Editor,
I cannot impress upon your readership just how important and vital to our region the John C. Fremont Healthcare District truly is. For a third time since 2018, they’ve literally saved my life.
I had a right knee replacement in Fresno on Jan. 6. Unknown to all involved, I was infected with the dangerous, oft-deadly bacteria serratia marcescens that day in a major Fresno hospital which I won’t name for legal reasons.
A few weeks later, my knee began to painfully swell. My wife drove me down from Jerseydale to the JCF ER, where that bacteria was discovered and confirmed to my Fresno surgeon. After receiving the usual great care locally, I was sent by ambulance back to Fresno that very day, to that original Fresno hospital location — which I won’t name due to pending legal action.
I was kept there from Feb. 23-28 and released to home healthcare with a PICC IV line implanted directly into my heart, where it still remains.
Unfortunately, a little more than a week later on March 9, I went into septic shock at home. My wife again rushed me to the JCF ER. By then, I was comatose.
Septic shock is the final phase of sepsis, during which organs begin to shut down, and is usually a fatal condition. But once again, the JCF ER saved my life. My blood pressure was 60/37; the staff worked incredibly hard to stabilize me.
I was in a coma for two-plus hours, during which they managed to raise my BP, fight against the new bacterial condition — C-Diff, which had overwhelmed me due to the fact that the heavy-duty antibiotics had killed off all my “good” gut bacteria, but not the C-Diff, which was now running rampant in me, in addition to that serratia marcescens.
I cannot praise the JCF doctors and nurses who worked for hours to reverse my comatose condition, until I could finally be awakened — with their necessary physical and vocal actions to get me out of that coma. They did, as well as stabilizing my condition to the point that I could be choppered back down from JCF to that Fresno, hospital — first in the ICU and then in isolation for a week, during which time I also became a patient of the Fresno Office of Infectious Disease Services.
After a week (March 9-14,) I was again released to come home, again under home healthcare with visiting nurses and my wife Diane administering my IV sessions, shots, etc. I am so fortunate to have had such a magnificent woman as my wife for 45 years.
But I am far more fortunate — as we all are — to have John C. Fremont Healthcare District here in Mariposa. Without them, I would be dead. And that’s not hyperbole: it’s reality. We must all do everything possible to keep this facility open and thriving, without which Mariposa seriously would be lost.
Now home, now recovering — with frequent drives to Fresno for various medical appointments carefully timed between my home IV sessions.
I am incredibly grateful to the JCF Healthcare District, and especially to the ER, about which I informed all my Fresno medical support, medical offices, orthopedic surgeon and that — certain hospital — of the highly skilled, caring and effective medical facility we have here in Mariposa.
Most of them were totally unaware of JCF’s existence — which I honestly told them is superior to the care I’ve received during the past two-and-a-half months in Fresno. And without which, I would be dead right now.
And the MYSO, after a hiatus, will be back in performance on June 27 as we close our truncated 21st season.
Again, all thanks to the John C. Fremont Healthcare District, which has my immeasurably profound respect and gratitude.
Les Marsden
Mariposa
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