Kathy Ream was doing what she enjoyed, tending to the yard and her garden at her New Cumberland home. Neighbors always commented on the yard of the home she and her husband, Wally, had shared since 1977.
It was pretty and well-maintained, and that was Kathy’s doing. If Wally lended a hand, he did only what he was told.
“I don’t know what’s a weed and what isn’t,” he said.
After she worked in her garden that day, two fingers on Kathy’s right hand began to swell. She figured a bug had bitten her. She saw her doctor who prescribed medication and told her to go directly to the ER if the swelling worsened.
The following day things were much the same, but Sunday, June 5, she awoke to a horrible sight. Wally described his wife’s arm as swollen, black and purple. He took her to the ER where staff began a series of tests.
Eventually, the couple was told Kathy needed an operation.
People who knew Kathy called her a devoted mother and grandmother. Their grandson followed in his father’s footsteps playing baseball. Kathy was always on the sidelines.
Before her operation, she told Wally to go to their grandson’s game. Wally argued. She was about to have surgery. He wanted to stick around. But Kathy ordered him to scoot, telling him she would see him after the game. So off he went.
When the score was final, he called the hospital and was told his wife was doing well in recovery. In the time it took him to drive to the hospital, Kathy had died.
The bite – doctors suspected from a spider – had caused necrotizing fasciitis, commonly called flesh-eating disease. WebMD describes it as a rare infection of the skin and tissues below that can be deadly if not treated quickly.
Only 600 to 700 cases are diagnosed annually in the United States and only about 25% of those are fatal.
Wally, his family and friends were left reeling from the shock of such a rare diagnosis taking a kind woman so quickly.
Kathy, who was 74, had met Wally five decades earlier at a drum and bugle corps competition in Carlisle. He was a drummer. She was there for the entertainment. He found her to be cute, nice and polite, and he liked her laugh.
Kathy spent many years working in payroll for Rite Aid. Now, they were moving toward their 49th wedding anniversary, just two retired folks living a quiet life in New Cumberland.
Wally is still in shock.
When he said good-bye to Kathy before he left for the baseball game, he had no idea it would be the last time he would see her alive.
“It wasn’t really goodbye,” he said. “I thought I would see her again.”
NANCY ESHELMAN: columnist1@verizon.net
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