Father feared for sons after flu killed their mom
The sorrow gripping Donald Marengère quickly turned to fear in the hours after he had watched, helplessly, as his wife slipped away.
The Gatineau father of two found himself back in a hospital room — the fifth different hospital he had visited in as many days on a confounding and ultimately tragic journey — fearing his five-yearold son had contracted the same deadly flu virus that had killed the boy ’s mother, 39-year-old Cynthia Thibaudeau, just hours earlier.
His son was exhibiting some of the same early symptoms his mother had shown a week earlier, when she first started complaining of the illness that would claim her life just days after she was diagnosed with influenza.
“My sons (five-year-old Vincent and six-year-old Simon) didn’t know yet that their mother had passed away the night before (on Feb. 12),” Marengère said in an interview. “My eldest had an ear infection and my youngest had flu symptoms, so we were worried that they both had either the bacteria or the virus that my wife had.”
He said CHEO staff were “very touched by my story,” and the children were seen by a doctor right away. His son has since recovered.
Staff put Marengère in touch with a social worker. He broke the news to his heartbroken children later that same day.
“They’re very emotional, they want to stay really close to me. They miss their mother very much, like we all do,” he said.
Thibaudeau first started feeling ill on Monday, Feb. 5, with a fever, body aches and a cough. As her condition worsened, she drove to the Montfort Hospital that Friday. Doctors ran tests, took X-rays and sent her home to rest.
“There was nothing they could do, she just had to ride it out,” Marengère recalled.
A Montfort spokeswoman confirmed Thursday the hospital is undergoing a “quality review ” related to the case, while offering “sincere condolences” to the family.
“I’m not sure what they could have seen,” Marengère said. “Did they miss something in the blood test? Did they miss something in the X-ray? They’re still running an investigation, and they said they will meet with me when I’m ready and able.”
Thibaudeau’s health took a downward turn that weekend.
Marengère said he thought his wife was asleep upstairs that Sunday night when he found her after a fall in the bathroom.
“We had to carry her back to bed because she couldn’t walk. Then she started vomiting dark liquid, and I knew that was a really bad sign, so I called the ambulance right away and drove her to Gatineau Hospital.”
Doctors identified a hemorrhage on her lung, but according to Marengère, the hospital didn’t have proper equipment to treat her, and she was transferred to Hull Hospital.
“They managed to stop the bleeding, but by then that was a secondary worry, because her heart started to get affected (either by the influenza virus or bacteria), and so they had to transfer her to the Ottawa Heart Institute, where she would have the best chance at survival,” Marengère said.
“Her conditions never improved and she passed away at 11:30 p.m. Monday.”
Ottawa Public Health said it’s aware of 25 influenza-related deaths since September. In all but three of those deaths, the person was over age 65, and in the three exceptions, each had “other underlying health conditions,” according to the agency.
Outaouais public health and social services has reported nine flu-related deaths, including five deaths since a recent outbreak that prompted the health network to take “exceptional measures” to deal with a “particularly virulent” flu season.
Marengère, meanwhile, is awaiting the results of the Montfort investigation, but he said nothing will blunt the pain of his wife’s loss.