Lost Chuck in April

by Mary Frances
(New Hampshire)

My husband was 65yrs old. He was healthy- no medical issues. Last Nov he had a knee transplant and all was going well. In april he did some yard work and came in saying his knee was sore he may have overdone it. On Wednesday he went to work and came home early as the pain was bad. I took him to the clinic and the doctor said his knee was warm to the touch but because he had no temp and the knee wasn't red - the doctor sent him home with painkillers and scheduled him to come back on Monday. We iced his knee until Saturday at which point he ran a temp. I got him to the emergency and they tapped his knee which was infected. By Saturday he had septicemia. The infection had gone through his body. His white blood cells were low so he went to ICU. He went through two surgeries - one to flush the knee out -the other to remove the implant and put in a spacer filled with an antibiotic. On Friday of that week they chose to put him on dialysis to give his kidneys a break. I had been staying with him all week especially at night. I would go home for a few hours a day but then go straight back. - I left at 4am to go home to change and get a few hours of sleep- He was going to have a second dialysis. When I returned about noon, I was asked to wait for a nurse. Then they called a code blue for ICU. My husband went into cardiac arrest and they could not save him. His heart just stopped in minutes. We had just purchased a townhouse in Florida last Dec. We were going to sell our house and move to Florida. We had such plans for our retirement. I miss him so much. We had been together for twenty years. He was my partner in all aspect of my life. It just hurts.