misdiagnosis breast cancer and litigation

[Racheal]

Hi,

I am currently not only Her2 + but I am sueing my physicians for misdiagnosis of of breast lump-they reported to me that it was a fibrocystic lump but 18 months later it was found that the lump was cancerous.

Right now I am about to go into deposition and I was wondering if anyone could comment on how long it takes reach a settlement after deposition. I welcome any comments from those who have been there or from anyone with law experience.

Thanks,
Racheal

[StephN]

Hello -
This is a serious matter, and I would hope your atty would give you some sort of timeline on this. Seems to me that is part of his/her job.
This is ONLY the beginning. From deps, they can go to discovery and then expert witnesses. You may have a preliminary hearing and then more hearings have to be scheduled on the court docket once a judge is assigned to your case. All this can take a long time depending on where you live and how busy the courts are.
Doctors have a reputation to protect and they have malpractice insurance and lawyers are retained by the insurance companies. Depends on how hard and fast the evidence is in your case. You and your lawyer may think you have a good case, but the docs can come up with all kinds of reasons themselves without admitting a mistake. They could turn around and blame the radiologist or the lab or the equipment. Reality is that they very well may try to weasel out of any damages by saying that whether the cancer was caught at the time you say it should have or when it was, that the outcome would not change, therefore no damages.
I have been through hell with a bank that seriously wronged us and turns out that the judge's wife was friendly with the bank on charity events! The bank was able to get away with very little in the way of damages by a convoluted series of motions and weak case law backup. But if the judge goes for that then there was not much our atty could do. She argued fiercely and was shocked and appalled at what happened to us. Our money for this case was running out so we did not spend more to persue. Sometimes you have to cut your losses and move forward.
I wish you better luck on your problem. Please keep us posted.

[Lyn]

Hi there, I am in Austrtalia and I had the same problem but mine took 13 weeks from misdiagnosis to having a radical mastectomy. They could feel the lump but when it didn't turn up in the mammo they said see you in 2 years, it had attached itself to the chest wall after the mammo. After I had to walk away from the claim becuase the report used said it would not have made any difference had they got it sooner, I asked for another opinion which I had to pay on top of the second report disagreed totally but my solicitor and subsequent barrister did their findings on the first report only even after my protests that if you have 2 conflicting reports you need a third. Now as it turns out I received a copy of the patholoy and the Geriactic Proffesor who did the report had made mistakes and my corrections had not been takn into account when put to the barrister. The biggest mistake was that he interpreted IBC to mean Inflammatory Breast Cancer which substantiated his claim that it would not have made a difference in fact my IBC was Invasive Breast Cancer a very big difference, early dedection would have avoided the extensive lymph involvement and the trippled in size to that of an orange. Now I am about to sue the Solicitor for his incompetence and it turns out that he is no longer practicing, not sure if kicked out or had a nervous break down, I have just had all of my test results, I have been having continual treatment since 1998 and they are NED, so they say the proof is in the pudding, having said all of that if you are in US your states would have their own rules I imagine when it comes to time frames, what I did was search the Net for court proceedings similar and read through them a got a good idea of how long it takes and what they take into consideration when making decisions, they say here that he who represents imself in law has an idiot for a cliet, I TOTALLY DISAGREE, your are the one who has been through it and solicitors here only go on what we tell them then half the time they don't listen. So do some research and you find you may have left something out. I was also sueing the X-Ray company for not performing a ultra sound when they couldn't see the lump, and that was at the suggestion of the big boss of another one of there branches, whose words were after doing the hookwire for my lumpectomy, said "this is disgusting we can be sued for this" an ultra sound should have been performed, they should have rung the doctor and told her, yes a woman you have thought she should know better. as a result on the pamphlets at the X-ray department dated 1998 it says if no lump detected with mammo an ultra sound will be performed or other tests to rule out BC, so I achieved something there but the witch doctor is still practicing, I am still suffering not to mention all the trauma to me and my family having a death sentence over my head for so long thinking each reocurrence may be it, as well as all the other medical problems from treatment. Hope this helps.

