Healing hands
January 28, 2016 § 35 Comments
What we need are more lawsuits and more lawyers who are willing to file them. We need to have the MICRA caps lifted so we can sue the shit out of doctors. Most of our legal system is clogged with corporations suing each other. The opening in the courthouse doors gets smaller and smaller for ordinary people.
So yeah, I like lawsuits and juries. Good stuff, good times.
The other day I fell off my bicycle while going too fast on new tires thinking I was a badass until my Big Orange team asphalt magnets kicked in and I bounced and flounced on my forearm and head and hip and nutsack until resistance (which wasn’t futile) slowed me and finally stopped me in the middle of the road.
They took me to Torrance Memorial Hospital where I wondered what they were memorializing. Aren’t memorials for dead people? I supposed that’s a good name for a hospital, on second thought.
Anyway, they took an x-ray and the tech was like “Yo, dude, no fracture!” which was followed up by the radiologist who read all three films and concluded, “Yo, dude, no fracture!” and was reconfirmed by the ER doc who said, “Yo, dude, no fracture and while we’re at it that’s an awfully tiny nutsack.”
So naturally I found out a week later that I had a fracture. This pissed me off because I’d tossed all my meds and suffered like a pigdog for seven days thinking it was a nutsack strain rather than a crack in my childbearing hips. The ortho was like, “Ah, fuggit dude, nothin’ they could have done about it anyway, ditch the crutches as soon as you can and quit dragging your leg and it’ll heal up in about nine weeks and no I won’t prescribe heroin for sleeping.”
Once I got better I got madder, thinking about all that pain and suffering I went through, soaking my nutsack in a tomato juice and onion poultice when I should have been stabilizing my childbearing hips and mixing my craft water with fistfuls of Oxycodone, Oxycontin, and beetle feet.
Best thing to do, I figured, was to send ol’ Doc Hosskiller a nastygram and threaten them with a four billion dollar lawsuit. THAT’LL TEACH ‘EM.
Mrs. WM had a different idea. “Why not you just tell ’em onna what happened, nice times?”
She’s nuts, right? But she also holds the key to dinner, so I agreed. Out went the nice letter.
Couple days later I got a call from the head of the ER, Dr. Eric Nakkim. He apologized for his staff missing the fracture. He sympathetically listened to me moan and groan about the pain, and it was genuine sympathy. Then he promised to make it right and not charge me for the physician services. He also wanted to know how this could be used to improve services at the hospital.
He was polite, kind, thoughtful, and really cared about what I’d been through. I felt like a no good, dirty dog, whiny-ass pusbucket. And I respected the heck out of his approach.
More lawsuits in America? Hell, yes.
But not this time. Not even close.
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Cycling in the South Bay 
Good one.
Thanks.
amazing what a nice letter could do…see just be happy 🙂
I once read something about that somewhere.
That happens EVERY time I get all pissed off and worked up, and then some jackass has to go and be nice, helpful, empathetic, and capable. Taking the wind right out of the moral indignation and anger that I worked so hard to get. Bastards.
Imagine how horrible it is when you’re married to one of those monsters.
It’s like, when some jackass cuts me off or pulls out in front of me and I have to slam the brakes on and just as I pull up to flip them off or yell at them, they look sheepish and mouth “sorry” totally making me waste a good mad on. Also reminding me that people make mistakes.
Right?
WTF is a “nice letter?”
Yours truly,
Waldo, Esq.
One that omits the “Esq.”
I like it. Except no nice letters when suing fuckers
Or when fooing suckers.
Good post. Having worked in medicine for most of my hopeless life I have seen many fractures “missed”. A few days later they appear magically on new xrays. HUMMMMM…..
Glad you had a good resolution with everything and remember that there is a, ahhhh, a “practice of medicine” (you know, “practice makes perfect” while the patient is being “patient”).
This was the same X-ray, different doctor. Sent from my law practice.
I’m not sure what’s more surprising. That people are nice when everyone acts reasonably, or that it’s next to impossible nowadays to figure out that people are nice when everyone acts reasonably. Either way – glad that your experience is being used to improve the situation, rather than becoming a costly and contentious pissing contest (which would be a challenge with a strained nutsack).
“Would the gentleman with the strained nutsack please rise?
Exact same doctor (Nakkim) called me the day after my ER visit to tell me he missed a fracture my shoulder blade in the x-ray. He’s getting good at those apologies!
Kudos for taking the nice road. Helps in keeping your happy!
SUE!!!!!!
Class action!!
Times eight zillion.
Taking the High Road has it’s benefits, and your constructive criticism will help out some other injured person in the future. Pay if forward and KEEP your Happy! It’s a win-win.
Thanks!
I wonder what it is. These days all the xray equipment is digital, so there shouldn’t be any “Well, the film was still wet, and that’s why your fracture didn’t show through”, which is the call my Dad got the day after he was discharged from a NYC hospital after a fall off his bike (thanks to Team Toga and John Howard) in which he hit is noggin pretty hard. “Mr Hallander, we recommend that you go to the nearest Emergency room, as our Morning review of your x-rays now detail a significant fracture in you nogginous maximus”
When I got x-ray’d for my fracture, as soon as the nice nurse pulled on my left arm to orient me onto my right side, SHEAR PAIN shot through my body and I grabbed her right breast with my left hand. After I uttered my apologies for the cheap feel, she said “Oh yeah, that pelvis is certainly broken.”
All is good now though :).
Sheer pain is sheer, indeed.
Touche!
Aside from the drug benefits, did you get your 6-month handicapper pass? I did for my pelvic fun time cracks… though I did only use it for 2 🙂
There were no drug benefits and I didn’t want the pass. Just hobbled slowly and eventually got where I was going.
Broke my elbow on PV out by Terrawhatever – right in front of the Fire station. Since I blacked out they suggested I have a friend drive me to the hospital. We ended up at Torrance Mem where Dr. “holy cow” said he needed to operate right away. My friend took me home cause he told me, once you go in – you don’t come out. Thank God Dr. Chandler at Kerlan Jobe fixed me like shiny new!
Broke elbow is ugly bad.
So, you’ve mended enough to start complaining? Used to be, that’s when they’d send you home.
If you’re well enough to talk, you don’t belong in an ER? I like it.
Thanks for doing the right thing.
Being from the free world where you get free medicine, (yes I know it comes out of my taxes). The Sisyphusian absurdity of doctors having to carry ridiculous amounts malpractice insurance and the associated increased cost of medical insurance because of it, just boggles my mind.
The irony is that they carry huge malpractice premiums but the patient is limited to $250,00 in noneconomic damages when he sues. The doctor pays, the injured patient gets no compensation, and the massive premium payments go straight to the insurer. Everyone (who matters) loses.
Even better! Something is laughing in hell/multimillion dollar mansion.
Yep.