Frustrated

thebowhunter

In August my wife tore her meniscus. The ortho doc said he could do a meniscal repair. He cut into her, did the work but it didn’t work and she was in more pain than before. He then told her she needed a partial knee replacement. On Nov 1 he cut into her again and replaced the fail knee parts with metal and plastic. Wanting to get folks moving as soon as possible after surgery, the hospital had it up and about 24 hours later. While he had a pain block in preventing here from feeling anything from the hip down on the right leg, they marched her up and down a hallway while I drove the IV pole along side her.

When we got back to the room, they had her sit in a chair for a bit. Not feeling well she told the nurse she wanted to lay back in the bed. The nurse (who had a belt around my wifes waist and held it tight the entire time my wife navigated the hallway was about 6 feet away as she tried to maneuver her way from the chair to the bed. It didn’t go well and my wife fell hard and bend the knee quire a bit.

We got her into bed and the doc came in the next day to see her. He was told of the fall but did not suggest that an xray be taken to make sure the new knee parts were still where he placed them. He said that he would tell his nurse to schedule a post-op appointment 2 weeks out to see how she was doing. Two weeks go by and she is in a lot of pain and not improving. We arrive for the appointment early and the appointment time comes and goes by a half hour so I speak up. They take us to an exam room and we wait for another 20 minutes until the nurse pops in and says the doc is way behind and wont be able to see her but his assistant can see her. Again, an opportunity is lost to xray the knee to make sure the parts are where they left them during surgery.

Another week and a half go by and she is in a lot of pain so she drives herself to the doctor to tell him that something is not right. He finally does an xray and discovers that the lower knee parts have moved a considerable amount and are the cause of the pain and lack of healing. He tells her that insurance mandates that 6 weeks must go by before he can establish that the surgery was unsuccessful. She calls me in tears.

I call the doc but only get his assistant. She tells me that the doc cant be reached but he would call me the next day. He calls and I tied into him pretty good. I explain that she had enough vacation and sick days to get her through the initial knee replacement but after 4 weeks she is uping her pain meds and cant even go back to light office work and she cant drive and two more weeks of waiting is unacceptable. I ask who will be on the hook for the repeat knee replacement to repair the first knee replacement and he says he cant waive the fee and that the insurance company and I would have to cover it. I let him know that I have to seek legal guidance.

2 hours later, the doc calls my wife and says that can fit her into his schedule tomorrow. He fears that he may have to remove even more bone and it might lead to a total knee replace (both upper and lower) even though only the lower part had shifted during the fall. Now, out of vacation and sick days, he will have to go on short term disability and 70% pay. We got her setup with a laptop to do limited work from home.

I call 3 law firms to establish what our rights are in term of personal injury and medical malpractice. All 3 firms said “it sucks to be you but doctors in WI are pretty much bullet proof in term of being protected in these cases.”

Frustrated.

bgelliott

I truly feel for you and your wife. For me personally, I would have gone to a different doctor.

We had a similar incident with my mom where she had a stent put in for blocked artery and several month later was feeling terrible pain and numbness in the same foot. The stupid doctor would not do an ultrasound and said it's normal after this procedure and that she would only get about 80% blood flow back to her leg. So I talked to the doctors at the Arizona Heart Institute who brought her in and did an amazing job examining her, top to bottum, inside and out. They determined that she needed to have the procedure done again. Turns out the blockage was back as bad as the first time. He cleaned it out last year and she has been fabulous ever since.

Good luck to both of you!