Having Foot Surgery....???
Or any major surgery You need to know How soon to
Contact an attorney...
Finding a lawyer to represent you in a Malpractice Case is the craziest thing you will ever encounter ....
I'm sure you all know about Statute of Limitations but that needs to be ignored because attorneys do not technically go by that date...
You always hear when something goes wrong the next day the people involved are filing a law suit...
Not the case with Medical Malpractice...
They review your case and all the records with experts before even
asking your side of the story...
Please read this to the end...and hopefully it will help other people from having the same thing happen to you or a friend or relative...
You should technically have a lawyer on hand before your ever get rolled in to the operating room....Anticipate that something is going to go wrong....I'm kidding of course....
But it sure seems like that is the way it works...
Lawyers, as I have unfortunately found out, need
between 6-8 months from the surgery date or your date of injury to do anything to help you.
In Georgia the Statute of Limitations is 2 years from the date you were injured or damaged at the hands of a physician....
Everyone that knows me has followed my foot reconstruction surgery from May of 2017....which means my statute runs out on May 15 of 2019.....
When I wrote my Blog Post a year ago I never thought
I would be in this situation now...
You can read about it here...
For well over a year the surgeon just strung me along with excuse after excuse on why my foot was no longer moving and why the pain was slowly getting worse... I would go every month...I would have x-ray after x-ray and told things such as....it's coming from the stitches...the swelling....the cast...
"It's going to take time,,,,, you had a tremendous amount of surgery...you have to be patient"...
We put too much trust in doctors..Let me repeat that...We put too much trust in doctors....I put too much trust in the Surgeon....I did not want to be unreasonable...We all grew up....especially us women...to believe doctors are there to help and not harm....
And I am certainly not saying this is the norm...
I had a fabulous Neurosurgeon from Emory when I had a disc repaired
just a few months prior to the foot...
When I reached a year after having my foot reconstructed and after hearing so often from the Surgeon "I have no idea what your trying to tell me"....
I decided to do what anyone else would do....I Googled....Or as my friend Karin says...."I'm not as doctor I only play one on the internet".....
My foot was no better and the pain was getting worse..... not better..
The pain and weakness in my muscles started working it's way up my leg...In April of 2018 with my condition worsening by the day I Googled my symptoms and it indicated that I had damage to my Femoral Nerve. That's the nerve that runs from the top of your leg all the way down to your toe....
Approaching the surgeon with this information he suggested that the Anesthesiologist was to blame when she gave me a "nerve block" during the surgery....He said I should see a Neurologist....
He happened to have a friend in the building he wanted me to see..
At the advise of our "in-house" attorney (daughter) I went to a different Neurologist .....He clearly saw the issue with my foot but said I would have to wait a Minimum of at least 18 months before expecting any improvement...I asked to have this special test done...and EMG...that detects nerve and muscle damage.
He refused saying it would be too painful....
Knowing that he came very highly recommended by a few people.... I went home and waited for some improvement.
By this time I had torn a ligament in my knee because when you can't move your foot to walk properly things go wrong...
In August I went back in to have two screws removed from my ankle because the pain was unbearable....
The surgeon finally became concerned and his "bedside manner"
Went from being a real Ass to actually acting like he cared what was happening....
He still had me believing this came from the nerve block...
I was going to physical therapy and on September 28th of 2018
My good leg gave out...I tore my meniscus and developed a cyst
behind my knee....So now I have a foot that basically is Paralyzed and two bad knees...
I decide at that time to find a Neurologist who would be willing to give me the nerve conduction test...I had waited my 18 months.
I did not want to be unreasonable but no one knew the pain I was in..
I see the Neurologist on his first available appointment which was not until November 1st of 18'....Knowing I had plenty of time before the Statute ran out....plus I was certainly not going to take up the time of an Attorney if I didn't have proof that something was really wrong..
Or blame the surgeon if I didn't have actual permanent damage....
I see the Neurologist and he advises me that I have a condition called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy....He had no problem doing the test to see how bad the damage was... He said I had two different issues going on.
