Worst medical mistake? -inspired my monkeyboy thread

[m&m's mom]

Worst medical mistake and what did you do?
When I was pregnant with my 1st DD I started having major contractions, totally out of the blue, at 20 weeks gestation.
I went to see my Dr. but he was gone and I saw his back up Dr.
He determined my cervix was already open and I was 50% effaced at 20 weeks. Their office was on the same floor as Labor & Delivery of a large hospital, it was on a Friday afternoon and HE SENDS ME HOME!
I stupidly went home.
On Sunday morning I went to the emergency room. At that point I had dialited to a 6 and was 75% effaced. It took my Dr. over 6 hours to even come see me. He went to church, went out to eat and then finally came to see me.
They did emergency cerclage (sp?) but it was too late. There was no cervix left to hold together.
He also refused to move me to a higher level hospital that specialized in neonatal babies. We finally had to demand to be moved.
Once she was born at the 2nd hospital she hasd incredible care and now has no lingering side effects at being born at 1 pound.
My family is one of those that just does not sue.
I did go back and ask why I was not admitted and why it took him so long to see me after admitted. He became very agitated and said I just wanted to "blame" someone for what happened.
My 2nd DD had basically the same thing happen. Different Dr. She immediately admitted me, got the labor stopped, went home on bedrest and she was born at 8 lbs. 13 ozs.

 

[Missy Mouse]

My son was stillborn at 39.5 weeks from a medical error. That's the worst medical mistake that's ever happened to me. I did nothing at the time because the father's family at that time wanted to just bury it and insisted we just put the past away. My family on the other hand spoke to a lawyer but ended up dropping it because they couldn't do anything without my cooperation. Looking back, I really wish I had done something but the window expired at 36 months.

 

[Acklander]

Worst medical mistake? I was 27 weeks pregnant with twins and had been on the high risk ward of the hospital for 6 weeks due to premature labor. Every night I would go into hard labor, they'd send me to labor and delivery to give me the terbutiline (sp?) by IV until contractions were under control (usually would take 4-6 hrs) and then they would send me back to the high risk ward where I would be fine until the next evening when I would again go into hard labor. One night the contractions started, I called the nurse, and when she hooked me up to monitor the contractions, she hooked it up wrong so the contractions weren't registering. I kept telling her I was having contractions, she kept telling me I was wrong. Around that time a fascinating documentary came on the TV so she sat beside me while I was contracting to "keep an eye on me" so she could watch TV. During the comercials she would ask me how I was doing, I'm telling her there are strong contractions, she tells me I'm wrong. An hour and a half later when the show was over, she came to the conclusion that maybe the problem was I just needed to go to the bathroom and I should try that. I stood up to go to the bathroom, but couldn't walk and told her so. She rolled her eyes at me and said she'd call for a Dr. to check me. I had completely dialated, so there was no stopping the labor. The twins were born about 20 minutes later and weighed a little over 2 pounds each. This was about 25 years ago, so technology wasn't as advanced as now. One baby lived for 2.5 weeks, the second baby lived for 3.5 weeks; but they were just to sick.

 

[LiLIrishChick63]

about 2 years ago i got really sick out of the blue. i had a fever and a horrible cough that wouldn't go away, and stuff was coming up *not to be too graphic, sorry* from the cough.

i started feeling really weak and i was tired all the time. this went on for a month, i went to see my doctor. he told me it was just a cold, and that nothing was wrong and gave me an antibiotic to take for a week and said i should feel fine.

took the medication, but still.....nothing worked. i was sick for 2 months now, and it was just getting worse. my cough was pretty bad. my chest just sounded like it was rattling. i went back to my doctor, told me AGAIN that it was nothing really to be worried about, and that i should just take some more antibiotics and i would be fine.

did that and still, nothing happened. i was getting worse. i was wheezing all the time, you could hear it everytime i breathed. my cough was absoutly terrible and i could barely get out of bed. the job i had at the time wouldn't allow me to take time off and i was just getting worse and worse.

finally i went to the hospital when my work wouldn't give me the time off and when i got there they found i had walking pneumonia. i was prescribed all kinds of different meds and cough medicine with codine in it and i was taken off of work for a month.

