SURVIVOR STORIES

When he was a teenager, my son, Brandon, began seeing an allergy specialist in Columbus, Georgia. We chose this doctor because he had successfully treated my husband’s severe allergies years earlier. At the time, there were only two allergy specialists in Chattanooga, TN where we lived, and I wasn’t familiar with either of them. So, despite the distance, we made the trip to Columbus for Brandon’s care.

The doctor ran a series of tests and discovered Brandon was allergic to nearly everything—grasses, trees, you name it. He prescribed a series of weekly allergy shots, starting with the first of four vials that gradually increased in strength. After completing these, Brandon would move on to a maintenance dose. The doctor allowed us to take the vials to our family physician in Chattanooga for the weekly injections, but we had to return to Columbus for a checkup after each vial was finished.

The protocol was strict: after each shot, we had to wait 15 to 20 minutes in the office to ensure Brandon didn’t have a severe reaction, like swelling larger than a quarter. Everything went smoothly with the first two vials. But after the second vial, things took a terrifying turn.

During the checkup for the second vial, the nurse left the exam room, and the doctor came in alone. After asking a few questions, he casually suggested we skip the third and fourth vials and jump straight to the maintenance dose. I was hesitant—we still had two vials at our family doctor’s office in Chattanooga—but he assured me it was fine. “Just throw those away,” he said. “Start him on the maintenance dose.”

The following week, we went to our family doctor for the shot. The nurse was skeptical when I explained the allergist’s instructions, but I reassured her I’d double-checked with him. Reluctantly, she discarded the unused vials and administered the maintenance dose. We waited the required 20 minutes in the waiting room, and when Brandon seemed fine, we left.

On the drive home, Brandon mentioned his ear was tickling. I brushed it off, thinking we’d clean his ears when we got home. But as soon as we walked through the door, everything changed. Brandon ran to the bathroom, then suddenly started screaming. He couldn’t feel his fingers, he said, and it felt like his scalp was peeling off. Panic surged through me as I called the doctor’s office. The nurse told me to bring him back immediately.

I raced to the office, running red lights, tears streaming down my face, praying aloud as Brandon hallucinated and struggled to breathe in the seat beside me. When we arrived, the doctor and nurse were waiting outside with a wheelchair. The doctor took one look at Brandon and rushed him into a minor surgery room. He hooked Brandon up to an IV and injected a massive needle with a dose of epinephrine directly into his heart.

I stood there, paralyzed with fear, but within minutes, Brandon’s symptoms began to subside. The redness, swelling, and hallucinations faded. By the time my husband arrived there from work, Brandon looked almost normal. The nurse was visibly shaken and furious. I was a wreck, but I knew our family doctor had just saved our son’s life.

I asked to use their phone to call the allergist in Columbus. When his nurse answered, I demanded to speak to him immediately. She hesitated, then admitted, “I told him not to make changes like that when I wasn’t in the room.” I suspect that the allergist may have been struggling with dementia. His nurse seemed to be compensating for his lapses, but it wasn’t enough to prevent this near-tragedy. Why would a physician who was not of sound mind be allowed to practice? Why was a nurse willing to be potentially held responsible for his obvious decline and inability to practice without supervision??? My blood boiled as she finally put the doctor on the line. He apologized, admitting he’d made a mistake. “No kidding,” I snapped. “My son almost died because of you!” I found out that the administered dose was 10,000X stronger than what he should have received, even after completing a proper step-up.

Brandon recovered fully, but the emotional scars lingered. For months, I had nightmares about what could have happened. I eventually consulted a lawyer, but he explained that since Brandon hadn’t suffered permanent damage—and hadn’t died—there was no legal recourse. It was a bitter pill to swallow. I wish I had been advised by the attorney to write the Medical Board so that there might be an investigation or so that our case could add to a growing record of complaints. Unfortunately, it wasn’t common knowledge for me at the time that I could write the board- and most attorneys don’t bother with justice unless there is a dollar in it.

Sure, doctors are human, and humans make mistakes, but this incident highlighted the need for stricter protocols and safeguards. Medicine is called a “practice,” but when lives are on the line, there’s no room for error made by practitioners who are not mentally fit. I feel that the nurse who was aiding the doctor was just as complicit for what happened to my son. Yet, we had less recourse in my son’s near death experience than we might have had in ordering a bad hamburger at McDonalds.

