FLORESVILLE, Texas – Jesse Christopher “Chris” Flores died from acute promyelocytic leukemia on Jan. 21, nine days after getting misdiagnosed with the flu, according to his widow, Joyce Flores.
In an emotional interview with KSAT on Tuesday, Joyce said it “was a lot of information really fast" but conceded she knows “God has a plan for all of us.”
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In the wake of her husband’s death, Joyce is urging anyone who has flu symptoms to get swabbed at the doctor’s office, an influenza test she says her husband wasn’t given.
The couple went to an emergency care facility in Floresville on Jan. 12 because Chris wasn’t feeling well, he had a headache and low energy, and the doctor gave him a steroid shot, Joyce told KSAT in a phone interview.
“When he went to the doctor they did not swab him for the flu. They said, ‘Based on your symptoms and how long you’ve had it, you probably have the flu,’” said Joyce.
Chris’s condition worsened and the following day Joyce took him back to the same facility where they performed a blood test and determined Chris needed to go to the hospital due to a high white blood cell count.
He was taken to St. Luke’s Baptist Hospital in San Antonio before being transferred to Methodist Hospital where he was given the cancer diagnoses on Jan. 15 after a bone-marrow biopsy.
“I just feel like more people should be aware of that, if they have flu-like symptoms and they’re not swabbed, then they might not know that there’s something else wrong.,” said Joyce. “We should have demanded a swab."
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Chris Flores is survived by Joyce as well as four daughters from a previous marriage and a “son-in-law in training,” who lives with the family while he goes to school.
Chris’s first wife, Debbie, died around 10 years ago after contracting the swine flu. Jan. 21, the day Chris died, would have been his 25th wedding anniversary with his first wife.
“We have a whole family of seven. We’re just trying to help our kids,” Joyce said at the end of the interview.
Flores served two terms as a councilman, from 2008 to 2012, according to Wilson County News.