Looking for volunteers to help kick my fiance's doc's butt!!

[Interrobang]

Back story:

My fiance has been taking Klonopin for years and years because it helps with his ADD-related anxiety and borderline OCD-type behaviour; also it works as an anti-spasmodic and helps prevent his vascular headaches. Klonopin is very addictive, and usually when someone who's been on it for a long time has to go off it, the weaning process takes months. My fiance's doctor decided to take him off in a week, mostly, we figure, because he didn't know better. One of the side effects of Klonopin withdrawl is seizures.

The insurance company that holds my fiance's paper made him go to this guy, who's in New Jersey (which is quite a hike from my fiance's home on Long Island) -- very inconvenient.

Yesterday afternoon, my fiance had a seizure on the concourse in Pearson Airport in Toronto, en route from his home in New York to visit me. He fell so hard (on a terrazzo floor with carpet over it) that he sustained a compression fracture in one of his thoracic vertebrae. Plus, we had to find out where they'd taken him (it was a hospital in a nearby town) and then go get him this morning after they got his discharge underway -- a two hour drive. I have no car/license and had to get my parents to take me. Fortunately, they did (for which I am eternally grateful).

Nevertheless, I really want to kick this doc's ass. The people at the hospital were shocked that the doctor'd do such a thing, and gave him a prescription for Klonopin to stabilize him, so that's ok now. (The hospital people were great!) A friend whom I asked was likewise shocked. I'm furious -- my fiance's in terrible pain, and our first time together since early January is ruined. He's going to have to spend most of his vacation in bed, and *not* the way one usually spends lots of time in bed when one gets to visit one's distant fiancee! I can't even help him as much as I want, because I have Cerebral Palsy, and my balance/agility etc. isn't that good.

(Besides which, I cleaned my whole apartment to the walls before he came, and then had another 36h of short sleep, insufficient food, and stress -- which makes me feel like I've been put through the wringer. I've been sporadically having micro crying jags, and I can't sleep. <I think I'm also having PMS, to add insult to injury.> )

Anyway, tomorrow we cry havoc and let slip the lawyers of war. I'm still taking names for a doctor circle-boot, though, just in case... Skittles?

On edit: For clarity, added details about the nationality of fiance and doctor. Excuse me; I've had a little too much painkiller myself tonight, due to overwork, undersleep, a long trip, chronic pain, and stress (which increases the chronic pain). Sorry...

[Momof1]

1. I need volunteers too

Best friends father went to Dr. last summer for a sore throat.
They gave him anti-biotics.

Within a month, he was back at the Drs.
They gave him anti-biotics

Within a month, he was back at the Drs.
They gave him anti-biotics.

Within a month, he was back at the Drs. Saying this isn't working.
They gave him anti-biotics.

Finally after repeated trips every month, someone finally got the bright idea to stick a camera down his throat in December.

He had tumors. The biopsy was scheduled for 3 weeks ago. One day before appointment he started trying to eat his drinking glass.

Rushed straight to the hospital. His throat cancer had spread to his brain. He passed away on Feb 1st.

SORRY, It pissed me off so bad when I read your Dr. story I had to share.

[Interrobang]

2. That's awful!!

Normally, being Canadian, I *love* doctors. I've had pretty much nothing but really top-notch doctors in my life (although I really miss the one who died of an inoperable brain tumour) -- the few who were bad weren't *that* bad, and since they were residents, I never had them for long.

Did your best friend sue for malpractice? That's what we're going to try to do. My fiance thinks that $5000 punitive/monetary damages is a good start, plus $250 million in pain and suffering...and I personally hope (for his sake, NOT mine) that he gets every penny. (I hope your friend got or is going to get a bundle, too. NO ONE should prescribe antibiotics that many times in a row without checking out root causes. At the very least, he should have done a throat swab the first time around, and if that didn't show anything, he should have had the camera thing or an MRI *right then*, not much later! I'm not a doctor, and I know that much.)

Bastards!

[camero]

3. Can you report him to the medical board?

I don't totally know how the Canadian system works but I would think you could do that and that they were tougher on thier docs up there than here.

[Interrobang]

4. The doc who messed him over is an American doctor.

My fiance's from Lindenhurst, NY, and his doctor's in NJ. He'd know more about how to do that than I would, although if it happened here, I'd report him post-haste to the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons. I don't know what's the similar org in the US.

[camero]

5. They have them here too

But getting them disciplined is another thing entirely. They hardly ever do that here. The state runs the medical boards.

[Interrobang]

6. Arrrrgh. Not what I wanted to hear.

Not encouraging. This guy *needs* to be disciplined. This isn't the first mistake he's made with my fiance's case, and I can't imagine that my fiance's the only person who's suffering because of the doc's mistakes.

I'm sorry to hear that your medical regulatory system doesn't have teeth. I must say I'm not well disposed towards the US medical system on general principles, and my direct (I had to go the Emerg in Butler, PA, once, for a splinter in my sit-down, and the doctor left a piece of wood in me that only came out about a month later!) and indirect experiences don't do anything to ameliorate my feelings.

[Momof1]

7. This just happened

His biopsy was scheduled for Jan. 15th. He just passed away on Feb. 1st. His Memorial service was yesterday. I don't know what they are going to do. I do know that my best friend has his power of attorney. I don't know if that is worth anything, since he passed away.

She fired his Dr. within a week of him going to the hospital. And she got another Dr. but by that time it was to late.


ON a side note. My nephew a few yrs ago, went to the Dr. with a pain in his side. The Dr. told him he pulled a muscle and sent him on his way. He went back to College & Thank God his college was in Canada, cause his appendix burst within 2 weeks. You have GREAT DR's up there.

[Interrobang]

10. Oh, NO! I'm SO sorry to hear that!

If you think it would help, please send my condolences. --snif--

I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to deal in any meaningful way with the US medical system without ending up crying, shaking with anger (that's normal if you have CP/w spastic quadriplegia like I have), or both -- every story like yours I hear, and every time my fiance's doctors do something Yet Again, it gets a little worse.

Dammit, these things make me want to commit socialized medicine bigamy, just so I can rescue my fiance and some of my friends!!

[moof]

8. Sounds like a job for,... Skittles !!

[Interrobang]

9. Yeah, it is!

Where IS Skittles, anyway?

AlienGirl said she'd help, in a telephone chat we had today, but even though she's tough, she's tiny; and even though I'm tough and not tiny, I'm not totally able-bodied, so we'll probably need help. A veteran ass-kicker like Skittles would be great! :)

[woofless]

11. This sounds like a job for

LAWYER MAN.......da tada.. Hurry, before the BFEE passes legislation to limit malpractice liability.