Albert Kahwaty

In 2013, my 75-year-old father was admitted to the hospital with a WBC [white blood cell count] of over 75,000. It took about a day to figure out that he had both a kidney stone and a UTI, the combination of the two causing him to be suffering from sepsis. (Sepsis and Kidney Stones, Sepsis and Urinary Tract Infections) When he was released from the CCU 104 days later I wrote the following letter to our local newspaper, and sent it to the staff and administration at the hospital where he was treated . I hope reading our story will help others who can relate to it.

Here is the letter:
An open letter to the doctors, nurses, and staff of the CCU where my father was treated,

On March 13, 2013, my father, Albert Kahwaty, went to the hospital by ambulance at the suggestion of his doctor. He was sick and not breathing well, but we had no idea what was wrong. Doctor after doctor examined him, scratched their heads, and left. He was admitted to the CCU, and we left him there that night with no diagnosis other than he was “very sick.” He was intubated overnight and I remember telling my sister the next morning that “this is not going to end well.” We called family and friends and warned them that this might be their last chance to see him. Such was my state of mind when I met most of your group for the first time that Thursday morning.

Over the next 104 days, you became the most important people in the world to my father, even more than his family and friends at his bedside. You found the problem, and saved his life. You then nursed him, fed him, bathed him, and talked to him through his unconscious state. You gave him the medications he needed to survive. You shaved him so that he looked presentable to visitors, more like the man they loved. You kept him comfortable with pillows and blankets and lotions so his skin wouldn’t feel dry. When his condition improved, you got to know him, and you made him feel safe, and clean, and loved.

My father’s health status was not a straight line up. He had setbacks, some severe. When he did, you tried the methods you knew might work, and suggested others that were less familiar. Most importantly, you never gave up on this 75-year-old man with a strong will to live. It was your belief that he could pull through that he can now thank for his recovery.

While saving him, you saved us, too. As my sister Patti and I visited the hospital every day, you took care of us. You updated her every morning and evening on my father’s condition. You gave us results of his daily labs and we clung to those numbers, looking for any sign of improvement. You explained the readouts of the monitors we stared at for hours, trying to understand what was happening. You encouraged us to ask question after question, most of which were designed to find a glimmer of hope in the answers, or, we feared, to make us see what someone might not be telling us.

For 104 days you comforted us, distracted us with conversation, made us believe that he could survive, and opened our eyes when we were too optimistic. You helped us understand what he was going through, and prepared us for the worst when it seemed inevitable. You were hopeful and brutally honest. You adjusted him in his bed at our request when he wouldn’t lie still. You trusted us to remove his restraints when we could no longer bear to see him tied down. You encouraged us to hold his hands and talk to him even when he couldn’t respond. You asked us to leave the room at times to preserve his dignity. You empowered us to advocate for him. You saw us sometimes arrive in the highest of spirits, only to leave fighting back tears. Other days, we arrived in despair, and went home with renewed hope. You became the people we needed to get through the ordeal, and to make it through each day, no matter how hard. You gave us the strength to walk into the hospital not knowing if those hours would be our last with our father. And you became as important to us as we were to each other.

We saw the seasons change from my dad’s room, from winter to spring to summer. In that time, you got to know us and we shared pictures and stories about our families. When the time was right, you encouraged us to bring our children to see him, and taught us how to keep them safe from the inherent dangers of a CCU. Essentially, we invited you into our family, and you accepted. And you were there for us, when we reveled at his progress and cried through his difficulties. Without you, we would have been lost.

We were told that my father had only a 10 percent chance of survival. Together, it seemed that we always viewed it as a 10 percent chance of survival, not a 90 percent chance of dying. He landed in that 10 percent because of you, you literally gave him life. Every smile he smiles, every second with his grandchildren, every laugh he laughs, he can thank you for. And so can we.

Source: Albert Kahwaty (son of patient)