my doctor claimed that i still never showed the symptoms for pneumonia and still stuck by his "i thought it was a cold" story.


and last year in the summer i got hurt at work. i banged my knee pretty bad. it was swollen for weeks and the pain was just constant. first time it happend i went to my doctor. he told me i probably just bruised it, to take a week off of work and i'd be fine. so i did and it was still pretty bad and swollen.

he then sends me to an orthopedic specialist because it's still so swollen. i go to the specalist and he gets an MRI done and tells me that nothing's wrong. i tell him "that's fine, it really is. but i'm still in a lot of pain, and my knee is still swollen. if i wasn't in pain and you said i was fine, i would be happy, but it's not, so we're going to fix this" so he kept saying "i don't see anything wrong".

i went to him a few more times and he finally gives me a referral to see a Sports Injury Specialist. now, mind you, this has been going on for about 3 months between Workman's Comp giving me a hard time and both doctor's not finding anything, and this whole time i'm in pain constantly. 24/7

so i go to the Sports Specialist and they do a few tests and right away he tells me "you bruised the bone pretty bad and you also have patilla(sp?) tendonitis from it swelling up and going back down so much" so i go to physical therapy for a few months and finally, i was better.

i'm not 100% better, because i still have pain every once in a while when it's raining or when it gets really cold out. but it's much better than it was.


neither times i did much of anything about it. i was just so thrilled that i finally got something done that i didn't care anymore.

 

[lisajl]

Oh my gosh!!! I am so sorry this happened to all of you.

What terrible things to happen!

 

[Disneydreaming6]

This happened to my dh. He always had flair ups with divercuticulitis (sp?). 4yr ago this month, he started bothering him, he went to the Dr, they gave him meds and sent him home. After finishing the meds it still bothered him, so they sent him for a ultra sound. It came back with a small mass, but she wasn't worried about it cause she saw where the intestines were bulging, gave him more meds, it calmed down a bit, but we still went to disney. Our last day there, he has this major attack, he stays in bed all day. We come home he goes back to the Dr, and she just keeps giving him meds, they calm down the inflammation, he just keeps refilling the script. Until July, when it became so bad he could hardly stand up. She then sends him to a specialist. They run all kinds of tests, colonoscopy you name it he has it. Then one day. (ok this is gross) he goes to go pee, and "bubbles" start coming out, he calls the Specialist, he takes him in right away, they scope him and they find that the mass, that was on his ultrasound, which the first Dr ignored was a piece of his intestines, it just kept growing and it attached to his bladder so he now had a hole going from the bladder to his intestines. He was in the hospital for a month and a half. They removed a foot of his intestines. Before they could even do the surgery, he couldn't eat for 2 weeks, they popped a line directly into his kidney so he couldn't pass anything, he suffered for a long time. I almost lost him. Now he is fine, and hasn't had any "attacks" since.

 

[Val]

My second DD15 was exposed to bacterial meningitis at the local daycare when she was 8 wks old- first day that I sent her to daycare....Ped caught it right away- just thought something wasn't right.....sent to the hospital and he did the spinal tap. Lab dropped it; did a second spinal- the lab forgot to run it and let it sit 24 hours; had to do a third (on an 8 wk old baby)- thank goodness Dr. started IV antibiotics already since it was positive. Then- they infused the IV into the foot under the skin- NOT in a vein. You CAN find a Director of Nursing at 2 AM. After that we had a 1:1 nurse and exceptional treatment....even the director of the hospital checked in to see how we were! She is fine...but we hired a nanny after that! Day care was closed down.


My DS11 was born in the middle of the L&D renovation. He was my 3rd child, and my 5th pregnancy (we lost 2 mid second trimester)....I have FAST labors. Tried to tell the nurse- she ignored us and went on her "coffee break"! My DH delivered our son- with the cord wrapped around the neck and both of us hollering for help. Nurse ran in, called a code- suddenly we were surrounded by strange doctors. DS is fine- cord must have wrapped around in the last 60-90 seconds (I looked at the tape at the time)....three neonatologist/pediatricians called him the world's loudest baby about 5 minutes after he was born (he still is) and I knew he was fine. Again, nice treatment by the hospital-you'd have thought we were royalty.

