From the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com//indexes/2010/01/19/health/healthupdate/index.html

http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/stroke/overview.html?nl=health&emc=healthupdateema1

Jared is an inspiring young man, just like my daughter.

She presented in the ED of our children's hospital multiple times with what I now know were all the signs and symptoms of stroke - unilateral paralysis, slurred or no speech, completely unaware of her surroundings and unresponsive.  And we were told multiple times by the ER docs that she was FAKING, sent us home, and told us NOT TO RETURN to the ED if the "symptoms returned"!!!  She was 4 years old!  Really, a 4 y/o faking a stroke - wow, my kid must either be a genius or capable of presenting Oscar-worthy performances at an extremely young age.  The ED docs accused me of bringing a tantruming child to ED and accessing medical resources unnecessarily.  My DD's pedi neurologist just kept telling me I was an over-worried mom.  Why didn't anyone ever order an MRI?  My heart breaks for all the unnecessary trauma my DD endured because of the arrogant physicians with whom we had the misfortune of crossing paths.  Thank goodness there are a few good docs out there who actually do care about children....in our experience, there are found way too few & far between.  And praise God I learned about MM in time to get the medical care my DD needed and deserved to avert a catastrophic stroke or worse.

Mark,

Ruby's pediatric neurologist knows how very wrong he was - my daughter now has a new pediatric neurologist because of his unwillingness to take any of her symptoms seriously.  Ruby's pediatrician has also told me the the pedi neuro has confessed to her how very embarrassed he is about the whole situation.  So embarrassed in fact that he has hired himself out as an expert witness to all of the major law firms in our city with "reputable" malpractice practices in an effort to create as many conflicts of interest for the attorneys as possible.  This makes it difficult for patients to find attorneys in our city who can represent them against this creep, who obviously has screwed up way more often than just with our family.

As for the ED docs - the situation is a bit more sticky.  I work for the health care facility who saw my daughter multiple times and who told me she was faking.  I did report the doc who drug her down the hallway by her arms when her legs weren't working , screaming at her to walk, but have no idea what if anything was ever done about it.  On future visits to the ED (I obviously didn't take seriously what they told me about not bringing her back, for all the good it did her), I did request a different physician when dr. offensive was on duty, so we were only stuck with that jerk once, not that the rest of them were any better, but at least they didn't scream at her.  I am still trying to figure out how to address the situation with my employer's medical director.  I have a great job, which I love & am well-paid for what I do.  I could not find similar employment in out city that would pay me as well as this facility does, so my family's standard of living would suffer greatly if I would just walk away from this job, as I have considered on occasion, due to the awful nature of the way they treat patients.  If this facility treats  employee patients as they treated us, I can only imagine how they treat the patient off the street.....

The main thing is that my daughter is on the path to recovery, is healing well from her surgeries, and is functioning well in spite of the deficits her strokes left her with.  She is my hero, and I am so proud of her!

Jenn

yunnanababy wrote on Jan 21^st, 2010 at 10:45am:


I'm horrified by this persons actions. I understand the predicament you find yourself in; it's often best to take time over decisions like this to allow emotions to settle.

Take care
Mark (Luca's Dad)

Oh yeah....... what is a 'ED'?

  I read this article and it was really great to see something written in regards to the very real fact that children DO have strokes even unborn infants have strokes. I also wrote on the blog  to also make sure that this fact isn't "minimized" by this particular story given the outcome. The outcome is not always so rosy even for chidlren who are very resiliant. Sometimes these strokes leave them with a lifelong dissability such as our case and many others. It's very seriouse and should be the first consideration when a child presents with similar symptomes this may at least save a child from a dissability that they can not recover from. I also mentioned that in our case it was caused by moyamoya( just a littel plug for our family here).
Mary Grace

As for me.
My own neurologist denied for about two years that I had suffered a stroke.
My mum said it straight away but according to my neurologist, Children of my age didn't have strokes. So that was out of the question and they never discussed that matter again.
After two and a half years of testing all possible viruses and rare diseases, even Mad cows disease, she had the courage to tell my mum I indeed had suffered a stroke.
Two and a half years....
The damage is done.