Love & Hugs Lyn

[Sandy H.]

This is a tough one. Having worked in the medical profession for 24 years its nearly impossible to get a settlement from any of them. It has to be negligence on their part. The doctors know how to write their reports to cover themselves. I get copies of all my records and its amazing how many time I find them saying the patient said this or refused this or the doctor will write I told the patient such and such. When in deed they never told me or I never was given the chance to refuse anything. This is an example of what can happen. Today for instance when I went in for my Herceptin the nurse wanted to give me tylenol and benadryl. I told her I don't have benadryl with Herceptin and she argued with me that I did. This is my first treatment of Herceptin without chemo being the second time around and this is not the nurse that usually does my treatment. She called the doctor and he never called back so she talked to the nurse and she went into the hall to talk to the doctor and he said, "its o.k. she refused it before so she doesn't need it today" I never got it before and never refused it. Anyway, it will no doubt be a long dragged out process. Most of the time its not negligence because the doctors will say they did the best they felt at the time and then their attornies will drag your feelings into it. I knew a person that sued and it was dragged out until she died. She was so stressed getting phone calls, going to court, getting lettters and she spent a bundle never to recover anything. Her family was so upset. Left lots of hurt feeling about the whole process. You have to do what you feel comfortable with. I don't trust the attornies as they will promise you the world in order to get your case only to find out the truth later. I wish you luck in what every you decide to do. Most of all I wish you your health. Hugs, Sandy

[Racheal]

Hi,

Thanks for your replies. I am a bit more encouraged by you folks and I do realize the most important thing to worry about is my health and taking care of myself. The lawsuit is definately nothing to worry about. Staying alive is. Although it would be nice to win the case.
Thanks,
Robin

[Sandy H.]

I want to make one suggestion which may help you. If you do decided to go through with the law suit you should make a plan. First gather all your doctor reports, x-rays before you call anyone to take your case. Do this before you talk to anyone so that you get the orginals before anything is changed!! You do not know what can be fudged to cover their tracks. You don't want it to look like you don't have a clue of what is going on. These attornies do some strange things and as long as they get your money or it keeps coming they are happy. Yes, as you can probably tell I don't trust them at all but some times they are needed and do a good job. Good luck. Hugs, Sandy

[Guest-Vicki_*]

Any test is open to interpretation, and every test has a false negative and false positive rate. So if your mamograms "missed" a cancer, this does not mean it is any one's fault. It's just the way things are, because medicine and medical investigations are not perfect. I am one who had negative mamograms and ultrasounds but I was lucky that I had a lump to feel and that the biopsy needle hit the right spot and found a malignancy. My reports said "biopsy taken on minimal indication" (ie a benign feeling lump which did not have any of the features of malignancy). The biopsy was just taken to reassure me, and if it has missed the right spot, I would have been (falsely) reassured. I was just one of the lucky ones, that per chance the needle DID hit the right spot to make a diagnosis. In my case I had three negative mamograms in 3 years, though at operation and with the subsequent histopathology, the cancer was obviously very advanced, so had no doubt been there for the three years it was "missed".

I do not believe that a "missed diagnosis" means any one is to blame. It is not negligence. I know that my doctors were doing their best to exclude any problems, reassure me that nothing aweful looked likely and to spare me any unnecessary invasive treatment/surgery unless their was very clear (strong) evidence that it was required. And everything looked fine, until I eventually found a new lump (amongst many other lumps) in a breast that had always been very lumpy anyway.

I consider myself lucky that my diagnosis was made before I developed metastases, in time for aggressive treatment to save me and prolong my life. After all, this HER2 disease is silent and aggressive. And now I can get on with new things: new thoughts, plans, ideas and relationships. Even if I only have five years I am going to enjoy them, but actually I think I'm CURED anyway, and expect to be logging onto this site in 20 years time.

Take heart and good luck,
Vicki