Brandon and I will never forget that day. It was a close call—one that changed the way I view trust, responsibility, and how entitled the medical community seems to feel in taking risks with our lives.

I never thought I’d be one of those people—someone who trusted their doctor completely, only to find out that trust was misplaced. At 72, I was still a fairly hearty man. I had lived a full life, raised a family, and survived my share of hardships. I still had property I would travel and tend to in Metairie and would go there at least once a month from Memphis. I think most people would say I’ve always been a strong guy, even in my older years. But the nightmare that followed my knee replacement surgery almost took me out. It wasn’t just the pain or the complications. It was the feeling that my life didn’t matter enough to be taken seriously. I think that happens a lot when we hit 70.

My left knee had been deteriorating for years, and my surgeon was popular here in town. He was seemingly kind, confident, and had a reputation for being one of the best in town. I had hunted with his Dad on a few trips and had no doubt that he would be a great surgeon.

The surgery itself seemed to go well. But within weeks, something felt off. My knee was swollen, hot to the touch, and throbbed with a pain that kept me up at night. I called the Dr.’s office and they kept saying it was normal. “Give it time,” they said. “Healing takes time.” I was told that there was nothing more that they could do for me.

Months passed, and the swelling didn’t go away. If anything, it got worse. My knee was red and blown up, and I could barely walk. At my follow-up appointments, the doctor brushed off my concerns. “Your blood counts are a little off,” he said, “but that’s likely due to your recent issues with diverticulitis. Nothing to worry about.”

I wanted to believe him. After all, he was the expert. But deep down, I knew something was wrong. My knee was angry and yelling, but no one was listening.

By the sixth month, I could no longer ignore it. My knee was gnarly looking, and the pain was unbearable. Several of my family members insisted I get a second opinion.

The second-opinion surgeon took one look at my knee and his face dropped. “This isn’t normal,” he said. Without hesitation, he inserted a needle into my knee and drew out syringe after syringe of thick, discolored fluid—greenish-yellow and foul-smelling. I was told that I had a severe infection and that if they didn’t act quickly it could be a much bigger threat to my health.

I had to undergo multiple surgeries and many months of rehab. In total, this took up about two years of my life. It was explained that the original surgery had been done using an antiquated technique. The original surgeon hadn’t done a critical step, which caused the bone to erode and created a breeding ground for infection. The new surgeon said that the way my original surgery was performed indicated a surgical technique that had not been used in over twenty years. 

I was devastated. All those months of pain, all those dismissals, could have been avoided. Not only did I have to hire people to handle my responsibilities- but I had no quality of life during all of that. Not to mention, the older you get, the harder these kinds of traumas are for you to get over. I had a real problem that my doctor had caused and I guess what hurt more was knowing the original doctor saw how serious I it was and chose to do nothing.

I never even told the original doctor about the ordeal I had to endure because I felt like if he cared, he would have cared from day one. I felt like I would have been once again dismissed as a 72-year-old guy, ‘whose age probably had a lot to do with the complications.” And even if they did, I didn’t want the attention since we had mutual friends in our hunting group. I didn’t want to be known as the guy who made an issue over what would be explained away as “medicine has risks.”

So I stayed silent. I let the new doctor fix what had been broken, both in my knee and in my trust. But the scars remain. Every time I walk, I don’t feel as steady in the bone, and I’m reminded of what happened. Every time I see my original doctor’s name, I feel a pang of conflict and resentment. Should I have spoken up? Should I have done more to protect others from going through what I did?

Your age should not limit your access to mindful medicine, even if your age potentially limits outcomes. I very much feel that part of the reason I was so easily dismissed was due to my senior status. I hear many of my friends saying that once they turned 70, even if they are in much better health than myself, that their doctors have treated them totally different than in younger years. Things change with age, sure and I’m aware that risks increase as well with surgery. But I shouldn’t have been dismissed and ignored.

I am forever grateful to the amazing doctor who saved my life- not only handling the extra risks of my age and health status, but also for correcting the botched surgery and overcoming the negligence of a colleague. I am pro-medicine. I want good doctors to thrive, and I want people my age to get the healthcare they deserve. Thanks for telling these stories because people take for granted that their doctors will do the right thing.