I suppose we "could" have sued- but since there was no long term damage and just a little aggrevation, why? We did file complaints and ask that procedures get changed in both situations (I know adminstrators at the hospital).

We had DD9, our 4th, at the same hospital. All was well....no problems. Our DS has many, many frequent trips to ER (Can you say "active"- he walked at 8 months!).....no problems. Guess they were freak mishaps.....

 

[tiggersmom2]

I was 14 weeks pregnant and having some slight spotting. I went in to my doctor's office and had a sonogram...the sonographer told me I had a 50% abruption.

I was immediately sent to a perinatologist. I got there and was crying and crying.... The sonographers there were so sweet and after looking at my ultrasound with perplexed faces for about 1 hour I finally started wailing and begged them to tell me what they saw .....they saw.....nothing!!!

The perinatologist finally came in and told me whoever had diagnosed me with a placental abruption was an idiot ...there was nothing wrong!

It was the scariest and one of the happiest days of my life! As you can see by my sig pic....my little Stevie was just fine.

 

[m&m's mom]

) I suppose we "could" have sued- but since there was no long term damage and just a little aggrevation, why? We did file complaints and ask that procedures get changed in both situations (I know adminstrators at the hospital).

That sums it up for us too. It was outcome based. Since Megan is fine now and we definitely did not have the time to think about suing at the time, we dropped it.
Needless to say I tell everyone I know not to go see my old Dr.
My Mom and I think that the Dr. really thought there was no way the baby was going to live so he really did not try. A nurse told me the 1st night I was in the hospital that the baby had died. It still took him until 10:00 at night until 2:30 the next afternoon to come check on me to find out she really was alive the whole time.

 

[TishaB]

X-mas 2004' My husband complains of a really bad headache. So bad, the Dec. 26 in the wee hours of the morning I take him to the emergency room. ER doctor says its just a sinus infection, get a script for antibiotics and see your regular doctor. Ok, he takes the antibiotics, sees his regular doctor. Still has headache but with enough over the counter pain reliever he continues on. Pain gets too much and New Years day we are in the emergency room again, same ER doctor. Informs us that we shouldn't use the er as our personal physician. He runs no tests. January 3rd wee hours of the morning we call his regular doctor..doctor on call says to bring him to a different hospital. New hospital immediately starts a morphine drip (I think?) and runs tests. Blood work, scans, MRI. My husband was diagnosed with glioblastoma. Surgery was preformed 2 days later and we were given a very grim prognosis. One year with treatment. Thankfully we had 2 and a half years and he passed away last June. He was 53. Timely prognosis probably wouldn't have made any difference but compassion from the 1st ER doctor would have gone a long way.

 

[m&m's mom]

X-mas 2004' My husband complains of a really bad headache. So bad, the Dec. 26 in the wee hours of the morning I take him to the emergency room. ER doctor says its just a sinus infection, get a script for antibiotics and see your regular doctor. Ok, he takes the antibiotics, sees his regular doctor. Still has headache but with enough over the counter pain reliever he continues on. Pain gets too much and New Years day we are in the emergency room again, same ER doctor. Informs us that we shouldn't use the er as our personal physician. He runs no tests. January 3rd wee hours of the morning we call his regular doctor..doctor on call says to bring him to a different hospital. New hospital immediately starts a morphine drip (I think?) and runs tests. Blood work, scans, MRI. My husband was diagnosed with glioblastoma. Surgery was preformed 2 days later and we were given a very grim prognosis. One year with treatment. Thankfully we had 2 and a half years and he passed away last June. He was 53. Timely prognosis probably wouldn't have made any difference but compassion from the 1st ER doctor would have gone a long way.

Wow. I am so sorry.
In all of these cases, it is so hard to not wonder "what if".

