After 5 sinus debridement the doctors at the University of Utah hospital diagnosed the fungus as mucormycosis. It is very rare and aggressive. No one has lived with this fungus. After the 5 sinus surgery's we were getting ready to go home. Dr. Hunt came for a check up with some students and found out Bill had a bacterial infection (Jan. 26th). Dr. Hunt decided to do one more sinus clean out (Jan. 28th) before we went home and found that the fungal infection had started to eat the bone in Bill's face. He went back into surgery (Feb. 1st) and the doctors removed his top jaw and the cheek bone on the left side of his face. He has a trach tube and a G-tube to eat with. One more MRI was done and they found that the fungus was still growing. They doctors told us that there was nothing more they could do and they were going to send us home to make Bill comfortable until he passed away. Within 30 to 45 minutes, they came back and asked if we would like to try hyperbaric chamber treatments, to see if it would stop the fungus. Mucormycosis does not like oxygen. Of course we said yes, so we were sent to LDS hospital (Feb. 9th). Bill's dad passed away this same day at 6:40 am. I didn't tell Bill about it until Saturday the 11th, when the kids came up to the hospital.  

I had to go back to work on Monday, Feb. 21st. I was so sad to leave Bill alone at the hospital, but the nurses took really good care of him and I drove up every weekend until April 20th. After I had to come back to St. George the hyperbaric chamber treatments were harder for Bill deal with. He had to take anxiety and depression medicine.