(Law & Liberty) – My mother almost died on her birthday. Upon learning that she was critically ill, I flew to New York from where I lived in Illinois, arriving at the hospital around 8 pm. My mother was quarantined, wearing an oxygen mask on her forehead. I moved the mask to her nose and mouth, where it belonged, and waited.
Thirty minutes later, a nurse entered and told me that my mother’s blood oxygen was low, resulting in unsustainably high heart and breathing rates. She had entered the hospital with double pneumonia that turned into sepsis. She had been started on an antibiotic infusion upon her arrival.
After some searching, I found a resident who was able to answer my questions. She said that such high heart and breathing rates would eventually cause my mother to go into respiratory distress, followed by respiratory failure and death. CONTINUE