How
do you get on with life?
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...I'd been flying for almost four hours and got up to go to the restroom. Things started out fine, like normal till midway through my task when I started to pass air rather than urine. Just like that...just that quickly... no pain, no blood, no cramps, nothing to indicate there was anything wrong with me. Once I returned home to California, I called my doctor and scheduled an appointment. I saw him at his office the next day and described the details of what had happened. He told me this was a symptom called pneumoturia and I needed to be seen by a surgeon and urologist right away. I started thinking, now wait a minute, I just flew into San Diego on a 14 hour flight from Chile and I feel fine, I have never felt better. For the past two years I had been teaching sleep disorders medicine to physicians and medical students in Canada and South America and having the best time of my life. I was flying an average of 125,000 air miles a year, seeing different people and cultures, eating breakfast in Toronto, Canada and dining in La Jolla, California that evening. This happened week after week, I truly was living a dream. But
on September 14th, 2000 that dream became a nightmare. It was "marathon thursday" for the surgeons who performed my "routine" operation. That particular Thursday, my surgeon started operating at 7:30 am and 14 hours later came my turn. This is where the problems begin; not counting the surgical instruments. Something so simple, a standard operating room protocol performed in hospitals worldwide. My
recovery was slow and there were clinical signs of infection. 17 days
later an x-ray showed a 14 inch retractor had been left in my abdominal
cavity. The retractor was surgically removed October 3rd, 2000. Doctors
found a massive infection known as "the flesh-eating bacteria".
Four days in critical care, eight more days in the hospital, and eight
weeks in room 911 on the ground floor of the Marriott Hotel. That was over three years ago. So far... three surgeries to repair the damage, physical therapy, weekly psychotherapy sessions for depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome, inability to lift more than 20 pounds, unable to stand for more than two hours, and chronic pain. I was terminated from my job, filed and won a lawsuit against the hospital and two doctors. The total dollar amount awarded by the jury was $250,000. That's the maximum available under current California law. After paying attorney and legal fees, I received a net sum of $60,000. The legal system is as dysfunctional as the medical system that started this whole mess. No one is willing to be accountable or responsible for their mistakes. All I have asked is that I be compensated for the damage that's been done. I trusted the doctors to follow established protocols-they did not. I believed justice would take place through the courts to right this wrong-it has not.... this legal battle could go on and on. My
closest friends and family say I should cut my losses and get on with
my life.
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