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I wasnt sure to even be asking this but it is driving me crazy. As you all know my mom had passed away before Christmas, She had been done with treatment since last April. She did not die from the cancer, but from effects of treatment. I have been working on her cancer insurance policy and they needed me to get some of her medical records from her 3 previous hospital stays. Me and my dad both wanted to get them because we thought we might get some answers to why this had happened. Back in August she was hospitalized with very low sodium, they got that straightened out and ran numerous tests. and sent her home, all over a 2 week stay. My qustion is this. I was looking over her test results and they had done a respiratory culture that had not come back until the day after she was dicharged. It came back with a heavy pseaudamonis auergosa(not sure on spelling)infection. Why were we not notified of that? I know i am not a doctor but from looking that up online, it couldve caused alot of her problems. If a test comes back after you are discharged whos responsibility would it be to look at her chart? I'm not sure why i want to know this now, I guess I am looking for some peace. I do blame alot of her doctors. And no she was not at a major cancer center. Looking back now i wish we wouldve researched more befor treatment so i wouldve found you all befor. Any insight to this would be greatly appeciated. Thank you in advance.

Karen,
First off I am very sorry for your loss. I am sorry that your previous posts were ignored but I don't think that any of us can answer your question. You might want to talk to a doctor specializing in forensics, or even a personal injury attorney.

Thanks Gary. I guess i just really dont know what to do with this information. Iv'e spoke with my dad and he said about the only thing we could do was get a lawyer involved, and that wouldn't bring her back. The rest of my family knows i was supposed to be getting her records. If you were me would you tell them. I was her primary caregiver and everyone else pretty much went about there normal lives. I will never regret putting my life on hold this past year. I guess now i am just afraid if i dont do something with this information i will regret it in the future. I know noone can give me the answers i seek, but if you'll could let me know what you would do in this situation, i would greatly appreciate it. Thanks

Karen,
at the risk of freaking out other survivors here the bottom line is that if it was a late staged cancer (like mine was), the 5 year survival rate is 38%. The immune system is pretty beat up because of treatment as it is, plus she had the low sodium thing going on which is a fairly serious complication of treatment. I am sure that the statistics include persons who don't necessarily die from the cancer itself but rather complications from it. There are many infections to be found in hospitals unfortunately, in spite of the best efforts of aggressive infection control. There may never be an answer. Even thrush can kill you if it gets out of hand and goes systemic. I know that several of us have had to be hsopitalized with IV antibiotics from otherwise rather mundane infections.

Like your Dad said - this won't bring her back and you'll be living the pain for years - but with a root of bitterness. You have to ask yourself also how would she like to be remembered.

Karen,

My first thought was to advise you to just let it go. I can certainly understand wanting to blame someone. I had considered talking to a lawyer after Heather died. I felt there were parts of her treatment that were not handled properly and I was angry. I wanted someone to be angry at. I wanted someone to pay for her suffering. I have since realized that there probably wasn't any one particular thing that, if done differently, would have saved her. Maybe if everything had been done differently? Who knows? I sure don't. I will always wonder though.

If your mom's cancer was stage 4, as Heather's was, it could be the same situation. As Gary said, the chance of survival isn't good to start with. But, if she had an infection and it was never treated, that is a bit different. You said you weren't informed about the infection. I assume that means it was never treated. If that is the case, you definitely need to get some answers.

Several months after Heather died, I did talk to her surgeon. I had several concerns about her treatment and he was able to set my mind at ease a bit. He actually even took part of the blame upon himself. He treated Heather the same as he had treated hundreds of patients and there was no reason to think she wouldn't respond as well as they had. But in retrospect, he said there were things he should have done differently. Of course hindsight is always easier than foresight. There really was no way he could have known her cancer would react differently. Just hearing him take part of the blame helped me, though, because it lifted some of the blame from my shoulders.

If I were you, I would question your mom's doctors about the infection. Find out if any of them were aware of it, if anything was being done to treat it. If they weren't aware, ask why. One of her doctors should have known about it. If none of them knew, then someone did drop the ball and you probably should investigate further. You may have just cause for a lawsuit. Or you may find out that the infection had nothing to do with her death. At least you will be able to set your mind at ease, one way or the other.

Rosie

Hello Karen,

No one will ever know the answer you seek. I've found out in the last year and one half that no doctor is perfect. They are human beings just like you and I. For your piece of mind I suggest you let this go. What would your Mom want you to do?
Being the kind of person you are I'm sure she had great care from you. I hope you can find some peace and concentrate on living your new life to the fullest with your lovely family.

Best Wishes, Danny Boy

Karen,

When my mother struggled for months after her terminal diagnosis, we had several things that went amuck with the doctors, nurses, hospitals, etc. My first inclination was to blame them and want to puruse other avenues to feed my pain and guilt. There was one particular instance and they were going to force a doctor out of a very solid OB/GYN Oncology program. He had spent many years with this particular program as his ultimate goal. When I met with the head of the program and my mother, it was apparent they wanted to boot the doctor out. My mother and I both voiced our objections and said if anything what we would prefer is they spend the time with him to address his opportunities to improve. It was a life changing experience for him, as he told us, and everyone was better for it. If you want to bring honor to your mother and your family, spend the time to help the doctors analyze their opportunities to improve their processes. At the end of the day, we can not expect them to be anything but humans, prone to making the wrong decision at the spur of the moment, just like the rest of us.

I am really sorry for your loss and I thought of you often yesterday which happened to be my mother's birthday.

Ed

Thanks guys, once again you'll have helped me to gain a perspective on this. I know that in time this will get easier, my main reason for even asking was to get the word out to be persistent with the doctors. In my moms case she was a stage 4. I would love to be able to sit down with her doctors, but she had so many differant ones for so many diff things.And she was in 3 differant hospitals. I wouldnt know where to begin. That being said. I know that whatever i do, it will not bring her back. I am not going to get a lawyer, because she would not want that and i need to find peace and not dwell on the what ifs. I know in my heart i was there for her when she needed me, and i did everything i could for her. I hate that i was not able to say good-bye and i hate that the ER pushed us to the side for 12 hrs. Telling us we should be happy that treating her wasn't an emergency, and that others were life and death. Only for her to die 6 hrs later. That will always bother me. But now i have to focus on the future, on my little girl and my husband. I have to be strong for my dad. Thanks again to those who replied, it helps more then i can say.

Hi Karen, I'll both agree and disagree with some of the thoughts here. Where I disagree is that if there is a systemic failure at the place your mother was treated, then future new patients might benefit from your exposing the problem. No I am not suggesting that you hire a lawyer, but instead speak to the management people at that care facility. Polite input is valuable as a learning tool.

My sympathies to you and your family.