IMPORTANT -PLEASE READ HuffPost re: Patty Duke's Death from Sepsis

[LiberalElite]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/patty-duke-death-sepsis-awareness_us_56faf2b6e4b0a06d5803ef31

snip

Oscar-winning actress Patty Duke, star of “The Patty Duke Show” and the Broadway play and film “The Miracle Worker,” died of sepsis from a ruptured intestine on Tuesday.

Simple though it may seem, her death announcement is a major milestone for the sepsis awareness movement, said Thomas Heymann, executive director of the Sepsis Alliance. The more people are aware of this condition, Heymann said, the stronger their likelihood of saving their own lives or the lives of their loved ones.

“The fact that they said Patty Duke’s cause of death was sepsis is relatively new,” Heymann said. “It very often would have been left as a complication of surgery or an infection, but it’s not a complication — it’s sepsis.”

snip

[Texasgal]

1. My husband is on a liver/kidney transplant list

and all over the hospitals we've been in ( Many quite recently ) there is actually a PSA that talks about Sepsis being the highest killer of ER patients.

[LiberalElite]

2. Did he go to the ER with an infection? nt

[Texasgal]

4. He's had several.

We are in and out alot.

[Sunlei]

3. a very painful way to die. Good Doctors would have caught that early.

[gwheezie]

5. My husband almost died from sepsis

He coded in front of me at the hospital. He had multisystem failure. The staff saved him. The sepsis was due to a dentist missing an abscess on x-ray and went ahead with a teeth cleaning. 48 hours later he was septic.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

7. Yikes.

I've known two people recently that. Have almost died from tooth infections. One is on a lung transplant waiting list.

[herding cats]

9. I lost my uncle to that.

It's not as rare as people would think. Abscess under a crown undetected by X-ray can be fatal.

[Baobab]

10. this is why we need single payer health care

nt

[herding cats]

14. I agree with the premise of your message.

But, my uncle had good health care and was wealthy. It was simply something which was overlooked in his case.

[AnAzulTexas]

21. but we need single payer healthcare nt

[herding cats]

22. Right.

Thus my agreeing with the premise, but it doesn't apply in all cases. Sometimes things are just overlooked, and people die who shouldn't have.

[LiberalElite]

31. Wow. I ignored an infected

tooth for a long time - for several reasons - I know now I was playing with fire.

[Ed Suspicious]

6. My wife's aunt died too young from sepsis. Thanks for this post.

[Jerry442]

8. We must realize that we're living in the twilight of the age of antibiotics.

Sanitation and care of minor wounds is far more important than it was even a few years ago.

[Baobab]

12. resveratrol (buccally) may be able to save lives from sepsis

I suspect

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=resveratrol+sepsis

buccally = left to absorb through the tissues of the mouth, not swallowed

[malaise]

29. My maternal grandfather was a dentist

He taught my mother and her siblings to brush with basic peroxide once or twice a week.

[BobTheSubgenius]

11. In 2010, a brilliant diagnostician FINALLY figured out what was wrong with me.

I'd been given 2 diagnoses in the 3 or 4 days leading up to that day - liver cancer, then lung cancer. The actual condition? Staph A infection in my heart, that had led to the bacterial "vegetation" breaking off the heart and taking up residence in my lungs, liver and kidneys.

I had ZERO kidney function, and couldn't walk more than 10 feet without a stop to gulp some air. The surgeon and my cardiologist both said it was the most damaged heart they've ever seen anyone survive. One tissue valve, one titanium valve and 6 weeks of massive IV antibiotics.

Not unexpectedly, I've been left with some residual issues, but I think they are remarkably slight, considering everything. The primary infection led to a condition called MODS - Multiple Organ Dysfunction Syndrome. The result I hate the most is a lowered mental acuity - I feel like I'm thinking in a fog, if that makes any sense, and sometimes, I just don't grasp things without some thought, things that I would have instantly "got" before all this.

So yeah......systemic infections? If you are presented with the opportunity, I recommend you decline.

[flamingdem]

19. Wow, what an ordeal

Thanks for sharing this

[hopemountain]

25. check out the resvertrol link noted in above

and share it with your physician.