This story is particularly unsettling for me to have captured as I am also an obese patient who underwent “lap-band” surgery in 2008. I had complications with my vagus nerve function and the band had to be deflated. I can attest to an unfortunate status quo that exists in American Healthcare: Obese patients are often dismissed due to their “fatness” and are unfairly stereotyped, even by specialty physicians who practice exclusively for treating this disease. Instead of offering help and hope when patients have complications, the interest of many bariatric doctors runs out if a patient doesn’t “prove themselves” into wearing a size 4 dress and becoming worthy of photos that make the clinic’s advertising portfolio. 

There are many people that had positive life-changing experiences with Gastric Banding. Still, “lap-band” (Laparoscopic) surgery has a relatively high rate of complications. Band removal rates vary as 30%-60% of patients require removal within 5-10 years. Perhaps this is why Gastric Banding is almost defunct in practice. For many, the lap-band will remain a relic of medical discrimination, humiliation and barbarism. Thank you for reading the story below to understand how this particular patient was also a victim of gross negligence and malpractice. 

To the person that experienced this, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that you now have to say, “#MDtoo.”

________

“In 2005, I made a decision that I thought would change my life forever. After years of struggling with obesity, I underwent laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding, commonly known as lap band surgery. For 5½ years, it seemed like the answer to my prayers. I lost 115 pounds, and for the first time in my adult life, I felt like I was in control of my body. But that control was an illusion, and the price I paid for it was far higher than I ever imagined.

At first, everything was fine. The band did its job, restricting my food intake and helping me shed the weight. I followed the rules, ate small portions, and avoided foods that could cause problems. But then, slowly, things started to change. Pain crept into my life, sharp and unrelenting. Every time I ate, it felt like glass shards were tearing through my stomach. I tried to adapt—pureeing my food, sticking to liquids, avoiding anything that might aggravate the pain. But nothing helped. The pain was constant, a cruel reminder that something was very wrong.

I went back to my bariatric doctor, desperate for answers. I explained the severity of the pain, how I could barely eat, how it felt like my body was betraying me. I asked for a referral to a gastroenterologist, someone who could perform a full scope and figure out what was happening. But instead of listening, they ordered a fluoroscopy, a type of X-ray, to check the band’s placement. When the results came back normal, they told me everything was fine. The pain, they said, was probably just a sign that I needed to “refine my eating habits.” The NP reached over and snatched a paper towel from the holder on the wall and handed it to me with a note scribbled on it—yes, a paper towel—that said to take Mylanta five times a day and an over-the-counter acid reflux pill. No explanation, no empathy, just a dismissive shrug. I wasn’t even worthy of a decent sticky note, much less a prescription pad.

I left the office feeling humiliated and unheard. It was as if my pain didn’t matter, as if my body didn’t matter. When you’re obese in America, even the doctors who are supposed to help you treat you like a problem to be managed, not a person to be cared for. I felt like I was being blamed for my own suffering, as if the pain was my fault for not being “disciplined” enough. I continued to get sicker every day. I had no energy. I ran fevers. I called them back to ask if they wouldn’t consider sending me to gastroenterology. They said they would ask the doctor about a referral and get back to me, but they never did.

Two weeks later, the pain reached a breaking point. I felt a sudden, sharp *pop* in my stomach, like a balloon exploding. I knew something was terribly wrong. I went to the emergency room, but even there, I was met with skepticism. When I told them about the lap band, they looked at me with thinly veiled judgment, as if I’d brought this on myself. I sat in that ER for eight excruciating hours before they finally took me seriously. A CT scan revealed the truth: the band had eroded into my stomach and esophagus, causing a perforation. I was rushed into emergency surgery.

The surgery was supposed to take an hour and a half. It took FOUR and a half. When I woke up, I had 72 staples running from the middle of my chest down to my belly button. I spent six days in the hospital with an NG tube, unable to eat or move without risking further damage. My doctor summed it all up to “You must have been doing something to have caused this…” inferring that I had been overeating. And then, as if the physical pain wasn’t enough, my doctor added insult to injury. “We had to take your lap band out,” he said, “so don’t go hog wild with your eating now.” His words cut deeper than any scalpel. My doctor literally equated me to a hog as I laid nearly lifeless in a hospital bed for almost a week. How could he so quickly start projecting blame onto me? Even if he was going to continue to blame me for what had happened, could his need to humiliate me not be paused for even one moment of compassion? No.

