No Prior Existing Conditions but Dead Anyway

[indigo girl]

http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/48007842.html

Who would think that a normally healthy woman would die so swiftly from influenza in June?

Could you ever have imagined such a thing? No wonder her family and friends are in shock.

So why did it happen?

Barbara Davis, 48, was healthy just a week ago. She had dinner with her mother Josephine last Friday night. But just hours after that dinner, Josephine got a phone call.

"My friend, he called me and told me Barbara was real sick. And I said, "Well, she wasn't sick when I left, so what's the matter?" Josephine Davis said.

Barbara told her mother that she was ok. But the next day, things got worse. She had trouble breathing, and she was shaking. She could barely walk into the hospital.

"She tried to talk to people, but she just couldn't talk," Josephine Davis said.

Doctors treated her for two days, but they couldn't save her. They believe she died from swine flu.

"They've never seen nothing like that, what she had. That infection just went through her body, attacking her kidney, her lungs, her liver. Everything," said Josephine Davis.

The Milwaukee Health Department confirmed on Friday a Milwaukee adult with no underlying medical conditions died from swine flu, though they haven't confirmed Barbara Davis was that victim.

Barbara's family knows all too well how serious swine flu can be.

"Everybody is just in a shock. The people that I talked to today, they are frightened. Because it happened all of a sudden," Josephine Davis said.

More than 1,800 people have caught swine flu in Milwaukee alone. The city's Health Department is stressing that if you are mildly ill with flu symptoms, you should call your doctor. If your symptoms are serious or if you have mild symptoms that are getting worse, you should see a doctor right away.

http://www.wisn.com/health/19751526/detail.html

The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner said 48-year-old Barbara Davis died Thursday in the ICU after being diagnosed with the flu strain.

The health department said, unlike Milwaukee's first swine flu victim, Davis did not have any "underlying medical conditions" that would have put her at a greater risk for the disease.

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showpost.php?p=248304&postcount=7

This post was written by Dr. Gratten Woodsen, MD commenting over at flutrackers on this unfortunate woman's case.

The decedent is described as having fulminate multi-organ failure that developed rapidly resulting in death 48 hours after onset and despite intensive medical therapy in an ICU including all the bells and whistles.

The attending physicians told the mother that they had never seen anything like this before and I believe them. So did she. No one has seen anything like this since 1918. In 1918 many doctors said the say thing after dealing with their first cases of Spanish Flu and for them too it was a great surprise at least until those that didn't die from the virus themselves had seen it so many times that it was no longer unique.

There are numerous descriptions from the 1918 pandemic that match the one above but no where else in medical history do we find anything remotely similar. This is why the doctors in Milwaukee were so shocked by what they saw.

How many other North American victims had similar pathology? Why have the autopsy and clinical findings from the deaths in Mexico, the US and Canada been suppressed?

I know from press reports that there have been other US deaths where multi-organ failure was present. Is this common among those who have died of Swine Flu or rare? Are the findings similar to those seen in 1918 or not?

(hat tip flutrackers/skatman)

[indigo girl]

Chicago, Illinois

http://www.loyolaphoenix.com/2.541/news/in-loving-memory-mark-greable-1.951024

On Nov. 10, Greable's heart slipped into an arrhythmia, which caused a short circuit in his brain. His death came unexpectedly. He never had any prior heart condition and aside from the fact that he was recovering from the flu, Greable was healthy.

Greable had been working on his L.L.M. (Masters of Law) at Loyola Law School for more than one year. Though he already had his J.D. from Case Western Reserve University, Greable was attending Loyola to specialize in healthcare law.

(hat tip pif/homebody)

[imintrouble, BSN, RN]

I work in a very small rural hospital in Illinois. As far as I know we've had no cases of H1N1 except one. We did have a 40 something obese male with a hx of resp. problems. He was admitted with Asthma exacerbation. He was a frequent flyer, and actually looked better than usual on this admission. Less than 36 hrs later he was in the ICU, on a ventilator, too critical to fly out. He was stabilized and flown to a larger hospital where he died. The other hospital tested for H1N1 and he was positive. We are a very small hospital, don't routinely see many critical young pts. I have been a nurse for 15 yrs and have NEVER seen someone young go down that fast.

