Tonight we meet a lawyer

I feel like Alice must've felt when she fell through the rabbit hole. I look around and wonder what has happened to my life. Surely, this is all just some nightmare and I'll wake up and everything will be as it should?

When I was sixteen and I worked at Discount Drug Mart, one of my managers, Frank, had finished his first year of law school and quit because he realized it just wasn't what he wanted to do. I remember him saying, "Some of the dumbest people I've met are lawyers." I thought that was funny...and rude...but I remembered it. Frank was right. I don't particularly care for lawyers as a group. There are exceptions, and I count those people as friends. But generally, for every good person who is a lawyer, there are two or three who are like the sleazy characters you see on television. I hope this guy is normal and not sleazy.

Funny, I haven't thought of Frank in years. He died suddenly when I was in college (more than ten years ago now). I remember crying when I heard the news he had died. You know, I can't even remember Frank's last name now. I wonder which class of lawyer he'd have put me in.

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We're seeing a lawyer to find out if there is any recoverable action against my doctors for failing to diagnose my uterine infection (that led to Alex's death and stillbirth). I wasn't interested in lawsuits and such until my doctor lied to me about Alex's cause of death and the perinatologist subsequently said, "Sometimes, even though we're not in Afghanistan, even with all our medical know-how, these things get missed." I suspect my OB knows she missed the infection because I apparently exhibited classic symptoms, and she would have let me believe the lie about an intracranial hemorrhage as the cause of death ("but we still don't know what caused that hemorrhage") for the rest of my life...in order to save her some money on malpractice insurance. Never mind the fact that it puts me in the high risk category should we decide to try for another baby. Never mind that she's my doctor and she's supposed to care about my health first and foremost. Never mind that I think it has got to be against some code of ethics or some law to lie to you patients. I think I owe it to Alex to find out if there is a case here. I also owe it to all the women who are in the care of that OB...to make sure this doesn't happen to them.

The perinatologist said something very telling during our consultation last week. "With your next pregnancy, you need to see someone who isn't seeing thirty patients in one day. You need to see someone who will be involved and take care to manage your pregnancy to the best possible outcome." I think that's what happened to me. I think I got lost in the shuffle of a big healthcare provider, and they will never admit they made a mistake unless I stand up and demand it. Fact is, my OB needs to slow down and take CARE with her patients...not just cram as many into one day as she can. The lives of babies rely on her. And right now she's not doing her job the way she should. Whether that amounts to a good legal case or not has yet to be seen. If there isn't...that's fine. If there is...that's fine too.