The first was damage to the Femoral Nerve....no surprise there...He clearly stated that it came from either the Anesthesiologist hitting the nerve when I had the nerve block during surgery #1 (I had surgery #2 6 weeks later) or she put the tourniquet on my leg too tight.....The other damage was at my ankle....my foot had atrophied to the point where It looked like my foot was collapsing. He attributed this to a surgical mishap during the surgery....Telling me to never have anyone ever touch my feet again....I scheduled to go back for the EMG test....
He's so busy doing this procedure that the earliest appointment was on January 9, 2019...
After getting the RSD Diagnosis I promptly went and got all of my medical records from the Surgeons Office.....It was at that point that I contacted an attorney....This was in November of 18' with more then enough time to file a claim....
I looked for an attorney who specialized in this particular condition.... it is Rare and it comes from a one time "event" such as an accident or surgical trauma....
In speaking with other women who have had foot surgery their doctors discussed this condition and gave them literature to read before surgery.... even though there would be a very small chance of it happening....
That's where I come in....to all my faithful readers...You know it could only happen to "Sue"...
The surgeon never mentioned the word RSD before... during... or after .. The last I saw him was in November of 18' ....
Although I had all the classic signs that I was developing this dystrophy over the course of a year.....He chose to ignore them.....If a physician catches it early he can prevent it from getting worse...My condition is at the "Too Late" stage...
There is no cure and as I go forward the condition will slowly worsen....When your nerves die in a limb your muscles will soon follow and atrophy or shrink.......
For some reason.... which no one had yet to explain to me...
Even though your nerves die the pain you have from the condition magnifies your pain along with altered sensations...I no longer can feel heat...my toes and foot are discolored.....my toes are like ice...it feels like water is running down my foot and I have terrible cramping..And when you have a frozen foot and get a cramp...well...you just sit and hope it goes away quickly...
January 9th rolls around and it's time to have the EMG study done. With my Physical Therapist tagging along to see how the test is administered it clearly shows all the nerve damage. My Femoral...Peroneal and Tibial Nerves had been damaged ..The Neurologist confirms this to the both of us... First addressing the damage in my thigh and Femoral nerve and when I asked about my foot he clearly said "that happened during the same event"....
the second time now that he referred it as the "same event"
He discusses with my P.T. that down the road I will need to have a brace made for my foot and leg so I can walk without my leg buckling out from under me....he made it quite clear that the damage came from trauma during the surgery...
That was on Wednesday January 9th.... the following Monday bright and early I get a call from his office that he wants me to have two MRI's....thinking he just wants to be sure of his diagnosis and is ruling other things out I agree to schedule the tests that same week....I ask his nurse for an appointment for the following week so I could go in and have him discuss the results with me....
She says if he wants to see me they will call me...
MRI's are done....one of my lumbar spine or lower back and one of my ovaries and uterus....Yes I know crazy right....
That test is completely fine....the lumbar spine shows "mild" aging issues that any 68 year old would have....I do not have back pain of any kind...in fact I drive a Corvette.... if I did have a bad back enough to paralyze my foot....well... common sense tells you I would not be able to get in and out of that car with ease....
I try to get the test results and his office denies my request. I send a message through the patient portal to the doctor directly..... my message is ignored.....I call back and speak to his nurse again asking for an appointment to discuss this....No return call...
My primary care doctor of 30 years steps in and he is able to see the test results....on My Patient Portal page it shows I had the test....it shows it was "edited" ....it shows it was "final"...But the results aren't there...the page is blank...
My PC doctor tells me.....yes there is nerve damage to multiple nerves..... but the Neurologist doesn't mention how this happened in fact he doesn't even mention my foot....only my leg...he also states that the test was shortened because I could not tolerate the pain....that is so not truthful... remember I had someone with medical knowledge in that room with me during the entire test...
I should have introduced him as my son not my physical therapist.
I did just fine during the test never once asking to stop...
My PC doctor confirms the damage but says that the MRI Spine results does NOT support the Neurologists diagnosis that the damage came from my spine....
To this day I have not spoken to or been able to get an appointment to see the Neurologist...
So what to do?????
