I have some extremely sad news

[Guest guest]

I know that my wife, Annette, had exchanged messages with some of you in the

past few

months. I am so very sad and hurt that I have to tell you that she died suddenly

and

unexpectedly on Wednesday evening, having suffered what the pathologist has

described

as a massive heart attack. The full report hasn't arrived yet, but when it does

I will be

asking some questions about her recent medical treatment and whether or not it

had any

bearing on her heart condition.

I'm not sure if she mentioned it in any of her messages here, but she had been

suffering

since last October from a very bad cough that was often extremely severe.

Courses of

antibiotics at first seemed to deal with it, but then it would come back just as

bad. In the

end, her consultant rheumatologist (who had himself been on sick leave for some

time)

saw her about three weeks ago now and said that he thought it was the MTX that

was

causing her cough. MTX is apparently known to have a fairly common risk of

causing a

problem with the lungs and the only real way to prove that this was the case was

simply to

stop taking it and see what happened. Sure enough, about two weeks after her

last dose,

the cough went away.

Unfortunately, in the consultant's absence, his locum assistant standing in for

him, at first

wanted her to add leflunomide to her regime. After some investigation, as I

think she

discussed here, she told him that it didn't seem at all wise for her to take

leflunomide,

particularly with her medical history. At that point, and despite the fact that

she told him

about how long she had the cough - and, if I recall correctly, was even coughing

badly

during the consultation - he suggested that she instead use MTX by injection,

rather than

in oral form, as that might prove to be more effective. As it turns out, that

seems to have

been totally the wrong thing to have done!

But, as I say, at this stage, I can't say whether or not any of that had any

bearing on the

heart condition that led to her death. Perhaps I might learn more when I get to

discuss the

pathologists report with our local doctor (GP) and if I do, I'll try to remember

to get back to

you with whatever I find out.

The most unfortunate thing is that, in a number of ways, life was improving

significantly

for Annette and the two of us had plans to do many things together yet, but all

of that

cannot now happen due to her being so prematurely taken from us. I feel so much

pain at

her loss, made worse by the fact that she was alone in our bedroom when the

attack

happened. I was just so stunned when I walked in and found her collapsed on the

floor -

at first I thought she'd just slipped off the bed and couldn't get up, but as

soon as I turned

her over, I knew it was much more serious. All attempts to try to revive her,

guided by the

ambulance controller on the phone, were to no avail and even my brother-in-law,

who is a

fireman and fully-trained first aider, had no more success when he arrived

shortly after.

Finally, when the paramedic arrived, he quite quickly diagnosed that because of

the length

of time that she had not been breathing, it would not be wise or respectful to

her dignity

to even try anything further to resuscitate her.

Let me finish by saying how much I appreciate the fact that you did what you

could to

make her welcome in this group. It was actually her first ever subscription to

any internet

message group and she so enjoyed learning how it all worked. She also told me

how

useful she felt it was to learn so much just from reading all of your messages.

Also, how

she realised how lucky we are here in the UK to have our NHS that provides

treatment free

of charge (well, mostly!), compared to the horror stories she read about the

hassles one

can have with HMOs in the US!

It's just too sad (and that's a massive understatement) that she will no longer

be here to

participate in this group.

Best regards

Nigel Hamlin

Hereford, UK