[indigo girl]

I work in a very small rural hospital in Illinois. As far as I know we've had no cases of H1N1 except one. We did have a 40 something obese male with a hx of resp. problems. He was admitted with Asthma exacerbation. He was a frequent flyer, and actually looked better than usual on this admission. Less than 36 hrs later he was in the ICU, on a ventilator, too critical to fly out. He was stabilized and flown to a larger hospital where he died. The other hospital tested for H1N1 and he was positive. We are a very small hospital, don't routinely see many critical young pts. I have been a nurse for 15 yrs and have NEVER seen someone young go down that fast.

I hear you. Our most frequent flyer (over 80 ED visits/year) was discharged from our unit (psych), and only 2 days later ended up in ICU where she died of complications of H1N1. It was quick and overwhelming.

[indigo girl]

St. Paul, Minnesota

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/virus/78612267.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O%3ADW3ckUiD3aPc%3A_Yyc%3AaULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUss

He survived despite cytokine storm possibly because they had access to the new drug, Peramivir.

Kim Lange's son was still coherent when the doctor said it was time to put him on a ventilator. He was as stoic as he could be -- a 23-year-old who had never been sick. But the look of terror in his eyes as he looked up from the hospital bed tore her heart.

"He said, 'Worst- case scenario, huh, Mom?' '' Lange recalled. "And I fell apart.''

On Monday he went to the doctor, who told him he had pneumonia and sent him home with pills. On Tuesday, when his temperature hit 104 degrees, his mom took him to the emergency room, where he got intravenous fluids and more pills. On Wednesday he went back to the doctor, who called an ambulance to take him from the clinic in Forest Lake to United Hospital in St. Paul. An ambulance? Kim Lange was shocked.

(hat tip pfi/pixie)

[indigo girl]

DeKalb County, Illinois

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/genevasun/lifestyles/1921669,Storyteller-H1N1-family-Sanwich_AU120609.article

On Oct. 18, Donald Franklin Dyer, 16 years old, student at Sandwich High School, became the first person in DeKalb County infected with the H1N1 virus to die. But before he did, he spent 58 days in the hospital, hooked up to machines that helped him breathe and taking medications to help him fight off pneumonia.

"He told us there was nothing more he could do," Michael said. "He had never once said that before. I always had a feeling Donald would get through this, but when he said that, I knew."

Donald Dyer died later that day, just a few days after his 16th birthday. The DeKalb County Health Department, while not confirming Dyer's identity, said there were no underlying conditions in his death, which was related to an H1N1 infection.

(hat tip pfi/aurora)

[indigo girl]

Braceville Township, Ohio

http://www.vindy.com/news/2009/dec/05/fatal-flu-case-shocks-family/?newswatch

“He just said, ‘I’m not feeling very well,’” she remembers. Three days later, he had a fever of 103 and went to a doctor, who advised him to take Motrin and Tylenol and rest.

She never dreamed that her husband would die from H1N1.

“He didn’t smoke. He was healthy,” she said. “My husband was 44 years old. I didn’t think he had anything to worry about.”

(hat tip pfi/Ree)

[indigo girl]

Dayton, Ohio

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/flu-victim-knew-he-was-going-to-die-widow-says-441561.html

Lots of healthy men in the prime of life dying now. Not just kids anymore ...

On Sunday, Oct. 25, the 38-year-old Preble County sheriff's captain staggered into the living room complaining that he couldn't breathe.

"Do you want me to call a squad?" she asked.

He nodded, she said, "But I think he knew he was going to die." Thornsberry was flown to Indiana University Hospital in Indianapolis, where he was diagnosed with viral and bacterial pneumonia and the H1N1 virus-after four negative tests for the swine flu.

It seemed unreal that her husband of 17 years-who seemed afflicted by nothing worse than a bad cold-could be near death.

"Here he's a big, strong, healthy man, 38 years old, lying there helpless," she recalled.

Thornsberry died Nov. 6...

(hat tip pfi/aurora)

[indigo girl]

Juneau, Alaska

http://www.adn.com/swineflu/story/1049964.html

A 19-year-old woman from Haines who was living in Juneau had swine flu when she died Nov. 21, the state Department of Health and Social Services reported today.

She had not been hospitalized.

