The Story

This is my tale of woe about a mishandled knee surgery. Before
bilateral knee surgery by Dr. O’neill I was able to walk 3-4 miles
with the aid of ordinary hiking sticks. I was perfectly mobile
indoors. I had no swelling or pain except when walking on uneven
ground, climbing stairs and getting up and down from a low chair
and dancing. I will never forget how in October Dr. O told me I
would be dancing for Christmas. My Christmas has not yet arrived.
After five years I have to use wrist supported crutches to walk
more than a short distance. The left knee was my worst knee. It
now has to serve as my best. It was put on at wrong angel and
caused my arch to collapse and is putting stress and added pain in
the lower back. The left leg that was my better leg became
infected during the operation. It was horribly painful from the
very moment I woke up from the anesthesia. The first five days I
had pain in the right leg. In spite of this I was sent home after a 10 days stay in the hospital. After a week at home I was rushed
in to the emergency when plasma poured out of the wound. A week
of daily injections of antibiotic didn’t help. A few days later I had to be picked up by ambulance as the infected knee dislocated.
This is when the real nightmare started. Dr. O was unavailable and
another dr. performed a temporary operation by inserting what he
called a chain of antibiotic beads. The infection continued
unabated. When Dr O. returned he scheduled me for yet another
surgery to remove the implant. My once “best” knee was now a big
lump. A spacer with imbedded antibiotic was inserted and I spent
the next 6 weeks flat on my back or in a wheelchair. An
intravenous catheter was inserted in my arm and threaded to a
main artery near my heart. Vancomiacin was injected 2x daily
until I was sent to an outpatient facility which I had to pay for
myself. In order to save a visiting nurse coming 2x daily the dose
of Vancomiacin was increased in strength and lowered to 1x daily.
Unfortunately, my system didn’t tolerate this and the medications
was stopped after 2 weeks rather than the intended 6 weeks.
Since no other antibiotic is effective against this superbug we
spent the next four weeks hoping for the best. Hoping that the
infection would be eliminated for the next surgery. Surgery #5
took place 9 weeks after the first. Another trip into the OR . This
time I studied my surroundings very carefully as I waited in the
ante-room for my turn. I saw a women washing something in a sink
, running her hands through her greasy long hair, putting her
fingers in her mouth and bring whatever she was cleaning into the
OR. I saw other people walking freely in and out of the OR without
any particular precautions. I am lying there on a gurney wondering
what went wrong in my case, praying that all will be fine this time.
I don’t know how much is the surgeons responsibility when it
comes to sterilizing the instruments and general cleanliness. I do
know that in my case during the first operations I was brought
back to the recovery room with legs unshaven and nailpolish still
on my toenails. The attending nurses were very surprised at this
and did remove the polish because they check the colour of the
toenails to make sure they don’t turn blue. I also know that the
infection was deep in the cemented part of the implant. For me
what is unexuceable is how one leg can be replaced in a worse
angle than what it was before. My son traveled 2500 miles and
took time off from work to consult with Dr. O but he was
unavailable and did not respond to phone calls or attempts to meet
with him. When I mentioned my concerns to Dr. O his response
was , “What do you want, perfection?” This to me is
unprofessional and arrogant. It would also have been nice to have
an apology for all the things that went wrong. I am now a seriously
handicapped person that need help with many of the chores of
daily living. I have reports from other physicians in the months
before the first operations that described me as a “very athletic
woman”, this sadly is no longer true. I tried my best to recover as well as possible by going to physio, swimming and exercise with
not much improvement. The right leg at an angle, the left leg
takes a little swing to the right for every step which has caused
me to fall on several occasions. It led to a broken wrist one cold and rainy night. Another consequences of knee replacement is
something that no one mentioned before. I will never again be able
to lie on my knees again. They do not bent beyond 93 degrees.
This puts a serious dent in ones lovemaking. If one is lucky enough
to have one. It is certainly something to consider when making a
decision to undergo surgery. It has not improved my quality of life.

Malpractice ?????????

This is the sad and sorry, gory story about my disastrous ......