On January 9th as soon as I received the damage info I contacted the attorneys office. They put together letters to be sent out to the other surgeons I consulted with over the years for the deformity.
I begin contacting other attorneys just to protect myself. Up until that point I was only dealing with a para legal...
When you have a case like this they all have what's called an "in-take coordinator"....You can't actually speak directly with a lawyer or make an appointment to see one in person....
On January 25th with having all my records sitting at the attorneys office since November I get a call that a current trial is taking longer then expected and they have another one they are about to start....No time to take care of mine....So sorry but we are sending you back your medical records....Good Luck to you....
This is almost February....my Statute will end on May 15th...
I can't even count or remember how many law offices I contacted....They all said the same thing...Not enough time...Too complicated a case....My medical history is too involved to prove the doctor did anything wrong....One women lawyer said "we read the surgeons records and he did nothing wrong"....
She never spoke to me....just made the decision based on his false information or lack of information in the records....
All I know is on May 14th 2017 I walked with no assistance in to his office...My toes wiggled...my ankle flexed and I did not walk with a limp...I just had a funny looking foot... on May 15th I left surgery with a foot that no longer moved...
It's extremely frustrating to have to repeat your story over and over again when you don't know how it's getting interpreted by the Para-Legal to the Attorney....Basically my biggest issue was that time was running out...Between the Surgeon and two Neurologists they were just running out my clock....
remember Neurologist #1 said I had to wait a "minimum of 18 months".....
Did I mention the Surgeon rents himself out as a
"Expert Witness" in cases like mine....
He had a women under his care right before seeing me for the same condition....RSD....which has distinct symptoms...
So what I was telling him about my foot he was no stranger to....
Always check the Surgeons credentials before having surgery done...Don't use a Surgeon or a Physician who is a Professional Witness....They must know just how to adjust or leave things out...word things differently in their original records...Who would ever think something like this could happen...
Could this get any worse....Oh you Betcha....
Being curious as to why all these law offices are either blaming me for having a complicated medical history or was it my age that was putting off these people....Or was it something in his records...
Two weekends ago out of pure frustration and being a Jersey Girl with a lot of determination to see this thing through....I started reading the medical records...Hundreds of pages.....
I see during surgery one....That I did have a nerve block to my leg by the Anesthesiologist...The block lasted instead of the usual 6-8 hours ... with the longest as much as 24 hours before feeling comes back...mine lasted 72 hours...I am very claustrophobic so for surgery number two I declined directly to the Anesthesiologist before being wheeled off to the operating room....
She got annoyed saying...
"No one has ever refused a nerve block"....
Well she can't say that anymore...
I posted this online and on this Blog about this happening....
During the second surgery..... where I declined the block.... everyone in that O.R. knew I did not have one and the husband knew I didn't have the block....
The staff teased me saying while coming to in the recovery room I was in such pain that I was cursing and asking why nobody insisted I get the nerve block. The husband says I was hysterical all the way home...
Which brings me to hospital surgery versus surgery center surgery...
I had asked to have this done across the parking lot at an actual hospital and the Surgeon said I couldn't....I later found out I did have that option.....
If your having big surgery insist it's done in a real hospital...
The moment my eyes opened in the recovery room I was out on the curb...
I was sure the nerve damage happened during the first surgery....
You tend to panic when your toes no longer wiggle....
As for my leg it was months and months later when the casts came off and the boot came off that I realized something was wrong with my leg as well....
The medical records from my office visits are very vague...they could be anyones....not specific at all....all my symptoms were dismissed....contradictory information was written as fact...
My complaints were no where to be seen in the records...
He never mentions the weekend when his trainee put on a cast too tight causing my foot to turn purple....He alters that to say it happened a week before it actually happened. No notation that I called on a Saturday when I noticed my foot turning color...No notation that I called back on Sunday when the pain got so bad and my foot was getting darker....I even e-mailed the Physicians Assistant a photo...Of course also posting it on Facebook....a Video
of the husband trying to loosen the cast after the P.A. instructed him how to do it...
I see all these false statements and then I get to the surgery records...Mainly surgery #2....
