DH died today and I don’t know what to do

[Pleasedontdothat]

He’d just turned 57 and was really fit but he’d been feeling vaguely under the weather for the last few days. I ended up taking him to a&e this morning as he had severe abdominal pain overnight but all his blood tests etc came back normal and they sent him home with instructions to see the GP. He went upstairs to have a lie down then said he was having a shower. I was downstairs on work calls. A couple of hours later I went upstairs to see if he wanted something for lunch and realised the shower was still running. I called out but no answer so went into the bathroom to find him collapsed on the floor - he was obviously dead. I don’t know how I’m going to cope . No point in this post but in some ways it’s easier than telling wider family and friends

A few of us have shared experiences of what has been said to us, too. More for a gentle prewarning of what can come, to the op.

I've had likewise. The worst was a week after my husband passed when any elderly lady said to me "ooh her daughter said, you won't get married again unless it's another Christian."

The lady in question was only on her feet cos she was 82 at the time.

She did, though, very clearly, get told, "I won't be getting married again! Period. I don't want or need another man.

My husband was and is my soul mate, best friend, and the dad he didn't have to mine. "

It's as true today as it was then at a week after.

I also got asked at 6 months if I was over it yet. I responded, "I will never be over it. People die. Love doesn't"

I could continue, but you get my drift

OP,

I am so sorry. Without knowing exactly what happened, we have suggestive evidence that my loved one, who died in an unusual accident, also did not suffer. That’s something that I’ve (mostly) been able to hold on to, and it does bring some small comfort. I hope you will find that also ❤️

I too was asked if I had managed to get over it and move on..just yesterday..it's only just been 5 months tomorrow 🤔

There have been a lot of "at least"'s too. Possibly the most insensitive, destructive and grief minimising phrase ever thrown at the bereaved.

Still waking up very early despite zoplicone. I’ve felt completely numb since talking to the coroner’s office - I haven’t cried in the last 24 hours which feels weird. I’ve spoken to a friend of mine who’s a very experienced doctor who told me that what DH had is very rare. Painfully for us however it’s something which could potentially have been treated if they’d found it. There’s no guarantee that he’d be alive now as it would still
have been a race against time but if they’d asked what’s causing this pain in an otherwise fit and healthy man with no risk factors and investigated further it would have been found. He shouldn’t have been sent home and I’m furious with myself for not being more forceful because I did ask the right question and was fobbed off. At least I can now resister his death and start the process of all the bureaucracy surrounding that.

I'm so sorry OP, thinking of you

I'm so, so sorry. Is it worth contacting PALS in the first instance to talk it through?

So sorry OP, I'm glad you now have answers and some comfort he wasn't in pain. He was very very unlucky, it is very rare for them to rupture. Almost 50% of people with one have zero symptoms whatsoever, and usually any symptoms are down in your groin/leg so the abdominal symptoms may well not have been an indicator at all.

We expect to be crying all the time. We don't. There have been more tears after the funeral than before i found out. Even then, I thought there would be more.

I do know that grief is in other ways. The shock and how you look stay with you for a long time.

The heaviness in my body and my heart was with me for a long time. Getting through each day was an extreme effort in itself.

When does it change? When do you step into a slightly more manageable place?

I don't know! I do know it doesn't get better. It gets different.

Has for the 5 stages of grief I spoke of, anger is also an emotion we can turn on ourselves

Remember ODAAT ❤️

I still don’t know why they sent him home though - the abdominal pain was coming from >600 ml of urine in his bladder - he was only able to pass 30ml at a time. Once they’d decided the pain was coming from his bladder they didn’t ask the follow up question which I kept on asking them to ask which was what was causing acute urine retention in a fit and healthy man. The doctor said he needed to get an appointment with the GP to see a urologist (minimum four month wait). I wish I had been more forceful and demanded more investigation - if they’d done a CT scan to look at the bladder they would have found the aneurysm and then they might have been able to save him. And even if they couldn’t get him into surgery on time he’d have collapsed in hospital and I wouldn’t have had the trauma of finding him at home. Yesterday was very hard - the funeral director came to get some clothes for him. I’m feeling very lost and hopeless and so tired

@Pleasedontdothat The 'what if's are all a normal part of this. It's so hard to think about if we'd only done this or that. Hindsight is everything. You only knew what you knew at the time. Remember that you can't make them do anything. If they didn't want to do the CT, they wouldn't have, and they'd have got you to leave if you'd pushed too hard. I know you probably feel like you'd do it anyway as you now know you had nothing to lose by being difficult. You didn't do anything wrong. You did what you thought was best with the information you had at the time. It's not your fault.

You trust the doctors at a time like this. Please don’t blame yourself. The general public shouldn’t be expected to be insisting on scans, etc. sadly with many medics there does seem to be an issue of treat the problem but not think about what’s causing the problem.

The nhs have what they call a duty of candour now when they’re supposed to be open and honest and admit any failings. I appreciate you might not feel up to it now but down the line if you did want to talk to them about what happened they should be open to this. Someone has already mentioned PALS and they would be a good starting point.

