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]

Snohomish County, Washington

http://heraldnet.com/article/20091216/NEWS01/712169799

An Everett man in his 20s has died from the swine flu, at least the eighth person in Snohomish County to die from complications of the virus.

The man was hospitalized on Nov. 23 and died on Dec. 10, said Suzanne Pate, spokeswoman for the Snohomish Health District.

The man had no underlying health conditions, such as asthma or heart problems, that put people at higher risk for dying from swine flu. No other details were available Tuesday evening.

(hat tip pfi/aurora)

[indigo girl]

Mankato, Minnesota

http://wcco.com/health/flu/michael.milbrath.h1n1.2.1376960.html

On Oct. 24, after a week-and-a-half in the hospital, Mike Milbrath died. He was only 54, a healthy man with no underlying health problems.

As a health administrator at Waseca Medical Center, Mike used to come home and tell Cheryl about the steps his hospital was taking to guard against H1N1. Because he didn't work directly with patients, Mike wasn't eligible to get vaccinated.

"He was just very concerned that people were not taking it seriously enough. And he said, 'There's going to be a pandemic, and people are going to die,'" Cheryl recalled. "And never in a million years did we think it would be him."

(hat tip pfi/monotreme)

[lamazeteacher]

Administrators of hospitals interface with those other employees there, who do have patient contact, therefore they are vulnerable to those without immunity to H1N1. Since the vaccine isn't 100% effective (it's around 80%), and it's unknown if even having that flu renders immunity, it appears to me that the vaccine is needed by administrators of hospitals. Not all of Mike Milbrath's employees took the vaccine, I'm sure. They would be carrying the virus for at least 2 days before becoming symptomatic......

It was a tragic lesson for Mike's family, friends and employees to learn; and hopefully they had the vaccine when it became more available than it was in Oct.'09. He was very gallant to wait on his vaccination, but it cost him his life, possibly.:stone

[indigo girl]

Nevada County, California

http://www.theunion.com/article/20091221/BREAKINGNEWS/912219990/1053&parentprofile=1053

The Public Health Department is reporting the first death of a Nevada County resident from the H1N1 virus.

The patient, a 52 year old, otherwise healthy female, died from complications related to the H1N1 influenza infection during hospitalization and anti-viral treatment. The Union is developing details and the full story will be in Tuesday's edition.

(hat tip pfi/aurora)

[indigo girl]

San Diego County, California

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/dec/30/healthy-woman-with-swine-flu-dies/

A 29-year-old healthy woman who tested positive for the swine flu has died, becoming the 62nd death in San Diego County in which the H1N1 virus was detected in the person, the county's Health and Human Services Agency said Wednesday.

While the woman tested positive for swine flu, the exact cause of death has not been determined, health officials said.

Health officials declined to release the hometown of the woman who died.

(hat tip pfi/aurora)

[indigo girl]

Austin, Texas

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas/central-texas-digest-autopsy-shows-shivers-died-of-156329.html

Robin Shivers-an Austin philanthropist who helped provide health care for 1,400 uninsured musicians-died of bronchopneumonia, according to the Travis County medical examiner's office.

Shivers, 53, died suddenly in October. Family members said she had no known life-threatening conditions.

Bronchopneumonia is pneumonia characterized by inflammation of the lungs and bronchial tubes.

(hat tip pfi/Denise Mc)

[indigo girl]

Afula, Israel

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1139819.html?

Even the new drug, Permivir did not help her. That's dreadful news.

A 25-year-old woman who did not suffer from any other ailments died of swine flu at an Afula hospital on Monday. The resident of the northern Israel town of Migdal Haemek is Israel's 79th swine flu fatality.

The young woman arrived to the emergency room at Afula's Haemek Hospital in serious condition, suffering from shortness of breath and high fever.

The hospital reported that she was diagnosed with swine flu and was treated with Tamiflu and later with the experimental drug Permivir, which is intended for patients in critical condition. The woman's health nonetheless deteriorated and she died overnight.

(hat tip pfi/pixie)

[oramar]

San Diego County, California

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/dec/30/healthy-woman-with-swine-flu-dies/

(hat tip pfi/aurora)

This proves that the disease is much more dangerous than the vaccine. I wish I could email this to my daughter in law who refuses to get my grand daughter vaccinated(H1N1, KID HAS ALL OTHER VACCINES). My daughter has had both of her kids vaccinated as soon as the vaccine became avaliable.

