Missing My Husband so badly I can hardly breathe

by Sharon
(Birmingham, AL)

My husband passed away on June 13, 2011. He has been sick over the last ten years many times. He counted up something like 50 plus hospitalizations (He joked about it). But this last time started in December, 2010. He had a blood clot in his lower right calf and they had to do bypass and amputate part of his right foot. Each week of December went by with another surgery until they were able to connect a wound vac. Then January we did Hyperbaric oxygen treatments daily. His foot was healing pretty well when he got a blood clot in his right arm which put us back in the hospital in March, 2011. Well, they couldnt do blood thinners because he bleeds easily. And he is not strong enough to do surgery. And then because he usually ends up with a Staph infection they are giving him Vancomycin as a precaution. But this causes an imbalance of another bacteria that resides in our intestines and the vancomycin kills off that bacteria (C-Diph). It turns out that C-Diph starts attacking your body if it not balanced and he became Septic which means the infection is in his blood. So this put my husband into the ICU on a ventilator, kidneys had failed and they are telling me he is not going make it. I kept telling them you don't know him he has pulled through many other things before (Triple Bypass, Removal of his Pancreas, Hip Replacement, Staph many times, etc.) They wanted me to sign a DNR and I couldn't do it. He always said for me not to give up on him. Well after 60+ days in ICU he was off the ventilator, talking, foot had healed well and we went to a step down unit and he was doing ok with dialysis. After a week of this, the hospital said that he needed to go to a LTACH (Long Term Acut Care Hospital). I thought it was too soon after getting out of ICU. A week just seemed too soon. Well they moved him and I don't know what happened, his Blood Pressure dropped from 114/80 to 90/50. And his lungs started getting filled with fluid. So they had to put him back on the vent and into ICU. So now we are at a new hospital, don't know any of the doctors and seems like the nurses don't make much effort to talk with the family. This is on Sunday night. My husband's BP just keeps dropping a little at a time over Monday. And at the 2:00 p.m. visiting hour, he still could squeeze my hand when I asked him to. but he was so very very sick. I could hear the fluid in his lungs when he breathed. My daughter and I told him how much we loved him and they we were doing everything medically possible but if he was fighting just to stay for us that he needed to do what was best for him. And though we would not want him to go, if he felt it was time we would make it. And then a couple of hours later he coded and the doctors had said CPR and Shocking him wouldn't do any good because of the fluid in the lungs and everything that his body was trying to fight off. And I know that this is true but I can't seem to put it to rest. I keep going over in my mind why I didn't stop them from moving him to the new hospital. I am still trying to save him even though he is gone and there is absolutely nothing I can do to bring him back. I pray for forgiveness, I pray for peace of mind, I pray for the panic attacks to stop and for me to be able to just breathe. I pray for strength and courage. I don't know how I will ever be ok with this. And yes I am seeing a psychiatrist but it just hurts. It physically hurts. When will it stop? It has been about 6 weeks and I just want him back. My daughter gets mad if I cry in front of her because she says it makes her sad and why do I question anything that was done because there is nothing we could do about it now. And that he was so very very sick and now there are no more needles and tubes and pain. But I guess I am selfish because I just want him back.
Please Please tell me how I can get through this.