Infection/ Septic shock?

[Bobbi]

My father of good health died within one week of being bitten by a horse.  He was very physically active and healthy.  He was treated by an urgent care dr for the bite on the day it happened and during the final week of his life.  He was fine on the day of the bite and increasingly got worse as the week went on. He complained of  dizzyness, was weak, throwing up, fever, chills, fatigue, loss of appetite, ache all over feeling, just not himself.  He was never a sick man.  He went from full of spunk to laying on the couch by the 5th day.  He was seen by the dr again during this week of time,who just switched his antibiotic.  He was taking Cephalexin  250 mg, to Augmentin 500mg, then back to the cephalexin because the dr was thinking the meds were making him sick.  We all thought it was the infection though. He was seen again on friday and they took a chest xray and looked for pneumonia but said he didnt have it.
by Saturday he was so bad with dry heaves and no energy that he was taken to the hospital.  When he arrived there, the emergency department could not even find vitals on him, and this man walked into the hospital. During the 5 hours he was there before he died they tried to say that he had a bad heart but we find that hard to believe.  Would the xrays they took on friday show an enlarged heart? and why was this not caught?  The autopsy report said his heart was almost 3 times it size.  He was never short of breath, or showed any signs of problems of a bad heart. I know this is long but I want to help you understand the events.  Maybe you could help us understand, we felt our father didnt need to die.

[Kay]

So sorry to hear of your loss.  Medicine can only do so much for our loved ones, however, if it were my father, I would physically go to the hospital and retrieve the medical records and get the records from the Dr. as well.  I would hope the doc did a C&S of the infection so that he prescribed the correct antibiotic.  Please do note that this seems to be a very fast moving problem and most likely the outcome would have been the same, regardless of the antibiotic given.

[Cleveland Clinic, MD]

Dear Bobbi,

My condolences on the loss of your father.  Generally we don't have much comment on cases like this due to medical-legal reasons but I can say that if the heart was 3 times normal it did not happen in one week but took months to years to develop.