A wife was left heartbroken after her husband passed away on their wedding anniversary.
Karen McNulty, 37, met Dominic McNulty through mutual friends on August 25, 2010, and the lovebirds tied the knot seven years later on the same symbolic date.
In 2021, the couple welcomed their son, Dominic Jr., and two years later, the duo was expecting their second child.
A few days before the couple celebrated their wedding anniversary, Dominic, who is immunocompromised due to multiple sclerosis, texted Karen to say his body felt like it had been “hit by a bus.”
After Dominic spent the night vomiting aggressively, he seemed to be improving the next day as he peacefully napped, however, Karen found him looking very weak and after he was taken to the hospital, he ended up passing away. their special day of August 25th.
A wife was left heartbroken after her husband passed away on their wedding anniversary.
By August 22, Dominic, who worked as a project supervisor for a contracting company, had been working for long periods of time for several days in a row.
She had arrived home and, with great affection, had put her son to sleep by singing him songs.
Despite being exhausted, Dominic woke up early at 5am on August 23 and was ready for another long shift.
At 9:30 am, Karen received a text message from him alerting her to his severe body fatigue.
Karen innocently assumed he was “just tired” because “he didn’t say he was sick.”
She suggested that he get some rest and that is what he did.
Having never missed a hockey game, Dominic set out to find someone to replace him that night.
Dominic went home early at 3:30pm and began vomiting profusely, while Karen spent the night replenishing his water to ensure he was hydrated.
Karen kept asking him if she could go to the hospital, but he refused.
The next morning, August 24, Dominic finally stopped vomiting and seemed to be getting better.
During the day, Dominic sat up in bed and told Karen that he was feeling pain in his arm, but she assumed it was from sleeping on his side.
Karen let her husband continue to rest, while she picked up her son from daycare, bathed him and put him to bed.
Karen McNulty, 37, met Dominic McNulty through mutual friends on August 25, 2010, and the lovebirds tied the knot seven years later on the same symbolic date.
At 8:30 pm he went to check on Dominic.
She was shocked to find him pale, lying in a fetal position.
Karen remembered that her hair was completely wet with sweat and, although her eyes were open, they were unfocused.
Once again he began to vomit.
The worried wife asked Dominic to lift his arm, and after seeing that he was unable to do so and that his arm was limp, she alerted his parents that he needed to be taken to the hospital.
Karen thought it would be best for her in-laws to take him to the hospital, so as not to waste time gathering her son’s things and explaining her routine while they took care of him.
The wife recalled: “I didn’t think it was that serious. I thought, ‘Well, his arm, maybe something related to MS,'” she shared with People.
Doctors discovered that Dominic was suffering from an intestinal problem after running tests, so they began performing surgery.
Despite her best efforts to help Dominic, doctors later discovered that Karen’s husband had suffered septic shock due to a rare bacterial infection.
Karen finally heard Dominic’s voice before surgery, and he told her, “I love you. I love you.”
She visited him in the hospital and Dominic was on a ventilator.
Karen saw him lying lifeless on the bed, as his eyes remained open, while he looked to the side.
She called out to him, “Dom, I’m here. The surgery went great.”
In 2021, the couple welcomed their son, Dominic Jr., and two years later, the duo was excitedly expecting their second child.
Doctors were unsure why her arm was limp, and as they continued to investigate in front of Karen, she fainted.
Karen’s mother-in-law caught her and she later suffered a miscarriage due to the stress of Dominic’s death.
When she got better in the emergency room, she returned to Dominic’s room, and the doctors told her that she had blood clots in her arm and buttocks, and that her body was still producing them.
Doctors opted to perform a second surgery to remove the blood clots and nurses warned they needed to act quickly because his kidneys were shaking.
The surgery lasted 20 minutes, while Karen put a blanket over her head in the waiting room.
After only a few minutes, the nurses approached Karen and told her they needed to talk to her.
Karen refused and yelled at them to go back into the room to help him.
Karen’s sisters gently let her know she wouldn’t survive, and in disbelief, Karen cried out, “I’m pregnant. We have a boy at home.”
A doctor also came to deliver the bad news to Karen, warning her that the team could not continue with the surgery because Dominic’s body was “too weak.”
Karen and Dominic’s family and their five best friends continued to wait in the ICU.
The family made the decision to wait for Dominic’s brother to arrive from Massachusetts before taking him off the ventilator.
Dominic passed away at 6:30 pm, aged just 40.
Karen kept thinking about their life together and her son.
A few days before the couple celebrated their wedding anniversary, Dominic, who is immunocompromised due to having multiple sclerosis, texted Karen to tell her about his pain.
She emotionally recalled her inner turmoil and shared with People: ‘I think all the memories we have were going through my mind, and my son was going through my mind: How is he not going to be the Little League coach and how is he not going to be able to see my son grow up?
‘A million thoughts were going through my head and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. It was the hardest thing. It was the most unbearable pain I’ve ever felt in my life.
‘I thought about how fragile life is. You can’t save this man. He’s healthy. My husband was the type who worked out every day and woke up every day. He made the most of every day.
‘He was the most productive person. He renovated our entire house himself. He played sports. He was athletic. And why this good person? He is a great person and a great father, and how can it be that our lives end like that without warning?’
During the grieving process, Karen remained bedridden with her family and was unable to plan her funeral.
His family organised the funeral and 1,000 people came to celebrate his life.
Karen’s brother and sister-in-law cared for her two-year-old son for a week while she was grieving.
Karen’s priority was to move her husband’s truck so her son wouldn’t assume his father was coming home.
She told her little one that “daddy was in heaven.”
Karen shared that she will explain everything to him in more detail once he gets older.
Before Dominic’s death, Karen often posted videos of her husband with their son.
At the suggestion of a friend, she shared her emotional story on TikTok, hoping to find someone who was going through the same thing.
He seemed to be getting better, however, Karen found him very weak and after he was taken to the hospital, he ended up passing away on his significant day of August 25th.
Karen used hashtags like #widow, #widowlife, #youngwidow and #septicshock to find her community.
One of her moving videos went viral with more than 8,500,000 views.
Many people supported her, one of them being “the wife of the man buried next to” Dominic and other widowers.
Karen shared: ‘Reading comments from people who survived septic shock or didn’t even know what it was has been eye-opening.
“It’s clear that there needs to be more awareness about this disease. If sharing my story helps even one person, then it’s worth it.”
It’s been a year since Dominic passed away.
Karen assumed that celebrating Christmas or her birthday “would be the hardest,” however, Father’s Day was what affected her the most.
She is devastated and feels as though her son and Dominic himself have had their relationship “robbed”, adding that losing a young spouse “is something few people can relate to”.
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