 

[kellyg403]

When I was about 19 weeks pregnant with my 5th child I started to have what I thought was leaking urine. Went to my obgyn because I always had a hard time with infections during pregnancy and for a few had to take long term medications. Anyway, they said do keigel exercises etc. By my 22nd week it was horrible. By the 23rd week I was spotting as well. Every week they kept telling me it was my 5th child, this happens etc etc. In my 24th week I started bleeding so badly I went yet again to the emergancy room. The dr there did a sonogram and said there was no amniotic fluid around the baby and that she had a tumor that was causing the problem. They were going to send me to another hospital that had higher risk care. And, oh year antibiotics for my "kidney infection". The next day, I was sent to the new hospital, they did a sonogram and the dr could not believe it. No tumor, and no infection, I had been leaking amniotic fluid for 6 weeks. He plainly said to me the only thing the other dr did for me was send me to him. He said for me staying pregnant for this long was a miracle. By this point I was also Group B Strep positive as well. 8 days later my daughter was born by emergancy c-section. No heart beat for 4 minute intervals. She lived for 11 hours. Basically she was born at 26 weeks with the lung maturity of a 21 weeker.

I did not sue, it was a military hospital. At the time I felt I needed to move on and not blame anyone. Now that I am older I wish I had been smarter and at least made a complaint. But it probably would have ruined my ex h's carrer.

Kelly

 

[DisneyAddict_M]

Not me personally, but my friend's mother passed away on Friday night due to the doctor overdosing her medication.

Also, my grandfather passed away when I was a teen, because his bone cancer was misdiagnosed. Once they realized that he had cancer, it was too late.

 

[tiggersmom2]

When I was about 19 weeks pregnant with my 5th child I started to have what I thought was leaking urine. Went to my obgyn because I always had a hard time with infections during pregnancy and for a few had to take long term medications. Anyway, they said do keigel exercises etc. By my 22nd week it was horrible. By the 23rd week I was spotting as well. Every week they kept telling me it was my 5th child, this happens etc etc. In my 24th week I started bleeding so badly I went yet again to the emergancy room. The dr there did a sonogram and said there was no amniotic fluid around the baby and that she had a tumor that was causing the problem. They were going to send me to another hospital that had higher risk care. And, oh year antibiotics for my "kidney infection". The next day, I was sent to the new hospital, they did a sonogram and the dr could not believe it. No tumor, and no infection, I had been leaking amniotic fluid for 6 weeks. He plainly said to me the only thing the other dr did for me was send me to him. He said for me staying pregnant for this long was a miracle. By this point I was also Group B Strep positive as well. 8 days later my daughter was born by emergancy c-section. No heart beat for 4 minute intervals. She lived for 11 hours. Basically she was born at 26 weeks with the lung maturity of a 21 weeker.

I did not sue, it was a military hospital. At the time I felt I needed to move on and not blame anyone. Now that I am older I wish I had been smarter and at least made a complaint. But it probably would have ruined my ex h's carrer.

Kelly

OMG....I am so, so sorry.

 

[candykisses]

DH was under care and we knew he needed to go into the hospital for an operation. He saw his SCI doctor on Mon, his plastic surgeon on Tues and the urologist on Fri. The urologist set up another appt for Mon morning. He said if DH gets a high temp call.

That weekend DH didn't look good. Temp was 99. He didn't want to eat and slept alot. He was getting weaker. I called the doctor and he said since the temp was only 100 he was fine. Sunday I kept a close eye on him, but the temp was still 100. something. I wanted him to go to the ER, but he said the doctor said everything was OK if the temp stayed low.

Mon morning I had to help DH get dressed. It was then that I saw the red skin. I wanted to go to the appt, but DH said to go to work he'd be alright. He saw the doctor. The doctor suggested DH go to the hospital for antibotics. Gave him his records and let DH rest on the examining table for a couple hours to get some strength back.

DH calls me to meet him and we go to the ER. The triage nurse takes DH right back. I was in the waiting room thinking what a busy hospital, all these doctors being paged. Yep, you guessd it was for DH.

A nurse said the doctors needed to see me. Doctors?? There outside the room were 6 doctors explaining that I should spend as much time with DH as I could because he had about a 30% chance of surviving the surgery.

He had abdominal gangrene.

He was in the hospital from April to Sept.

We didn't sue because two of the doctors said the same thing...if we sue, in this day of computers, no doctor would risk treating DH for the fear of being sued. As an aging paraplegic, DH will always need doctors and we want to be able to go to the best and have them treat him.

 

[rie'smom]

I was a week shy of my due date and started having major contractions and leaking a bit of fluid. We go to the emergency room and my doctor waited for my contractions to get more regular. When they didn't,he sent me home. The next week,my water breaks and guess what-the fluid from the week before had been amniotic fluid! I had a massive infection and was in the hospital for 8 days with 104-105 fever and hallucinating. Thank God,my baby was ok.