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

We just had another 2 "healthy" people deaths in the last week here...........

[lamazeteacher]

This proves that the disease is much more dangerous than the vaccine. I wish I could email this to my daughter in law who refuses to get my grand daughter vaccinated(H1N1, KID HAS ALL OTHER VACCINES). My daughter has had both of her kids vaccinated as soon as the vaccine became avaliable.

You're right, Oramar that the vaccine hasn't had lethal effects or even sequellae a minute fraction near that of having H1N1. It seems the lethal component regarding all vaccines, is that people grab on to myths and past errors to avoid them.

I believe that we need to combat injection phobia, big time! (It may be that your daughter-in-law could be one of those poor people with excessive inexplainable fears in regard to that). Using EMLA patches on injection sites an hour before administering anything (especially IV procedures) has been known to greatly reduce that syndrome, for the past 30 years. I attended a seminar at Stanford that long ago, when the huge audience of health providers there was told to avoid causing pain in pediatrics, due to its long range results (possibly illustrated by your daughter-in-law).

The only rational alternative to having the vaccine, is to stay home, alone - which brings to mind yet another phobia. It also conjures a picture of your son wearing a N95 mask (fitted properly, of course) when he is in their home. There's also the image of your appropriately vaccinated daughter and her kids, looking judgmentally at her sister-in-law....... Aren't family dynamics fun?

Someone needs to intervene, and that person shouldn't be you or your son or his sister. Providing that the child's health care provider is a good communicator who frequently holds private discussions with parents when a problem comes up, your son could request that the doctor discuss the root of the problem with his wife. I assume he isn't opposed to having the vaccine himself, having you as a parent. It's very important that "right" and "wrong" labels are left out of any discussion. Facts alone have all the weight needed.

"Of the 62 deaths related to the H1N1 virus, 55 were county residents, and the remainder were visitors." a quote from the article to which you referred us in the San Diego, CA newspaper further accents the fact that airplane travelors haven't statistical relevance in acquiring H1N1 (unless the virus causing most of the deaths there could be traced to someone close to the patient having been on an airplane within a week before spreading the disease.

I'd be willing to bet that most of the 7 remaining victims of H1N1 were from south of the close border to San Diego..... It would have been great if the article mentioned that all 62 losses hadn't had the vaccine...... We need to educate journalists for more implicit reporting, in a socially acceptable format. Hmmmmmmm.....

[indigo girl]

Liberal, Kansas

http://www.hutchnews.com/Localregional/vaccine2010-01-07T19-42-17

"...The CDC has reported that 46 percent of people admitted to the hospital for H1N1 complications have no prior medical problems..."

I was not aware that the percetage was that high for those with no prior existing conditions.

The father of four was a healthy man before coming down with bronchitis in early December.

"He had a bad cold and was coughing the week before," his wife said. He was initially diagnosed with bronchitis, which then turned into pneumonia. However, instead of improving he kept getting sicker, and by Dec. 7, when he returned to the doctor, his oxygen level was gravely low. He was transported by ambulance to Liberal's Southwest Medical Center. That was the last time he was able to speak with his wife.

Immediately placed on a respirator, he was flown to Wichita's Wesley Medical Center. While a tissue sample taken by a bronchial scope tested positive for H1N1, Jamie Howell said Larry's cause of death was adult respiratory distress syndrome.

(hat tip pfi/pixie)

[indigo girl]

Reading, Pennsylvania

http://www.kypost.com/content/wcposhared/story/Life-And-Almost-Death-With-H1N1/EA7io5rgX0iBG1IDlwI-rA.cspx

The pandemic has been very expensive for the victims and their families even when the patient survives. Story after story points to the extraordinary cost of being so severly ill.

In a relatively short amount of time, the H1N1 virus had taken its toll on an otherwise healthy man, leaving him just a breath away from death.

"Told me that I wasn't going to survive the night. My kidneys were shutting down, my blood pressure was dropping like a rock, somehow I survived, I don't know how", said Irwin.

Pat was a patient in the Intensive Care Unit for over two months and was transferred to the Drake Center on Christmas Eve. There, he began another part of his recovery.

"My muscles are a shell of what they used to be", Pat said.

With bills mounting and the possibility of losing his home, he continues his rehab with one goal in mind.

(hat tip pfi/monotreme)