He clearly states in great detail that I had a nerve block that lasted 3 hours during the second surgery...Not only did I NOT have that done but half of his staff knew it was not done....He was trying to blame my damage all of the damage on the Anesthesiologist...so why not list it twice...just to make sure the blame gets put on her....
I contacted Medicare and United Healthcare to confirm the amount the Anesthesiologist charged during surgery one versus surgery two.
I find there is an $850.00 difference in the two surgeries.....
The lesser amount being charged during surgery two which was a much longer surgery......
I then call the Anesthesiologist company...they bill the insurance separately then the surgeon's bill......
They E-mailed me the two bills showing only the medical codes for the services...
Using my best friend Google....I was able to put in the medical codes and see what the codes meant....
Sure enough during surgery one there is the code for both the nerve block and a different code for the ultrasound used to determine where the needle should be placed....
I check the codes on surgery two...this is where the Surgeon shows another longer 3 hour block...described again in great detail....With his signature....no short typo...
On the bill.....no code or codes charged for any nerve block...
I call the office back who sent me the bill copy....they confirm that there was not a nerve block during surgery two....
He.....the Surgeon.... falsified the medical records....
This is considered a felony to alter or change medical records....
Especially when it interferes with a malpractice case or in my case preventing me from obtaining an attorney....
So just when you think it couldn't be any worse....
Remember who your reading about....
I now look into his Physician Assistants records.....
Using Public Access online to the
Georgia Composite Medical Board I find the P.A.
Let me just add this before discussing the P.A. findings...
All of the people who were working at this surgeons office during the two surgeries have all left..... they appear to have all left at or around the same time....I find where three of them are now working...
Before the Physicians Assistant left the practice.... he eluded to the fact that a nerve was severed during the surgery.....
People have asked why I went back to this doctor....It was again a matter of trusting this man... with this wonderful reputation...How
could he have harmed me so badly...I believed it was not him but that it was the Anesthesiologist who did something wrong....
When I mentioned it to him and he agreed... I trusted him to be telling the truth....
How stupid was I?????
Finding the Physicians Assistant on the Medical Boards website I found further disturbing information.....
When a P.A. goes to work for a doctor it has to be registered with the Medical Board with the name of the supervising Physician and any other physicians the P.A. will be working for...Records indicate he worked from 2010 for a large Orthopedic Group in town. There are all the doctors signatures from that particular office....
It then jumps to 2018 where he started a new job with a single physician who signed the form stating the P.A. would be working under his supervision.....
Every time a P.A. switches to a new office this information needs to be documented with the Medical Board.
They have to be under the supervision of a licensed Physician...
Checking his profile on Linkedin he states he was employed at the Surgeons office from May of 2016 until December of 2017....
This is not recorded with the Medical Board...
Neither the dates nor the Surgeons signature.....
It appears that he never worked there.....
So....where am I today....
I am unable to find an attorney who will attempt to help me mostly because of a time issue....but also because of information in those records....basically they must all think I'm just a nut....
The surgeon clearly left my complaints out of the records and adding false information to blame other people. ....clearly the information or lack of with the Medical Board concerning the Physicians Assistant should be a red flag for the Surgeon trying to hid something....
I surrender once again.....
But I refuse to walk away.....no pun intended.....from what that man has done....He has altered the rest of my life...
Going from being a very active person.....going from the one you all know....who always planned the Blog parties....the girls road trips...all my crazy family stories...
Having a new grandson who will someday go to Disneyworld and Grandma will not be able to join the family....
So much time left to do the things you get to enjoy when you have all the time in the world.....
My life as I knew it ended on May 15...2017...
So many things I would have done differently....
I put my health... my trust and my faith in a man who's
Only purpose was to make money by hiring unskilled people and not being an honorable person when he knew something had gone wrong.....
If you have surgery and you think something is not right....
Don't wait....Notify an attorney as quickly as possible...
When you know something isn't right insist people listen to you...
Don't take "You need to be patient it's going to take time" as an excuse..
Thanks to everyone who took the time to read this....
You know
My posts are usually upbeat and a bit crazy...
I am not looking for sympathy....
I am looking to inform...
and to educate....
No comments:
Post a Comment