Oh OP. I’m so sorry you are going through this. It’s so hard. There is nothing you could have done. The doctors were in charge.

Grief and shock can bring up every emotion a human can experience. Try to be kind to yourself if you can. Look after yourself the best you can. Accept help from others as best you can.

This is one of the hardest things a human can endure, but somehow, enduring it is exactly what we do, and we keep going, one foot in front of the other, until eventually there are little gaps in the pain and bits of light showing through. I hope your bits of light come sooner than you can imagine.

Sending you a massive amount of fellow human love and care 💐

I am so sorry, OP. It is wrong that the whole thing happened. I agree you might want to consider a follow up with PALS eventually, but only if you want to.

Pleasedontdotha

Please don't beat yourself up about this. You did what you could at the time. When my DH died suddenly the very kind ambulance people told me very firmly not to go down the route of 'if only' and 'what if', but it is hard not to.

The raw pain you are feeling now does ease with time, but as one friend told me, every now and again something comes along to say 'gotcha' and remind you of it all. I am still at that state 16 months on, but putting one step in front of the other.

Hi OP, these last few messages describe the anger, raw pain, and ‘if onlys’ really well so I won’t add ours! Just to say it’s completely normal.

It did seem unbelievable when I was told ‘you WILL get through this’, by a woman whose job was to guide people through such situations as ours. My husband worked for a very large employer and they assigned her to us.

Anyone else telling me I’d ‘get through this’ I’d have disbelieved or secretly wanted to punch. But some part of me took it in from her. Nevertheless, looking back now I don’t know how I got through it.

Are you eating again yet?

I'm sorry, OP (and to others who have experienced similar).

You did absolutely everything that you were able to do within that moment. You are not the medic here and even if you were, there is a reason (many in fact) that they don’t let you treat your kin. You did everything you could do.

I am so very sorry for your loss and sending you love

I’m so sorry OP, that’s so so hard. Bottom line he didn’t present as a typical femoral aneurysm case, it would never have occurred to them to look for that on the basis of his symptoms.

The signposts for urinary retention are urological or neurological. They would have ruled out neurological at the time, so urology was left. Why they didn’t scan him for an acute blockage I don’t know, I guess because he was managing to release some urine. But you cannot hold yourself responsible for the medical decisions, it was the doctors’ mistake not yours. When a medical decision has been made in a hospital there’s nothing you can do.

Thinking of you OP. It's a really difficult time. Take one day at a time. ☕️ 💐

It’s hard not to think of the what ifs. My dad died when I was in my teens and I felt the same for a long long time. But it’s destructive. I hope you’re managing a little more sleep tonight. I can’t imagine how hard this is for you.

I am so incredibly sorry. You are in my thoughts and I'm sending love and strength your way.

Thinking of you OP. The guilt and the what ifs stay with you for a long, long time. I have no good advice to give you, just sending you love and understanding. I hope you have some support around you. It is so hard to manage all the practicalities when you are exhausted.

Oh Pleadedont' I'm just catching up on your posts from the last few days. I'm so, so sorry that your DH died way too early, and that the experience at the hospital has left you with such awful question-marks hanging over your head.

PP have given some great suggestions and advice, in particular Mirabai's last post. She is right - a clinical decision was made which, as it turned out, was the wrong one, but that was not your fault AT ALL. You DID ask the right questions and at some point we have to trust what we are being told by those we are encouraged to believe are more knowledgeable about a potential clinical picture than we are. I hope that you can find a way to live with the truth of that. However, at some point, it may be worth raising a complaint with the hospital and pushing to ensure that the team involved in your DH's care have been made aware of what subsequently happened so that should the same situation present to them again, they will not make the same error of sending the person home.

I hope you have people around you to help you, not just your children who may look to you to support them, but people to support YOU? Sending all the love and strength the power of internet allows.

I totally understand what you are saying. It's twenty two years since my.husband died. And five years since my partner died. You don't get over it. You just find ways of.coping. My DP was diagnosed with cancer two months after we got together. There was never a question of me walking away. DP told me I could of I wanted to... What sort of woman would. That have made me. I now have three honarary grandchildren from. DPs children.. It makes me sad that he and his late wife don't get to see.them. They are the lights of my life and I adore them all.

I would just like to add to what's been said here. If you decide to put in a complaint, I suggest to PALS at the hospital, may I suggest you put it in as "Constructive Feedback" rather than a complaint.

We had a situation with my husband care that was horrific. It merited a complaint.

My GP asked me what I wanted from the complaint. I said for the Dr to learn and hopefully not do what he did with anyone else.

My GP said, "Put it in marked as constructive feedback. You will get a much better response from them. "

Our GP was right. The response we got was far better, and it led to the dept manager developing new patient practices and the like in their dept. It also led to an apology from the Dr and what he would be doing differently in the future.

Nothing is going to bring your husband back, so saying something to them in a way that isn't confrontational, we found got a better response.

You won't be ready to do this if you do. I wanted to put this in the mix alongside the suggestion above