Katarina had had some problems with her trachea for a couple of weeks but was fine and in an excellent mode the last weekend of March. Sunday had been a great day out in the first spring sun with her personal assistant. She ate her dinner with a good appetite, but seemed tired when attended in the evening. She felt a bit warm, I took her temp and she had a slight fever.
I put her to bed and she immediately fell asleep. We checked on her several times during evening and night, to make sure she was not getting worse. She was not. At three a m I checked her. Ten to six my husband called for me from within her room: Please come! I think Katarina is dead! Ambulance was at our home within minutes and the staff started working on her. I went with the ambulance to hospital while my husband stayed at home with our three younger children and called for his mother to come over so he could come after us to hospital.
There was nothing to do. Our Katarina was gone. Autopsy revealed that she had pneumonia. It has probably been going on for some time, but her weak immune system had not managed to start working on it. At night the pnemonia had become worse, her immune system had finally started working but at that stage it has been to late.
When breathing became more difficult she had not struggled due to lack of oxygene. Instead her breathing has surfaced, she has not vented out carbondioxide and gradually sunk into unconsciousness and finally stopped breathing.
If your time has come this is one of the better ways to leave this world. It is totally painless, there is no agony, only peace. But to us it meant we never had a chance to even try to save our Katarina.
I still wonder if there had been anything to do if we had only taken her to hospital in time, but doctors say we did not have the slightest indication night would end in disaster, that she needed to be in hospital. And besides they doubt if there had been anything to do even if we had been in hospital. Maybe infection was too much for her this time. Maybe then it was best for Katarina to peacefully pass away at home.
It was so easy to forget how weak her little body really was. Her sensitiveness to infection was never of the kind that meant she was constantly slightly ill. She was fine - until above all the viruses - hit. It was solely her good spirit that helped her through more than one of these infections. She had turned at the gate on at least three earlier occasions. This fourth time she did not manage to turn back. She followed her ancestors to the other world.