I was talking to my Step Father today. His ex-wife (the one before my mom) died. She had gone to the doctor for a routine checkup, she wasn't feeling sick at all. She had a low white count when they did the labwork.
The doctor decided to put her in the hospital for a battery of tests, maybe because she was over 80. I don't know her medical history, but he told me that she was healthy and feeling fine when she went in.
In the hospital, she got sicker and sicker with each test. She ended up with pneumonia, ended up on a ventilator, and then she died.
It makes me sick, because I know what hospitals are like. Staff is rushed, housekeeping sometimes does a poor job, nurses are busy filling our pain flow sheets, fall assessment sheets, careplans, documenting in triplicate, defensive charting up the ying yang.
There is a shortage of staff and a shortage of time.
Yes, this lady sounds as if she were neutropenic. Maybe it was a side effect of a medication she was on. But, it sounds like going to the hospital killed her.
