HEART WRENCHING FOR WIFE AS HER HUSBAND HOLDS ONTO HER ARM WHEN SHE HAS TO LEAVE HOSPITAL

Due to Patient’s Low Oxygen Level and Number of Medications, Patient’s Wife Has Serious Doubts That He Understood the Remdesivir Consent Form When He Signed it

On March 13, 2021, my husband Pete started having some symptoms. We both took a Covid test that day and the next day the results came back negative.  On the sixth day my husband was still sick. So, I took him to urgent care and they tested him for Covid. The next day, which was a Friday, the results came back negative again.

On Saturday in the afternoon, I went to get my husband Pedialyte and probiotics. At this point I had given him different types of over-the-counter medications and holistic medications. Since he tested negative twice for Covid, we just assumed it was some kind of bad flu.

When I was on my way back home, my daughter called me and said that my husband was not really responding to her and had some red-looking stuff on his bottoms and that it looked wet. I rushed home thinking, oh my gosh, he’s bleeding or something. When I arrived home, my husband was out of it and I checked his bottom.  My husband was so out of it that he had urinated and defecated on himself. I had to shake him to wake him up. I said I was going to take him to the emergency room. He said, “what? wait, no,” then passed out. I thought to myself how am I going to get him in the car. I called the ambulance. They said that because he was lethargic, they were going to take him to the nearest hospital. One of them even told me it could be sepsis. I let them know that he had taken two Covid test and they both came back negative.

I was distraught so my husband’s friend and his girlfriend picked me up and drove me to the hospital. They would not allow me to be with my husband, only to be in the lobby. I can’t even remember how much time had passed but my husband ended up calling me from the hospital phone. He said they tested him for Covid and it came back positive and that his oxygen level was at 70%. He said they were going to admit him into the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) until his breathing was more stable.

My husband was admitted on March 20, 2021. Not only did he test positive for Covid, he had Covid pneumonia. He was isolated for 21 days. We talked when we could.  Since he couldn’t tell me much information, I called every day twice a day talking to the nurses and doctors getting updates. I did ask the doctor about my husband receiving Hydroxychloroquine and he said, “no that drug is not approved.”

I found out that they were giving my husband Remdesivir and they did not tell me that this was a failed Ebola drug. They never said anything. My husband did not even know he had Covid pneumonia. He knew he had Covid but not the pneumonia part. I asked the doctor if he was told that he had Covid pneumonia and they said yes. But I wasn’t too sure about the answer I received.

I had reminded my husband several times when we talked on different occasions how long he would be there when he asked me, which leads me to think about an event after my husband had passed and I brought home his belongings. I found a copy of a Consent form that he had signed for Remdesivir. If he couldn’t remember how long they said he would be in the ICU, how could he understand what he was signing? How could he understand any of the side effects or risks associated with the experimental drugs they were giving him? How could he understand that Remdesivir could be fatal?

I truly believe that with his oxygen level being as low as it was and the drugs he was given, that he could not have been thinking straight at times. The doctor would tell me that my husband was critical but stable. He would tell me that my husband was the type of patient that if he were to receive a phone call in the middle of the night saying that they had to intubate my husband, he would not be surprised.

On April 4, 2021, I was finally able to see my husband. I was able to bring him some food but he was not able to eat much. He had lost a lot of weight and had no appetite. I couldn’t stay long but was able to visit again later that day. My husband had a lot of anxiety and held onto my arm. He didn’t want me to go. It was so heart wrenching to have to leave him and see him like that.

After the first day of visiting him, I saw my husband three other times that week. It’s really hard to say if my husband was mistreated when he was at the hospital. He said at one point they were not giving him food, only the Glucerna drinks and he didn’t know why.

On Friday of the week that I was able to see my husband, they intubated him. His oxygen level was decreasing and we didn’t know why. The doctor wanted to intubate my husband but my husband was not sure and wanted to talk to me.

The doctor told me that he didn’t know how much longer my husband could sustain this way if he was not intubated. I had a family friend who is a nurse and had worked on the Covid unit in 2020. She said that if my husband were to be intubated, it would give his body some rest to fight. To this day I sometimes feel that it was the wrong decision.

After my husband was intubated, they did a chest x-ray and found that his lungs had decompressed. There were sacs of air and that was probably why his oxygen levels were decreasing.  They inserted chest tubes. I was told that prior to my husband getting intubated he had refused a chest X-ray. I don’t know if that is true.

When my husband was intubated, the plan was only for two weeks. Then to bring him out and do a tracheotomy. While he was intubated, he was to be on his stomach (prone) for 12 hours and 12 hours on his back. Because of the chest tubes, they were not able to put him on his stomach.

Another friend that was a nurse said to me that decompressed lungs were not caused by Covid, but by the BiPap machine my husband was on to help him breathe. When he was admitted, he went from a regular oxygen mask to a high flow nasal cannula and then to a BiPap machine.

After my husband had been in the hospital for a little while, I remember the doctor telling me that my husband seemed a little worse off from when he first came in. He said it was because he was not on the BiPap machine or needing it. Now I realize why he was worse off than when he first came in. It was after the fact that they had given him Remdesivir. I didn’t know it then, but I do now.

I was still able to visit my husband while he was intubated.  He was intubated on April 9, 2021.

On one of the days when I visited him, two days before he passed, I was told by another nurse that the night nurse told her she didn’t know if my husband was going to make it through the night. The day nurse asked if she had called me. She said, “no.” Why wouldn’t that nurse have called me if she thought my husband would not make it? Why would she deprive me of being with my husband? Or him having family there when he passed?

Well, I stayed and that Thursday they asked me about a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) for my husband. They said that I should think about palliative care for him because at this point, the chest tubes were doing their job and he had very little air sacs in his lungs. His oxygen level was still decreasing. I never even considered a DNR or palliative care. It was not ever an option for me to even consider or ever want to make that kind of choice or decision.

I spoke to my children. They said that my husband would not want to live like this. I asked the doctor about a Covid plasma treatment or lung transplant and he said no to both. So, I asked him about bringing him out and doing the tracheotomy. He said he could, but I would only be doing it for myself and not him as my husband would be struggling for every breath to breathe. Of course, I didn’t want to see my husband struggling. Who would want to see their loved one struggling?

So, I made the decision for the DNR and for palliative care. They took everything off except he was still intubated and ventilated. He made it through the night but with oxygen levels dipping into the 20’s and then would rise and stayed in the low 60’s. It never got any higher and the next day they removed the ventilator. My husband passed away at 10:47 a.m. on April 16, 2021.

My husband wanted to live; he didn’t want to die, and he didn’t just die - he was murdered.

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