Trasylol: "What the Hell Did They Give These People?"

Port Lavaca, TXAlice G. says that in the six years since her mother died, her family has struggled to understand what happened. With the recent news about Trasylol, Alice says she may have a better understanding of why her mother died. Although she is not yet positive her mother was given Trasylol during surgery, Alice says that what her mother went through prior to her death sounds a lot like what other patients have experienced.

"My mother was traveling with my dad in 2002 and had a spell with her heart," Alice says. "So she was taken to hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. She called us and said she would be having 'a little surgery' and then she told us she was actually having quadruple bypass surgery. We flew out to be with her and got there right before she came out of the surgery.

"Mom came out of surgery fine and we were making arrangements for her to come home. She was in hospital for six days when she went into kidney failure. She passed away on the sixth day.

"We didn't know what happened to her. How could she go in for heart surgery and pass away from kidney failure? Then I was reading about Trasylol and other people who took it and it sounded like what happened to my mother."

Alice says that her mother had the occasional kidney infection but had never suffered any serious kidney problems prior to her quadruple bypass surgery. What came as a shock to the family was that Alice's mother was doing well immediately following her surgery only to develop kidney failure and have her health decline so rapidly.

"They took her off all her antibiotics and everything was going well after the surgery," Alice says. "Her catheter was bothering her and I think she pulled it out herself. She was even getting up to go to the bathroom. Since she was doing better, we opted to leave the hospital on the fifth day. We left to sleep, but the hospital called between 2-3 am. asking for someone to stay with Mom because she was antsy.

"My sister was with her when she started on her downhill slope. Once she started going down it's like there was nothing they could do to get her back. They put her on machines and said they were doing 'heroic measures' and that her kidneys were failing and they were doing all they could do.

"Then next thing they told us was that she didn't make it. I don't know for sure if Trasylol was used but she sounds similar to so many other people, it is uncanny. I was reading articles and I read some to my sister and dad. They just said, 'What the hell did they give these people?'

"When you lose someone significant, everyone feels like they could have done something differently. How could she go in for heart surgery and die of kidney failure? We've had questions for six years and when I read the article I thought, 'If she had Trasylol there's nothing we could have done because we didn't know.'

Many people who have had loved ones die of kidney problems after open heart surgery are now looking into medical records to determine if Trasylol was used during surgery. They are also investigating a lawsuit against the maker of Trasylol, alleging that the company knew about the serious risks associated with the drug but failed to warn the public or the medical community.