Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.
Issue link: http://outpatientsurgery.uberflip.com/i/703764
J U L Y 2 0 1 6 • O U T PA T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T • 1 4 5 Kathy Pugh hadn't planned to retire at 60, but her mother's deteriorating condition left little choice. "I knew I had to either quit my job or put her in a nursing home," says Ms. Pugh, now 63. In 2012, Evelyn Bates-March, then 81, was full of life, says her daughter: "She was such an active woman. She walked the dog, she gardened, she kept her house clean, she cooked, she baked." Then came the tainted steroid shot that eventually led to fungal meningitis. Now 85, Ms. Bates-March is bedridden and requires 24/7 care, says Ms. Pugh, of Pinckney, Mich. "She can't go the bathroom by herself, can't care for herself, I do it all." It's easy to forget that the outbreak is still profoundly impacting many lives, says Ms. Pugh. "People think there was a tragedy, people died, people got sick, they went to the hospital, they got treated and now they're home and they're fine," she says. "That's not the case." Her mother's precipitous decline was preceded by weeks of anxiety over news that she might have been infected. When the worst was confirmed, she was hos- "This was a domestic covert act of terrorism." "This was a domestic covert act of terrorism." • KATHY PUGH had to quit her job to take care of her bedridden mother, Evelyn Bates-March, who requires around-the-clock care after contracting fungal meningitis from tainted steriods. Kathy Pugh pitalized and given the powerful anti-fungal drug Vfend (voriconazole), which is known to cause hallucinations. "I got a call at work," says Ms. Pugh. "She had ripped out her catheter, grabbed her walker and purse, and was heading out, because (she thought) terrorists were killing everybody and piling the bodies up." She's been off the medication for a couple of years now, but still has flashback hallucina- tions. "She's just gotten weaker and weaker," says Ms. Pugh. "She never bounced back." Will justice prevail? "This was a domestic covert act of terror- ism," she says. "It was no differ- ent than someone releasing sarin gas on a train or airplane. To me justice would be to have (NECC president) Barry Cadden go to prison, be given an injec- tion of his steroids every day, and to have to be on the anti- fungal medication for the rest of his life." — Jim Burger