My Right Arm

We have a friend, David, who is an upstanding citizen. He has a job, pays taxes, doesn't beat his wife, or kick his dog. In other words, he is a decent, hard working citizen.

In early July, he began to notice a loss of feeling in his right arm and pain radiating down his neck and into his arm and back. Like most, he paid little attention and went to work every day hoping that it would resolve itself. It didn't. David was sent into the medical maze with the hope and belief that those in the maze would take care of him and his problem. He was sent from specialist to specialist and test after test. During that time he became unable to do his job. And, the problem became worse and worse, until he entirely lost the ability to raise his arm. In mid October, he ran into his primary physician who asked him how things were going. David told him the story of how he had been sent from test to test with no attempt at resolution. The primary doctor made some phone calls and within a week, David was on his way to the surgical suite. His neck was opened up, discs removed and cadaver bones put in their place, a plate screwed into the spine for stability and he was sent home.

Ninety days unable to work. Ninety days of pain and agony. Ninety days of testing and reports to nowhere, concluding nothing. Brought to a place where he was attempting to get appointments on his own with the Mayo clinic.

Medical malpractice is a real thing. It does real damage to real people...like David. Regardless of the bullshit spewed by physicians about how the cost of malpractice insurance is ruining their businesses, they will never admit to the fact that it just might be that many of them are just plain incompetent and have no business being there in the first place. I am not a lawyer. I have never played one on television. However, I worked inside the medical maze for many years. And, my advise to David was to make an appointment and go see an attorney specializing in medical malpractice.

The bottom line, for me, is that people who do damage to other people should be held accountable. I don't give a goddamn whether they have a gun or a scalpel. The pain, agony and suffering are just as damaging in any case.