 

[ChrisnSteph]

Wow, there have been several, both I believe contributed to the death of my sons.

June 1999 - I was pregnant with my second child. I had all the routine prenatal care and ultrasounds. Everything looked perfect, we were told. When my son Aaron was born on his due date, he was only 4lbs, 12oz, had a huge fontanelle (soft spot), intrauterine growth retardation, a clubbed foot, and multiple other anomalies.None of this was caught during any of the several ultrasounds that were done, so it came as a complete shock.

August 2000 - During a hospitalization, same son (Aaron) was given over twice the amount of morphine that he was supposed to get. They had to revive him after he stopped breathing and his heart rate slowed to almost nothing. We learn that it was due to nurse error. It was an accident and the nurse was distraught, but it almost killed our son.

November 2000 - Aaron was always having breathing problems and respiratory infections, and after dozens of tests and procedures, was diagnosed with tracheomalasia. It's a condition that causes you to have a floppy airway, leading to frequent respiratory infections. He was always in and out of the hospital, and when he was just over a year old, he almost died during a hospitalization. We didn't feel enough was being done for him. Because of his rare genetic disorder, the chief of pediatrice felt that we should just let him go. After we threatened to sue (it's a very long, complicated story) he was transferred to Childrens Hospital Los Angeles for a second opinion. After a couple of days at CHLA, we find out that that Kaiser (our medical provider) had misdiagnosed him all along, and he had tracheal stenosis instead, a condition temporarily fixed by having a tracheotomy, and later fixed permanently with surgery. My son was stable within a couple of days, and a month later came out of the hospital a whole new kid. We never let Kaiser touch our son again.

February 2002 - Aaron was admitted to Loma Linda University hospital for a cold with flu-like symptoms. Because he had a trache, it was a routine thing for him to be automatically be admitted, IV antibiotics for a week. Because they didn't have a bed readily available, they treated him in the ER the first night. We gave the doctors in the ER all the information regarding our son, his feeding schedule, and so on. He seems to improve after a couple of days. On day three he plays with his IV and accidently pulls it out. Because his veins were so shot from being stuck most of his life, they had a hard time getting the IV back in and had to call someone down from another unit. two or three people come down, and I remember one of those nurses not wearing gloves - the one holding down my sons arm. I don't remember seeing all of them wash their hands after coming into our room either. After several tries they finally got it in. Two days after that, we arrive in the morning to visit with Aaron. Something is wrong with him - his eyes are all dried out and look like sandpaper, he won't make eye contact, his skin is mottled and he's extremely agitated, something very out of the norm for him. My only medical training consisted of having an EMT cert, and it occurs to me right away that it looked like he was going into some kind of shock. I ask the nurse about it, and she says "oh the doctors just finished their rounds and said he looks just peachy"! I'll never forget that word, peachy. I tell her that something is wrong with my son, and to go the doctors NOW. She takes his temp - it's 106degrees. Next thing I know the room is full of doctors, yes he's in septic shock, he's whisked away to the ICU. While he's in there, another doctor goes over his chart, and asks us to confirm the information we gave to the ER doctor. We find out that the doctor wrote the incorrect amount of formula Aaron should have been getting, and that it was only half the amount it was supposed to be. So not only did noone notice that my son was going into shock, but he was also dehydrated because he wasn't getting the proper nutrition. To say that we were furious is a huge understatement. Aaron died the next day. The doctors had no explanation, but he had some sort of infection that the strongest antibiotic couldn't fight off. To this day, I think he contracted a hospital infection from a dirty IV needle. He was doing really well until after that. We declined an autopsy, because it wasn't going to change anything. We thought LLUMC was one of the best hospitals in the country.

March 2005 - my fourth child, Ryan was admitted to Kaiser in respiratory distress. He had a different but similar genetic condition as his late brother did. He was 5 months old, and pretty healthy up until this point. After a couple of days, the doctors decided that to give his body a rest, Ryan needed to have a tracheotomy. No big deal - traches ook scarier then they are, and it could help him get better, so we tell them to do it. We hear the surgery went perfect, and he was on his way back down to room. They wheel him in, he looks a healthy pink again, very good. As they pick him up and transfer him from the gurney to his bed, his heart stopped, just like that. They couldn't revive him. Later on, the doctors give us all these different theories about what could have happened, that it was a complication of surgery, and that perhaps when they moved him, the trache slipped out of the airway and caused an embolism, or something to that effect. It's a blur to me. I told them I didn't want to know what could've been done differently.

