How to deal with guilt when you missed signs of illness?

Oh, DeeDee, I am so sorry. Here you were all these years believing you were perfect, and now you have to face that you aren't. But let me tell you that you ALSO aren't a felon who purposely missed things, and you aren't a killer.
You are not an MD. You are missing easily 12 years of training for that.
What you are experiencing now is not guilt so much as grief. Grief that you didn't know, are human, have limitations, and missed something. You are terrified and you are grieving. But you aren't a felon and an evil doer, because if you WERE you would not give a fig about ANY of this.
I am so sorry. I hope things will come right. But as a nurse I can tell you there isn't one alive who didn't make a mistake, and that's after her training, and she also knows each MD in her hospital and knows HIS or HER mistakes as well.
We are not Gods. If you were God your hubby never would have fallen ill.
My best to you and I hope for his healing.

Please don't feel guilty as you are only human and not a medical professional, and even they often miss things right in front of their faces as well.
My husband was making a slight choking noise after he would eat back in Nov. 2018, but when I would ask him if he was ok, he would say that he was, so I didn't think much about it until it continued for several more days and I decided to call 911 to have him taken to the ER to have him checked out.
I was told that he had aspiration pneumonia and the longer we were there, the worse he got and when his blood pressure dropped to like 48/26 the nurse told me to get my family there immediately as he wasn't going to make it through the night.
Well very long story short, he did survive, but developed sepsis and septic shock, and ended up coming home completely bedridden and under hospice care where he remained until his death in Sept. 2020.
We all do the very best we can do, and that has to be good enough. You've done nothing wrong, so no reason for guilt. I believe instead what you are feeling is grief, which is a whole different animal all together.
So allow yourself time to grieve as it sounds like you've been through a lot with your husband. When we have a loved one who goes through many health crisis' we tend to grieve(it's called anticipatory grief)all along the way, until they either get better or the Good Lord decides to take them Home, so please be kind to yourself and quit beating yourself up.
You are just human like the rest of us.
God bless you.

When I was in my early 20s, I got terrible sick, went to my doctor, he gave me antibiotics and cough syrup. 10 days later, not only am I not better, I am worse. Back to the doctor and another round of medication. 10 days later, I decide I need to see a different doctor because I am not getting any better. I go to an urgent clinic, different antibiotics and some cough syrup, no improvement, at this point I am thinking I am dying and there is no help, 15 days later I see my dad and he freaks out at how sick I am and that it has been weeks, so he takes me to his doctor, same results as above.

I finally walked into a medical building, asked to please see a doctor right away and they put me in a room. 5 minutes later the doctor walks in and says, "I could hear you from the hallway young lady, you have pneumonia. We need to do an x-ray to see what's going on."

Yep, 6 weeks and 3 different doctors misdiagnosed pneumonia. Thanks to their incompetence I have scare tissue in my left lung and it is only the amazing grace of God that I didn't die.

So, you shouldn't beat yourself up that you missed what doctors often miss. You caught it in time for treatment and not a funeral, be thankful for that.

Even doctors are not allowed to diagnose and treat their family members.

Pneumonia is a funny disease. I had it 27 years ago this June. I was 29 years old. My energy levels were very low, I was going through an incredibly stressful situation, I even went to my doctor, but he did not find anything amiss. 2 days later I was coughing so hard I vomited. A trip to ER, They doctors did not do a chest x-ray, they would tell with a stethoscope that my lungs were full of fluid. IV antibiotics, Ventolin and oxygen were administered in the hospital and I went home with an RX for more antibiotics and Ventolin.

Coughed so hard that I tore my rib muscles. Had to sleep propped up. Could not walk up 8 steps without the Ventolin or I was gasping for breath. It took me 3 months to fully recover.

Did I blame the doctor for not sending me for a chest x-ray? No, it was not needed according the the symptoms I was displaying.

My elderly Dad had pneumonia a year ago, it was touch and go, but he survived. His first symptom was feeling weak.

Doctors miss signs of illness all the time! We all do our best and that’s enough. Please don’t feel bad.

Deedee, there is no reason for you to have any guilt! Your husband had a serious operation a few months ago and developed pneumonia. That's very, very common. And sneaky. And easily missed.

Guilt is a waste of energy. And anyone caring for a sick loved one needs all the energy they can muster!

So pack up that guilt and throw it away! It's a useless burden.

Knowledge is power, and power is much more useful than guilt. So prepare for when DH comes back home. Ask lots of questions, and write the answers down. (Nobody listens or remembers well under stress.) Follow after care instructions carefully. Try to arrange a friend or neighbor to visit weekly, even just a 10 minute drop in. They may notice a gradual change that you don't see clearly because of your constant care. Ask your husband to mention anything he may be experiencing.

Then hold your head high, pat yourself on the back, and kick that nasty old guilt into a corner!

Best of luck to you both.

Deedee (((hugs)))).

My mother developed pneumonia at least once in the NH. None of us family members noticed anything different. So you shouldn't beat yourself up over this.

I suspect perhaps you are feeling grief stricken.

As others have said, pneumonia can come on suddenly, not just in the aftermath of a cold or other illness. Several years ago my husband ran a fairly high fever out of the blue, ith nothing preceding it. And, his Parkinson's symptoms got much worse--this all happened withn a matter of hours. Went to urgent care the next morning, and sure enough--xray showed pnuemonia. He wasn't coughing, no symptoms other than those you get with a fever, and he said he really didn't feel too bad. I had pneumonia in a similar fashion when I was in my early 50s--high fever out of nowhere. I don't think I've ever felt so bad, before or since. In both my husband's and my case the doctors told us that coughing is not necessarily an early symptom and that it often comes a bit later, and indeed it did, for both of us. The coughing can be a sign the congestion is breaking up (not much fun though). Don't feel bad about not spotting your husband's pneumonia as it can be sneaky. Wishing you both well, and a speedy recovery for your husband.

Pnemonia I think needs an Xray to determine it is pnemonia. So don't beat yourself up.

My LO developed what will probably become a fatal pressure sore under my watch.

I was not her hands on caregiver, and she’s been given the very best care possible, but my guilt is all too real.

My head knows what it should think, but my heart is devastated that I couldn’t do more.

You are among friends here.