The Surgeon Caused the Problem
Recently, my eight-year-old grandson went for his surgery to have a cyst removed from his thyroid gland. It’s supposed to be a simple surgery—you go in the morning, and come home in the afternoon. An hour later, my son (the dad) calls me.
Something went horribly wrong. My grandson is being rushed by ambulance to the local hospital with a children’s wing. Apparently, the damage was so severe that the surgeons at the new hospital didn’t even know what to do.
The original surgeon had cut my grandson’s vocal cords, and he cut a hole in his larynx. They then called to talk to experts at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
My grandson has been sedated and ventilated this entire time. The following day, the doctors recommend my grandson be flown to Seattle Children’s Hospital.
The mom gets to fly with my grandson, my son drives over by himself. They arrive Friday morning, and the new surgeon does the six-hour repair surgery from 5-11 pm on Friday night.
My grandson spent the next week under sedation and on the ventilator. After that, the new surgeon opened my grandson up again to take a look and told my son and daughter-in-law that everything looked better than he had even hoped for.
The surgeon had three goals. First, that my grandson would be able to breathe on his own and not need a tracheotomy.
Second, that he would be able to eat and swallow on his own. And third, that he would still have his voice. Yes, that’s how bad this was. But after two weeks in Seattle, they came home and my grandson is doing fantastic!
He does have to go to Seattle to see his wonderful surgeon every few months to have scar tissue scraped from his vocal cords. Still, he is doing awesome, and that surgeon succeeded in meeting every one of his goals.
Two other items: My grandson has wanted to be a voice actor since he was four years old. And then finally, the worst thing.
The original surgeon that messed up called my son and told him that once he opened my grandson up, he saw that it was not a cyst on his thyroid gland, but a lymph node.
Yet he continued to perform the surgery! My son and daughter-in-law have a malpractice suit against this doctor. JazzedParrot108