New Year, New Update Part 2

I was so happy to hear Dr. M's voice on the other line.

"Hi," I said, sighing as I sat down for a moment.

"Do you have a few minutes to talk?"

"Yes," I said as I got up and shut my office door with my foot.

"So I have your letter here," he said, paper rustling in the background. My letter, I assumed.

"I am so sorry. What an ordeal!" He sounded impassioned.

"Yes, yes it was. It was...awful."

"It sounds like it was a complete nightmare. I wish I had been there...but, uh, it already happened."

Whoa, what?! He wants to rescue me. I want him to rescue me. Cue mental image of me clad in a hospital gown, swooning in his arms with my neck scar, one hand on his bare chest, exposed underneath his white doctor's coat....

"Yeah," I said, kinda numb, while simultaneously trying to keep my eyes from popping out of their sockets over him wanting to rescue me. I was amazed because I had thought of him that night I was still in the hospital. It was 3am and I couldn't sleep. I had wished he had been there. Yes, because he is my knight, but really because of how careful and conscientious he is when he does anything. When he did my biopsy, he told me exactly what he was doing every step of the way. I also knew he wouldn't have allowed me to suffer the way that I did- he is a better person than that.

"Are you sure they knew you were conscious?"

"Yes! My eyes were open- I managed to ask for water- they knew."

"Have you brought this to anyone's attention? Like the nursing manager?"

"Yes, I have. I filed a grievance with the hospital. I just received the results of that yesterday."

"And what did they say?"

"They blamed me, which I expected. They said I might have ripped out my own IV , which is impossible! I heard them- they told me- it failed! Then they selectively used my medical records to prove their point while ignoring them on others!" I was shouting now, just furious.

"That's unfortunate," he replied, his voice having taken on its usual calm and controlled manner as he emotionally withdrew from our conversation. That is his line when you tell him something bad and he doesn't want to say anything else: "That's unfortunate." When I imploded in the exam room trying to tell him the story he said the same darn thing.

"So how are you feeling? Any more nightmares?"

"No, not in a few weeks. I'm just back to the usual normal, well, weird types of dreams."

He laughed, a hearty, sincere laugh. It made me smile. "Just like the rest of us! And how are you feeling about your neck?"

I chuckled, "Oh, fine, fine. I'm not that worried now."

He said my name, "You have just had cancer. It is totally normal and understandable that you are going to be worried about it coming back. It happens to everyone at some point."

"I know. Thanks...thanks for calling."

"Of course. I'll talk to you soon."

I hung up with him and was amazed at how much he seemed to care. About me.

My cynical side says he was like this on purpose so that I would remember how nice he was to me and wouldn't name him in any potential lawsuit.

I later replied back to the hospital's response to my grievance and I copied a bunch of people in power at the clinic and the hospital trying to draw attention to it to see if anyone would actually tell me anything.

In my letter back, I said how dare they blame me for their own incompetence, that the person doing the original investigation severely lacked in empathy for traumatized patients, their response was paternalistic and the investigation half-assed. I again repeated that all I wanted to know was what had happened. Lo and behold, I got someone's attention!

The director of risk management called me a couple of weeks later. Two days prior I had mailed complaints to the state medical board. She told me that no one remembers me so no one knows what happened but Dr. Z is very sorry. She said based on my medical records and what I told her, my IV probably failed when my arm became bent and "no one noticed until you were in recovery." Huh, that sure sounds like negligence to me! She was working hard, telling me that "I can understand how very frightening and confusing it must have been to wake up in that situation." Yeah, you think? She caught me on a mellow day and I didn't say much; I let her do most of the talking and let her think the case was closed.

I also mailed a letter to my surgeon right around this time telling him what HIS staff did to me and what HIS anesthesiologist did to me. He is a coward and never responded. I told him that as the surgeon, I expect him to be in charge. I am referred to him, admitted under his name and he is the one doing the procedure. I also told him that I expected him to be surrounded by a staff that was professional and well-trained and they most certainly were not. It felt good to say that!

The medical board complaints went official in September. The nightmares came back as soon as I put them in the mail. I had two more surgery ones (one in recovery where I was pleading, "please don't hurt me!") before they became just gruesomely violent: people shot in the head, my being raped by a male friend from high school. So much ugliness.

Just this last week I heard back from the medical board. There was not enough evidence to claim negligence or violation of standard of care. The letter said "anesthesia can be traumatizing even when everything is done right." I cannot resolve this statement as true. I just cannot. It makes no sense to me. The letter also said I was still intubated when I became conscious (not in my medical records) and this caused emergence delirium (not in my medical records) and the disruption of the IV line (not in my medical records!). These numerous omissions from my medical records, which were part of my original complaint- not mentioned. For that reason, I want to write back and say, "what about that?" It's just fishy to me, still. I don't know if I can keep going with this or if I should.

I had been doing well until I received that letter but it triggered my PTSD. I was in the grocery one night and everytime someone would come near me, I could feel my entire system go into overdrive. A woman walked up behind me and I nearly clubbed her in the face because I felt threatened. I had a panic attack in the office for no reason. I lost my appetite. I cried a lot.

Speaking of cowards, I want to make a point to say that I NEVER heard directly from Dr. Z, the anesthesiologist, about what happened. Even when it happened, my surgeon's assistant came and told me, not him. He has never apologized. That angers me. That makes me want to continue to push and push on this. There are ways to apologize without admitting any wrongdoing. Doing this has been shown to reduce lawsuits (Harvard has some wonderful info on this). It is like he hid this entire time: behind my surgeon, behind the clinic and the hospital, and now behind the medical board. C-O-W-A-R-D

I wanted to write another letter to Dr. M but I am afraid to. It almost feels inappropriate. I am supposed to see him for my one-year followup in a couple of months.