But the nightmare wasn’t over. A few days after I was discharged, I started feeling nauseous and unsettled. I called the doctor’s office, and they told me to go back to the ER. This time, they found a hematoma in my stomach that had ruptured. My doctor’s response? “I figured this might happen.” Again, as if it were my fault. As if I had any control over the complications caused by a medical device that was supposed to help me.

The truth is, I didn’t do this to myself. No amount of food—no matter how much or how little—could have caused the damage that the lap band did. But when you’re an obese patient in America, the healthcare system doesn’t see you as a person. It sees you as a problem, a failure, a statistic. And it treats you accordingly.

I survived, but I carry the scars—both physical and emotional—of that experience. The lap band was supposed to improve my quality of life, but instead, it nearly destroyed me. And the worst part? The people who were supposed to help me made me feel like it was all my fault. I just wanted to be healthier as a single-Mom with a young child. Instead, she almost had to watch me die. 

I hired an attorney who battled the doctors for THREE years and then provided me with a reason that he would no longer be able to pursue the case. I figure that the attorney saw a satisfaction in what he had earned, but the case was an ongoing drain on his time. So he came back to me with a bogus explanation about “scope of practice” being the hinge that would ultimately keep him from holding them accountable for not sending me on to a more specialized gastroenterologist when I first reported pain. He said that even though I persisted and requested a more thorough investigation KNOWING something was majorly wrong, they had found a loop-hole. I didn’t want money. I wanted justice. All I got was medical injury and legal debt. 

It didn’t matter that I am a bright and self-aware human being who has worked in the healthcare industry much of my own life. I was just another failure of a fat-woman who wanted to blame everyone else but myself. But never in a million years would I have been able to tear my own esophagus away from my stomach that had been eroded by the band.

This is the reality of being an obese patient in America. It’s not just about the weight. It’s about the weight of silence, of judgment, of being dismissed and blamed for your own suffering. It’s about fighting not just for your health, but for your dignity. And it’s a fight that far too many of us are forced to face alone.”

I really like the online portal access that lets me see labs and tests that my doctor orders. I work in a medical office and I have a pretty solid understanding of some basics. 

But when my liver enzymes and other labs were abnormal, I called my doctor’s office to schedule a sooner follow up. They had not yet reviewed the labs but I was on the schedule to return in six weeks. I didn’t want to wait that long after getting the results that really concerned me. I called and talked to the office receptionist who told me that the doctor would be reviewing the labs and that if he felt it necessary that he would make the appointment for a sooner date. 

I then asked when he might be reviewing these labs. The receptionist then told me that she wasn’t sure but that she would put a note on his desk that I called in with a concern. 

I then proceeded to say, “Thank you for letting him know, I just have questions about what this could mean for a diagnosis…I’m just very concerned that if I have something going on that I need to be seen sooner.” 

The receptionist then replied, “Well, it looks like you should probably google Fatty Liver Disease and Non-Alcoholic Cirrhosis…unless you are a drinker.” 

I was stunned. She blurted out a diagnosis over the phone and she wasn’t even a medical professional. Initially, I don’t know if she was insinuating that my initial concern was based on my own “google search” and she was being snarky, or if she was giving me a medical directive. 

I was able to see my doctor the next week, but had I not called, I would have had to wait an additional five weeks. He diagnosed me with Stage 3 Cirrhosis of the liver due to unknown Type 2 Diabetes- for which he sent me to an endocrinologist for a full work up. I’m not overweight and I don’t have any family history of diabetes. He told me that a lot of people have developed diabetes after Covid and that I should avoid NSAID’s. I’d been taking them daily for headaches that the same doctor had said were probably hormonal. I’d never had an A1C until I was diagnosed as diabetic after these labs came back. 

I’m not sure which part to be the most upset about…knowing that I could have been tested for something that has caused irreversible damage to my body…or being told so flippantly by an office receptionist to GOOGLE a condition that I would be diagnosed with. 

I know that medical professionals have to contend with people researching their own symptoms and sometimes this can be really frustrating. Sometimes people come in to our office convinced that they have every disease they have researched and we have to spend a lot of time convincing them otherwise. But my concerns were based on actual lab findings- not just how I was feeling. 

