My wife was the most beautiful person. In February of 2020, she came home and expressed concern about exposure to sewer gas vapors at work. She was a nurse at an elementary school and cared for people deeply and happily. She spent her life caring for others.

Not long after, she started developing symptoms like headaches, eye swelling, shortness of breath, coughing and dizziness. She reported the leak to the district, and they ignored her requests to get it repaired. She visited urgent care per the school district, and they played it down as food allergies.

She continued to get worse, so they moved her to another office and a work order was finally made to fix the leak and test the air quality. Eventually she was sent to another school but the symptoms persisted and subsequently she filed a worker’s comp case.

In December of 2021, she attended a non-work related Christmas party with her co-workers, where she was exposed to COVID by an infected co-worker. Several of the people that attended got sick, but no one was hospitalized. Tricia had symptoms as well, and tested positive for COVID on December 23, as did I.

She stayed at home trying to get over it, but was concerned about her shortness of breath and decided to go to Urgent Care…the same Urgent Care she had been to for the sewer gas exposure. That was 5 days after the positive COVID test. When she arrived her pulse ox was in the 70’s. They put her on O2 to see if it would come up. When they decided to transport her to the local hospital, concerns about the local hospital came up, but it was a bit closer than the bigger, more well equipped hospital. The Medics needed a diagnosis for transport, so a nurse came over and used a stethoscope and said, “COVID pneumonia.” No x-ray. No mention of toxic sewer gas exposure.

I was not allowed to see her, and she was quarantined for 20 days. Family were not allowed to see her. No one was able to help her. No one was able to advocate for her. Multiple times, family asked for her to be transported to the larger, more well equipped hospital. Everyone was repeatedly denied.

She was intubated after the O2 mask was not bringing her pulse ox up.

They then performed a tracheostomy, making her a COMPLEX CASE, allowing the hospital to receive more money. They were not communicating with the family.

Not once was I or anyone in the family contacted about administering Remdesivir.

The last time I talked to my wife was via text prior to the tracheostomy. She mentioned that she almost went on life support. After that, I never heard from her again, and she was not able to advocate for herself, and we were not able to advocate for her.

My wife died shortly there after.

I was contacted the day before, saying that we needed to come see her. Prior to that, we were told that her lungs were clear. It was very confusing.

They took my life…Tricia’s life…Our life together…Our future.

Vacations, dinner dates. They took our girls’ mother, granddaughters’ grandmother, a beautiful, loving, friend and daughter. They took my confidant, the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me. My companion, motivator, best friend and soul mate. They took my future.

This was a once-in-a-lifetime love. Our marriage got better every single day. We were fully committed, loving and kind to each other.  She was the most loving, compassionate, patient person you could ever meet.  She was it. The whole package. Kind, constant, consistent. She was the same person no matter where she went or who she was with. Very rare.

Taken from us because the hospital chose money over a beautiful soul.

It has left the biggest hole in my life that I have ever experienced. So many questions met with calloused, empty answers.

Twenty-seven years of true love with the most beautiful heart and spirit. Gone. For money.