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Deziraye Wald Dad's Funeral

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Hey I'm not sure how to start this but I just find it really mind-boggling how a healthy 54 year-old gets diagnosed with the flu and dies a little over a week later.

 My dad, Robert Wald, was healthy as can be and a workhorse. He had type 2 diabetes but it was well managed and under control. He was up bright and early everyday working on something and just go, go, go constantly. He was just released from Rehab on the 27th of December and had a clean bill of health from his physician there, he had just had a physical. He was doing great  for the short time he was with me. Working on my house  was a great dad again, loved his grandbabies and spent time and played with them everyday. 

 Fast forward to January 2nd, my dad starts getting sick and is running a fever pretty high overnight so I bring him to the emergency room the next evening because his fever still hadn't broke. This was on the 3rd. TMC was so crowded and so busy they were treating multiple patients in the waiting room. They had chairs set up out there for patients, nurses and doctors running around treating people, people on IVs, they were diagnosing a lady sitting next to me and starting her IV, this is in the waiting room mind you! So my dad tests positive for the Flu Type A, they do some blood work and chest x-rays and they give him some steroids and fluids through an IV, some cough medicine and send him home. He never went back, just examined, diagnosed and treated in the waiting room. I don't know why they didn't prescribe Tamiflu. But I'm not a doctor either, maybe it was too late to start that treatment.

 Anyways over the next couple days my dad progressively gets worse, he won't get out of bed, he is in more pain than I've ever seen him before, he won't eat or drink, he's still running a fever so on the 8th I bring him back up there. By now he has pneumonia and is pretty dehydrated and has low oxygen levels. The hospital is still so full that they left my dad on a stretcher in the ER for 2 more days. I don't feel like they ever really took my dad's illness seriously. He finally gets a room upstairs on the 8th floor and by this point his kidneys are on the rocks, his pneumonia has gotten worse and he has a hospital-acquired MRSA blood infection. Pretty much this is like a bacteria on steroids, that you only get in hospitals and doesn't respond to antibiotic treatment. My dad's pulse keeps skyrocketing and his blood pressure is super low. He's in so much agony and so much pain he can't function. It's just awful. I spend the next three days living in the hospital with him and trying to help him with anything I can and comfort him. He starts having AFib and heart problems. I ask for prayers on Facebook and it's like the next day everything seemed better. I thought my dad was finally kicking it and that all the prayers were working. My dad ate breakfast on the 11th which was the first meal he had had in over a week, he was sitting up in bed and even took a sit-down shower. I asked him if he would be okay if I went to work for a little while and he said he was fine. I came back after I got off work and he was still doing better. He had asked for his laptop because he was wanting to watch some movies, he was hungry again so I ordered him some dinner. My kiddos had been at their grandmother's house for going on 3 days and she needed to get to work so I asked him if he would be okay overnight and he said he was fine. I told him if he wasn't I didn't mind staying and that the kiddos could spend the night with their other grandmother. He told me he was fine and that he loved me, that I was a good daughter and to go home and take care of my babies. I kissed him goodnight and told him I would see him in the morning.

 Sometime overnight though or in the wee hours of the morning my dad started going back into afib again, his blood pressure dropped again, his pulse skyrocketed, I got a call from one of the nurses saying they had to move my dad into intermediate ICU on the 7th floor and then before I was able to get a shower and get out of the house I got another call from a nurse saying my dad was now in the ICU on a respirator and was sedated but stable. I got up there and spent the rest of the day crying and holding my dad's hand as he died at 8:25pm that evening.
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  • Anonymous
    • $25 
    • 6 yrs
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Organiser and beneficiary

Andrea 'Sissy Ball' Diehl
Organiser
Denison, TX
Deziraye Wald
Beneficiary

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