THE F#$%N SURGEON LEFT A SUTURE IN MY REPAIR!!!!!!!!!!
Uncategorized January 10th, 201001/9/10
This week, Tuesday January 5th to be exact was experiencing some fevers and chills after my therapy session and the AT working on me said to get the swelling around what I thought to be a dissolving suture site checked out. So that evening as the chills and fevers persisted the site actually discharged out of the suture poking out of my skin!!! WTF! Overnight it became worse and I admitted myself to the Urgent Care center. Four hours of waiting later I was told it “was infected”, well “Duh”, and that I needed to undergo IV treatment for five days to deal with the infection. GREAT. I quickly made an appointment to see my surgeon.
That day I told him about my ordeal and why I came to see him, that what I thought to be a dis solvable suture was discharging. So he “dug deeper” and as you can already imagine he found the leftovers of his handy work, nearly an inch and a half of suture left in my scar!!!!!! He then says “That would never have healed if that was left in there…” “What!?!?!?!?” (I said that in my mind) because I didn’t want to make a scene (There was a little girl and her mom in the next bed where they were working on me) Oh yeah NO APOLOGY!?!?!? He was probably mortified in front of the technician that was helping him… Needless to say I am VERY FRUSTRATED WITH THIS. I am behind in my therapy sessions and will probably miss the next semester for work ( I am a high school teacher) Nonetheless I guess I’m happy to be alive and have this as my own “unique” experience to this ordeal. I will probably dwell on this longer than the fact of getting injured. I dunno these professionals are paid to be perfect in more of the sense than professional athletes. I know people make mistakes but when you are on this end of the situation you have to really wonder truly “WHY ME?!?!???!”
January 10th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
I don’t like to encourage litigation but in the USA there is such a thing as malpractice. I don’t know if this qualifies but a good medical malpractice lawyer would probably tell you for free if it’s worth pursuing. Some “mistakes’ are just mistakes, but some things are simply inferior practice. Technically speaking, they know how much insoluble suture was put in, and they should be measuring how much comes out.
Clearly you have been harmed, both in terms of potential injury (the jury of time is still out on whether this additional infection will do you more harm) as well as the clear problem of missing work that needn’t have happened. And generally, if you can demonstrate harm, you have a case.
Is this a “mistake”? Well, sort of, but if you were serving coffee that was too hot, and it spilled, well yes that is the kind of thing that happens sometimes but it’s avoidable. And highly paid professionals are held to a higher standard than the rest of us. I hope you get well soon. I too am glad you’re alive–that’s not always the case
January 10th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Are you saying this was just a hunk of suture material that was forgotten in there?
January 10th, 2010 at 7:06 pm
Gerry R,
Yes, this was a piece of suture that was sticking out of my scar that got infected with staph and the whole fever and chill experience, forced me into intravenous treatment,left me with a deep gouge in my achilles thus far, and probably going to push my rehab schedule and return to work.
January 10th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
I think that meets the criteria for malpractice. Any additional medical expenses that result from this should be covered by the person who caused it.
January 12th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
Oh, that is horrible. Thank goodness you discovered it before even more damage was done. Sending you sincere well wishes.