The cause of death has not been determined, said department spokesman Greg Wilkinson. There is no evidence that she had any chronic health conditions, he said.

(hat tip pfi/pixie)

[indigo girl]

San Juan County, New Mexico

http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/san-juan-county-man-dies-from-h1n1-flu

Nearly 1,000 New Mexicans have been admitted to hospitals this year for treatment related to the H1N1 flu, according to the New Mexico Department of Health which recorded one flu-related death during the last week.

The man who died was 50 and did not have any underlying medical conditions that might have contributed to the death. Swine flu has now been cited in 43 deaths in the state this year.

(hat tip pfi/aurora)

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

posted: fri, dec. 11, 2009

[color=#320e00]fit, but dead of swine flu

by don sapatkin

inquirer staff writer

laura brewster, healthy and fit at 56, ran, swam, and played tennis. two weeks ago, she returned to glenside from a dream vacation in china. less than a week later, she was dead of swine flu.

kevin hirsch, 26, almost never missed a day of work at a mcdonald's restaurant in northeast philadelphia. "he didn't have a runny nose, a cold, or a fever in 15 years," said his father, mickey, who disconnected his son's life support on nov. 18 after nearly 15 agonizing days in the icu....

less sickness may mean less interest in vaccine, and that worries mickey hirsch. in the three weeks since kevin's death, he has turned grief into action.

the single father of three had a powerful bond with his preternaturally happy eldest son, who had a constellation of cognitive deficits, from severe learning disabilities to an inability to think abstractly, since infancy. "he didn't understand history, didn't understand god, but he understood sports," hirsch said, "and he had a ph.d. in public transportation."

now the independent contractor is on a whirlwind campaign for vaccination, tacking more than 100 homemade posters around his welsh road-willets road neighborhood, and purposefully corresponding with thousands of people on the "prayers for kevin hirsch" facebook page set up during his son's illness.

for those who are uncertain, he offers support, personally escorting dozens to get vaccinated at the city health center on cottman avenue.

and for those who loudly question the worth or safety of vaccines, he is blunt: "they should be thankful that their parents didn't feel the same way when it came time to get the polio vaccine. otherwise you would be on crutches or in wheelchairs."

stanton segal, medical director of aria health and an attending physician at its torresdale campus, where kevin hirsch died, is less strident. "it is a good illustration of how important it is to get vaccinated," he said. "this was a pretty healthy young guy."...

[indigo girl]

Omaha, Nebraska

http://www.action3news.com/Global/story.asp?S=11683008

The H1N1 virus nearly killed a young Omaha dad. Doug Jorgensen is just 29-years-old and has no pre-existing medical conditions, yet he was struck down hard by Swine Flu.

Doug, a healthy young man, was just driving along and his heart stopped beating. Doctors said Doug's body was filled with infection from H1N1 and double pneumonia. They told his family to say their goodbyes. "I stroked Doug's arm and I looked into his eyes and all I said was I love you son. I thought this is probably the last time I'm going to see Doug alive ."

His family calls it a miracle, Doug is still with them today. It's been very long road to recovery and the journey is far from over. Today, we visited Doug at Quality Living, Inc., the rehab center where he now lives. He's painting a frame to give to his little girl. But the truth is Doug can't remember her birth just a year ago. The swine flu wiped out Doug's memory. It's also forced him to relearn how to walk again.

(hat tip pfi/homebody)

[indigo girl]

Fargo, North Dakota

http://www.parkrapidsenterprise.com/event/article/id/21182

Keith Worthington is lying in a pediatric intensive-care unit bed, breathing with the aid of a machine and battling for his life.

The diagnosis turned out to be swine flu, the H1N1 virus, compounded by pneumonia and a bacterial infection. His lungs filled with fluids and suffered damage.

Another complication: The strain of bacteria is resistant to antibiotics. His condition is critical and unstable.

Although autistic, Keith had no underlying health conditions, such as asthma, before the flu struck. That meant he wasn't in the

first group to be targeted for the vaccine, which was unavailable before he got sick, his mother said.

Now, however, he has a lot of healing to do. His doctors aren't certain whether damage to his lungs is permanent. It has been difficult to wean him from the ventilator, Sam-Agudu said.

(hat tip pfi/monotreme)