Kris died 32 years ago today

Two week before Kris died he was in the hospital for one of his many admissions. He was much better after a week so we wanted to take him home. The doctor in charge got mad at us for suggesting he was ready to go home and threatened never to see him again if we discharged him ourselves, so we didn't. The next day we were not able to come visit Kris in the hospital. The following day, when we came to see him, we checked his chart and were shocked that he had been given 10x the normal IV fluid. When we asked why - "that's what the doctor ordered".

A few days later he was transferred to to ICU due to interstitial lung fluids and congestive heart failure. When I checked his master file in the ICU, the chart from that fateful day was missing. Evidence removed. No proof of malfeasance.

The night before he died his mom and I were encouraged to go to the hotel to get some rest. At 4:30 we got the call to come to the hospital and by 6:30 he was gone. Later that doctor met Martha and quite cheerfully told her that she had heard we had a tough morning.

When we had our lawyer check into it, we got a long report that said that he died because of his underlying condition and there was no malpractice. That doctor continued to work at that hospital for 30 more years and killed a whole lot more kids. Retired with honour.

Kris, our firstborn, lived for 3 years and 3 months.

Dr O'Reilley was doing successful transplants in New York at the time, but we did not find out about that for another 8 years. When we kept asking the Winnipeg doctors for referral elsewhere, we were told that Kris was getting the best treatment in the world.

We weep.