p.m. Tuesday night and he was sitting at his computer. I relayed the message to gargle with salt water and continue to take ibuprofen. I told him that if he felt any worse to call me and I would sleep with the phone in my room. My father never called. I am assuming because of his previous visit to the E. R. where he waited for 3 hours and they did nothing for him.

On Thursday, I called him at 10:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m. and at noon. There was no answer so I went to check on him at 1:00 p.m. and he was dead.

They wanted to call it a natural death and not do an autopsy. I insisted that an autopsy be done as he was a healthy man who had a sore throat the day before and was gone today. They did the autopsy and determined it was NF. They stated that they believe it was caused by decaying teeth. He did not have any tooth pain, but they informed me that there doesn't have to be pain even when there is decay. The bacteria literally ate the inner lining of my father's throat.

If there is pain, there is a reason. Please make sure that the E. R. never turns your loved ones away. Insist that they check further.

My father had just lost his mother a year and a half before he lost his life. His mother was 94 yrs old. My father should have lived to be at least that old.