QUESTION
Where doctors negligent and my local healthcare facility when it took them a year to diagnose my husbands pancreatic cancer?
Asked on Feb 10th, 2017 on Medical Malpractice - Wisconsin
More details to this question:
My husband started having back pain in June 2015 and it wasn't diagnosed as pancreatic cancer until 2016 of the same month He had severe back pain that started from nothing. It changed locations and it got much worse when he laid down at night to sleep. He had a 20 year history with smoking as well as recent weight loss. It wasn't until my husband was very pale when he went in to see the doctor and the doctor took some blood tests and realized His hemoglobin was only a third of what it should've been. They put hom immediately in the hospital and give him two units of blood. They found the blood loss was related to a huge tumor in his colon, which had spread throughout his abdomen. After doing a CT scan and a biopsy on the liver, they found out the source of the cancer was the pancreas. He suffered severely while they sent him for PT and chiropractic care and gave him medicine after medicine for pain relief. Nothing helped and my husband was considering suicide.
1 ANSWER
4 Awards
I am sorry for your husband's illness. From what I know, pancreatic cancer is usually fatal. I have had several close relatives pass as a result of being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, all within a very short period of time. Based on how lethal the cancer is, it is doubtful that even if a proper diagnosis had been made, the outcome would likely be any different. Medical malpractice cases are exceedingly difficult to pursue and win in Wisconsin. I wrote a blog on the topic at our law firm's web site under personal injury issues, and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel did an excellent article on the subject as well in 2015. You can google it to read it and I encourage you to do so. The statute of limitations is three yeas from the date of the occurrence to pursue a medical malpractice case in WI. Failure to file a lawsuit within 3 years would forever bar the claim.
If you feel strongly that your husband's cancer was misdiagnosed, gather up all of his medical and hospital records and have them reviewed by a malpractice lawyer. If they think he has a viable case, they will have the records reviewed by an independent oncologist to determine if there is case. Again, I am truly sorry about your husband.
Answered on Feb 12th, 2017 at 6:04 AM
David B. Karp Karp & Iancu, S.C. 933 North Mayfair Road #300 Milwaukee, WI 53226 414 453 0800 dbk@karplawfirm.com www.karplawfirm.com