John beloved father of Cori Gauthier
1950 - 2005 

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By Cori Gauthier

My father was a humble man. He always did for others. If he only had $1 in his pocket and you needed it then he would give it to you.

My father had WLS on Sept 19 2005, He died on Oct 4 2005. It was a horrible time. He came home less then 40 hours after surgery. His blood sugar was over 300 when discharged from the hospital. He was pale and in a lot of pain. When I went to pick him up, I said that he didn't look good and asked if he wanted to stay in the hospital. He said yes. When I told the nurse, she said that the discharge papers were already to go.

I was very worried about taking him home. I wish I would have refused to take him. Maybe he would be here now.

24 hours after he was home he was 10 times worse.

My sister was there the day after and we were taking turns being with him. She called me and asked if dad was breathing funny the day before. I told her that I would be right there. I only lived 5 min from him. I called the WLS doc and they wanted me to bring him to the office. Well I ended up calling 911 because my sister and I couldn't even get him off the chair.

That was the beginning of the worst week in this half of my life. Dad was immediately put on a vent and had kidney failure . Ended up he waited there for 7 days before they did a cat scan to find 700cc of fluid in his belly. Autopsy revealed 2 leaks.

If it had been taken care of sooner, maybe he would still be here. But the WLS doc waited. He said he checked for leaks right after surgery and everything was fine. Two months before the WLS, my father was in a bad car accident. I don't think that the surgery should have been done because he had trauma to his belly from that accident.

But My fathers insurance was going to stop covering WLS as of Jan 1 2006. So when you have a group of doctors saying you're fat and you're going to die if you don't have the surgery and your time is running out with insurance.....I think he felt allot of pressure.

My sister and I had to make that dreadful decision to turn all the vents and machines off. That I think will stick with me the rest of my life. I still, every night, 1 year later, go though the whole nightmare of  each day I spent in the hospital with Dad and thinking, what if I did something different.