Cathy Reuer

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. Mom has agreed that this will be the easiest way to keep family and friends updated.


Cathy has been fighting back problems since mid summer and was in a fair amount of pain and found it difficult to get around. At the beginning of September mom's doctors decided a cortizone shot in the back and physical therapywould be the best place to start. It appeared at the time that mom was getting a small amount of relief and her PT said that she thought her range of motion was slowly increasing. 


Approximately 2 weeks later mom started to experience some intense shoulder pain. We incorrectly assumed that it was a result of how she was using/leaning on her walker in order to get around. After two or three days of night and day constant pain that was not subsiding with pain meds, mom woke up to one of her eyes hurting and her vision was blurry. Her doctor in Chamberlain advised that she get to the ER. Upon getting to the ER mom was begging for relief from the pain in her shoulder that she was rating at a 10. She did blood draws and was eventually given another cortizone shot in her shoulder. At that point her pain was not improving and in fact it was starting to move to different joint as well. It took about 6 hours to bring the pain down to a manageable level but the pain meds were taking a toll on her breathing and it was decided that she would be flown to Sioux Falls. Sanford immediately went to work and got her breathing under control. It was then determined that she has a blood infection. She was started on antibiotics and in the last two weeks we have struggled to find antibiotics that would work and also to find where exactly the infection was at.