[mahina]

26. Holy SMOKES

Thanks for sharing that info. Be well.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. One of my brothers probably would have died of it if his then-girlfriend (a nurse)

hadn't dragged him into the ER. At the time, he was a healthy 24-year-old.

[liberal_at_heart]

15. My daughter had a kidney infection several weeks ago. At the clinic, they gave her

an IV antibiotic but was concerned about her pulse and blood pressure so they had her go to the ER. The people at the ER said she didn't have sepsis and that the doctors at the clinic should have just waited a little longer for the IV antibiotic to take affect instead of sending her to the ER. That may be true but the clinic doctor just didn't want to send her home. He was afraid if she went home and developed sepsis it would be too late. So, she went to the ER when she didn't need to and got an expensive ER bill, but I am glad the clinic doctor did the cautious thing. I would rather have an expensive ER bill and my daughter than no ER bill and no daughter. Of course I could have both no ER bill and my daughter if we had Medicare for All.

[cynannmarie]

16. my dad died from sepsis from a strangulated hernia

He and my mom had come to visit us ( a 3 hour drive) for my birthday, and when he started feeling poorly, he didn't want to disrupt the party, so he stoically stayed out in the guest house the whole evening despite being in pain. After midnight the pain was so intense that my mom called an ambulance and he went to the ER. Unfortunately, because of an overwhelming amount of patients that night, they couldn't get him into surgery right away. By the time he had the surgery, it had been 12+ hours from the onset of the cause, and despite subsequent surgeries and massive antibiotics, his system could not overcome the sepsis and organ failure set in. He was kept alive for awhile on a ventilator and dialysis, but eventually he succumbed. It took about 3 weeks until he passed. I will never get over the regret that we didn't take him to the hospital sooner, but he was stubborn and insisted that he would be fine ("it's just a stomach ache&quot and didn't want to go until it was impossible to deny that something was terribly wrong. Lesson learned about delaying treatment--it can be fatal.

[flamingdem]

20. I'm so sorry for your loss

Thanks for sharing

[renate]

27. I am so so sorry

I understand your regret, but I hope you and your family all realize that you couldn't have known. You just couldn't. What happened is unbearably sad and utterly shattering, but I hope that pain can be turned entirely into grief rather than being grief tinged with regret. None of it was your choice or your decision. None of it was his choice, either--of course, if he'd known what would happen he'd have gotten checked out sooner. It was all just a terrible and unexpected event, compounded by an unusually busy night in the ER. No layperson could have imagined that it would turn out like this, ever.

He sounds like a sweet, unassuming, considerate guy. I'm truly sorry about your loss.

[icarusxat]

17. I lost my wife to the for profit medical system the Republicans love so much...

The same hospital that killed her dad 5 years ago managed to kill her last year. They even put her in the same ICU room. Single payer, no bean counting, and people over profit would have saved her from dying at age 53...

[liberal_at_heart]

18. I am so sorry and yes I agree. We must have Medicare for All.

[Duppers]

23. Omg, so sorry.

She had sepsis?

My son had meningitis 11yrs ago. My husband diagnosed it -- fever, awful headache, couldn't walk due to pain. Was in ER waiting 5hrs before being seen! He could have died.

Fuck rethugians. Hospitals need to staff more physicians. Profits be damned.

[renate]

28. that is FAR too young--how horrible

How awful for you and how tragic for her. I can't imagine what it must have been like for you to see her in the same ICU room.

I'm so sorry. There just aren't words....

[Duppers]

24. Thank you for this thread!

And for posters' heartbreaking stories.
I've learned life-saving info.

[LiberalElite]

30. Until I read this HuffPo article

I thought sepsis was something you only got in a hospital.

[sorefeet]

32. I had a toothache and asked my VA

quack for some penicillin, she refused. Thanksgiving day I ended in the ER with a huge throbbing toothache. The doc there gave me penicillin. When it felt better I went to a dentist and an X-ray showed 6 abscessed teeth. She is the same doctor who told me "why don't you people just go away." She was talking about legal medical marijuana users (me). Some doctors don't give two shits if you live or die. Especially the VA. So now I sit here with all my teeth removed and going thru the healing and fitting process of new dentures. Pretty painful process but not as bad as sepsis.