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| Medical Malpractice Negligent healthcare and malpractice lawsuits. Includes doctor, dentist, druggist, hospital and nursing home malpractice. |
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I'd like some other opinions to help me make some decisions....
Long story, so here goes. Several years ago I started having pain in my wrist. I was living in Europe at the time, and the recommendation was just to rest my wrist. I returned to the USA, and went to a few different hand surgeons, had CT scans, X-rays etc, and nobody found any explanation for the pain. I went to my PCP about a year ago for pain medicine, and he suggested I go see a hand surgeon that he knew personally. So I did. This surgeon injected my wrist with cortisone and had me go for 4 weeks of physical therapy, both treatments to rule out problems that he suspected. After the 4 weeks, I returned to this surgeon and he asked what happened. I told him the injection helped for 2 weeks, and the PT didn't do anything. He said he had a suspicion and wanted to do an arthroscopic exam. I agreed. The next week after the exam, he showed me the photographs taken during the exam, showing the scapho-lunate ligament being detached from the Scaphoid. He said that if I wanted to, I could just wait and see what happened, but that he could easily repair this ligament, and said that the procedure has an 85% rate of success. I said let's do it. A few weeks later, I had the surgery. Many weeks went by before I was out of the cast. At this point, I was sent back for more PT, for range-of-motion exercises. This included all sorts of exercises that involved twisting and turning my wrist in all directions. The pain got worse and worse and worse, and I went back over and over to the surgeon, who said that it was only three months post op, and that I'd need to be patient. A few weeks later, I called for pain medicine, and his office staff refused. I asked if the doctor could decide, and they told me that they do not provide pain medicine after 90 days. It was at this point that I decided to consult another hand surgeon... this is where the fun begins. The next hand surgeon informs me that the procedure was done incorrectly, was NOT an industry standard method for this repair, and also has some doubts that the diagnosis was correct. He continues to inform me that my Lunate was damaged beyond repair, and that the likely end result would be a Proximal Row Carpectomy, or, the removal of four of the carpal (wrist) bones. I went home and called YET ANOTHER hand surgeon for another opinion. He defended the original surgeon saying that his method was one of a hundred different ways the repair could have been done, but also added that he himself would not have done it this way. He agreed that the Carpectomy was probable. Three days later he removed the screw from the Scaphoid/Lunate bones. The post-op x-rays show that the Lunate is, as suspected, badly damaged. Now five weeks post-op, the pain continues to get worse, I'm running out of options, and my life will forever be affected by this ordeal. I cannot clean my house, pick up my dogs, get a job, wash my car, nothing... If my daughters ever have kids, I won't be able to pick them up. The carpectomy is looking more and more likely as a means of reducing the pain to a tolerable level. I know that not all surgeries turn out the way they were supposed to, but I can't help but to wonder if there was some negligence involved. The range of motion exercises that ultimately fractured the bone, the refusal to provide pain medication for the bone that was fracturing, and was missed on the x-rays during follow-up visits, the failure to provide adequate information about the risks involved with use of my hand during recovery, etc... Comments? Suggestions? |
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