Needless to say, I have very little faith in doctors and hospitals. I don't trust them.

 

[100 acre wood]

My son was born without an ear canal and a smaller than normal ear on one side. When he was four I had found the best ENT in our area who claimed quite convincingly he could do a surgery to restore hearing in the affected ear and stupid me believed in him. Two years of hearing how terrific his ear was, never mind that he couldn't hear, had constant draining and infections and a large scar on his leg finally got me wondering and we got DSL. I then found a group of parents with the same surgery whose kids could hear and didn't have a scar nor all the many problems my son had. So we took him out of state to the expert at the surgery who first thing wanted to know who had done this to my son and told me their surgery doesn' t leave a scar at all. Another five hour procedure and two years of suffering for my son was finally over without another scar. Still think of suing the original dr. but I know he would get off with the old " I didn't know I wasn't competent to do this procedure" crap. He always stuck to his story of how terrific his ear was and all of those problems were normal. HMPH.

 

[jemiaule]

One day I had been feeling sick and had terrible chest and back pains. I couldn't lay down in bed because, if I did, I could not get back up. That night I slept in a chair. The next day it was worse and DH took me to emergency. THey checked me out, took some x-rays and determined I had pulled a muscle in my back and said I should take it easy.

That night I decided I was in still too much pain and once again slept in a chair. In the morning DH wakes me, I slowly get up, I got a severe pain, grabbed my chest and fell straight to the floor - out cold. DH FREAKS out thinking I had a heart attack or something. I came to right as he had gotten his senses together and was going to call an ambulance.

I made him call the ER we had been to the day before to tell them what happened. They said they would pull my chart and to please wait...we were on hold for a good 20 minutes. It seems whomever had seen me the day before, red my xray and determined I had a pulled muscle was an idiot. The nurse told us a doctor had just reviewed my xrays and they wanted me to come pack to the hospital ASAP.

Ends up I had pneumonia and pleurisy. As I am sure most of you know pneumonia is an inflamation of the lungs . Pleurisy is when the membrane that lines your chest cavity and surround your lungs becomes inflamed. Every time you inhale, exhale or move you have lovely sharp pains in your chest like someone is stabbing you with knives. So having both pnuemonia and pleurisy at the same time...well sucks.

I think I was out of work close to 6 weeks when I had this.

 

[LindsayDunn228]

DH was under care and we knew he needed to go into the hospital for an operation. He saw his SCI doctor on Mon, his plastic surgeon on Tues and the urologist on Fri. The urologist set up another appt for Mon morning. He said if DH gets a high temp call.

That weekend DH didn't look good. Temp was 99. He didn't want to eat and slept alot. He was getting weaker. I called the doctor and he said since the temp was only 100 he was fine. Sunday I kept a close eye on him, but the temp was still 100. something. I wanted him to go to the ER, but he said the doctor said everything was OK if the temp stayed low.

Mon morning I had to help DH get dressed. It was then that I saw the red skin. I wanted to go to the appt, but DH said to go to work he'd be alright. He saw the doctor. The doctor suggested DH go to the hospital for antibotics. Gave him his records and let DH rest on the examining table for a couple hours to get some strength back.

DH calls me to meet him and we go to the ER. The triage nurse takes DH right back. I was in the waiting room thinking what a busy hospital, all these doctors being paged. Yep, you guessd it was for DH.

A nurse said the doctors needed to see me. Doctors?? There outside the room were 6 doctors explaining that I should spend as much time with DH as I could because he had about a 30% chance of surviving the surgery.

He had abdominal gangrene.

He was in the hospital from April to Sept.

We didn't sue because two of the doctors said the same thing...if we sue, in this day of computers, no doctor would risk treating DH for the fear of being sued. As an aging paraplegic, DH will always need doctors and we want to be able to go to the best and have them treat him.

As a paraplegic of almost 23 years, I have to say