The thing is, I did GOOGLE the condition when she suggested it, and I was more upset for that week than I should have been. I should have gotten the chance to be told by the doctor face to face when it was appropriate. 

Doctors need to realize that what they offer is human connection. They too often skip over that to get to data, facts and figures. But you know, AI is going to do that for us very soon… and I hope his receptionist gets trained not only on how wrong it was to blurt out a diagnosis like that, but how she hurt her boss’ opportunity to bring the human connection to my case. I needed my doctor to be a human in delivering this news to me- regardless of how I feel about the rest of it. 

-Anonymous, Dalton, GA

My mother, Delores, was the kind of woman who made 75 look like a suggestion. She tanned like a California movie-star, her coral-painted nails always perfectly polished, her laughter louder than the TV. Every morning, rain or shine, she walked her two terriers through the neighborhood, waving at neighbors. One younger gentleman in particular one time asked, “Delores, when are you gonna start acting your age?” She winked and replied, “When they stop making margaritas.”

Then, the tiredness came. Not the normal kind—the kind that made her legs feel like concrete. “It’s just aging,” the doctor shrugged. But I knew something was suddenly wrong. By the time they listened to us, her heart was a time bomb. She needed some stints and a valve replacement. The aortic valve replacement surgery went smoothly—They said everything was routine but the hospital was short staffed in the two days following her surgery. She was supposed to have a Post-Op CT Scan but they were prioritizing who got them because they didn’t have the staff to meet the needs of the busy hospital. “You’re doing fine… let your doctor know if you have anything come up.” So they sent her home with a pat on the hand, skipping a routine protocol. Why wasn’t MY MOTHER a priority in that hospital? She had just had a major heart surgery.

Two days later, she screamed when her leg touched the floor. She in fact had a blood clot in her leg that went undetected and untreated- until it was too late. The valve failed and they had to put a pacemaker in. Two back to back major surgeries would have been hard on someone young. But my Mom was 75. She wasn’t the same after that. She had to endure a second surgery because the first one failed…due to something that could have been prevented and treated. And then—she had to go to rehab.

That’s where the real unraveling began.

They gave her Tramadol for pain—a drug she’d never taken. It dulled the agony of her surgical pain… but masked the fever, the confusion…and Delores not being herself. I’m sure they saw plenty of 75 year old women who were decrepit. But this was Delores- vibrant and hopeful. A UTI was festering and they kept blaming the erratic behavior on the medications. But it turned into sepsis. They had to take her back to the hospital and start weeks of IV antibiotics. By the time they readmitted her, she was a ghost of herself. And when she returned to rehab? They had to place her in a different facility over an hour away. I couldn’t go see her until it was the weekend. When I got there, I walked in to find her slumped in bed, waist-deep in her own waste, her skin peeling away in angry sores. “They wouldn’t help me get to the bathroom,”my Mom muttered, as if that explained the sores that were eating her flesh. I held back tears and asked, “Mom, how long have you been like this? When was the last time they got you to the bathroom?” It had been two days since they had taken her to the restroom and told my Mother that she would just have to go in the bed and someone would be by and change the linens, because they were short staffed. I was furious… and heartbroken.

We brought her home. We tried. But the damage was done—not by her heart, but by the system that treated her worse than a stray animal. The missed scan…giving her medications to keep her doped up… The ignored symptoms. The shrugged shoulders. We did our best to care for her but the damage to her body was insurmountable. She was constantly infected, in pain and confused. She endured a final year of suffering she didn’t deserve. All from problems that were created by the very people who were supposed to give her her life back.

Delores should’ve spent her last days walking her dogs, sipping sangria, taking trips to visit her 9 grandkids. Instead, she died in pieces, cruelly betrayed by the very people who swore “first, do no harm.”

Here’s the truth no one says out loud: Negligence isn’t always loud. Sometimes, it’s a quiet erosion—a scan skipped, a fever missed, an old woman left to rot in a soiled bed because she’s “75… it’s expected that she will decline.” But my mother wasn’t disposable refuse. She was a human being.

She was Delores. And they stole her light.

—Mikayla 

For every Delores. May their stories ignite change.