Misdiagnosed for 15 years.

Freqflyer your answers
1st question..... I am pregnant because i recently tried to reconcile with my ex. I wanted to give him another chance. I do love him he is my children's father. He had a job when he moved back in but quit it before he was home a week. Less than two weeks after we got back together he was on his xbox from the time he got up (about 2) Until almost dawn. He would get mad at me if i asked him to watch the kids even if it was only to go to the store. I was on birth control but apparently it failed.

2nd question.... My dad is very aware of how contagious his blood is. He keeps his bedroom door closed. The kids don't go in. If he does get a cut i have gloves and lots of antiseptic sprays to clean it up. My dad is very careful. If he gets a scrape he rings the bell and i send the kids outside or to their rooms and i go clean him up. I am very careful. He has a wonderful specialist now that has trained me on how to take care of a wound the right way. We also know that accidents can happen so I also get tested every six months just in case.

Jeannegibbs my ex wanted me to work because i made almost twice as much as him. Because i made so much my ex could stay home. When he wanted to get a "job" i put the kids in day care. He never got a job. Never even applied. Just played xbox all day. Because i am home now he couldn't lie about applying for jobs. Let me clear something up.... I do not go to work every day anymore. But I am a freelance translator. I have people call or come to the house to translate papers and things but i don't have a steady 9-5 job. I don't make near as much as i used too. I quit a very nice paying job. I didn't realize that i made it sound like i quit working all together. I'm sorry for that misunderstanding.

Janetmarie3, just want to wish you the best of luck in what you need to do. The lawsuit is mute at this point, but at least you have a handle on what must be done when it comes to your father.

My father does not want to be in a nursing home. Its not necessary. It is not much work taking care of him. He has his own room his own tv i just check on him hourly making sure his ammonia levels stay down. We have a bell he rings when he wants anything. His ammonia level has only gone up twice since i moved in. Yes i have to be with him at all times but not in the same room. If i need to leave the house one of my 4 brothers will come over to sit with him. If i decide to move my brothers will take turns staying with him. My dad is very independent he wants me around just in case he says. :) I stay here because i love my dad and i respect his decisions.

Janetmarie, you said "I quit my job to take care of him. Which made my husband very angry. He wants me to put him in a nursing home but i refuse. I decided to leave my husband over it." So it is no wonder we assumed that the reason you left your husband was because of the dispute of you giving care to Dad. Do you see how we would get that impression from what you wrote?

Somehow I figured that there might be more behind your marital woes, but your own words said that was it.

Your husband wouldn't care for your children while you worked. Hiss and boo! Bad decision! But, was he actively looking for work? Did he need to be available for interviews? Was he out pounding the pavement looking for work? Or is he just a lazy bum? Or does he feel inadequate to take care of young children? If that is the reason you left him (does that mean you kicked him out of your father's house, where you were living? Or is that when you moved into your father's house?) why are you blaming it on taking care of your Dad?

This is just too confusing. But I guess it doesn't matter. You were only asking for our advice on a law suit. A legal consultation would probably be no-cost, and a lawyer would only take the case if he or she thought there was a good chance of winning, since payment is usually a portion of the award. So, see a lawyer.

Janet, from your most recent answers, sounds like two doctors had misdiagnosed your Dad. I just hope since you and the children are living with your Dad, who has HepC, that your Dad is taking extra special care not to cut himself and if he does [like shaving] that he cleans it up immediately. Kids get scapes and cuts all the time, I would hate to see a blood transfer to that cut.

Janet, I am confused... you moved in with your Dad after your husband lost a 2nd job, and that was a year ago. Why are you having a third child with your husband if he hasn't been providing or caring for the family? Or was the "almost three children" meaning one was your husband because he acts like a child?

Jessiebelle the Dr that misdiagnosed my dad It was a one time visit. My dads family Dr at the time diagnosed him. So he went to a "local specialist" who said he didn't have it. So my dad believed the specialist and changed family Drs.

By the way the Dr that misdiagnosed my father also misdiagnosed at least three other people and has been sued for malpractice twice.

Ok first of all I am divorcing my husband because we live with my father. My father pays all the bills. We moved in with my dad when my husband lost yet another job. My husband does not work. I did. I would go over to my dads house (before we moved in with my dad) before work to fix him breakfast and give him all of his medication. I would fix him a cold lunch for later. When i got off work I would come home fix supper for my family and then take the kids with me to my dads to fix him supper and give him his night medicine. I did not leave my husband **** just ***** because of my father. My father pays all of the bills yet my husband won't watch the children while i work. I have to have a baby sitter. i left him because he will not do anything and i hoped it would wake him up.

There is a statute of limitations on bringing forth a malpractice suit. Each state has their own time frame. 15 years is way too late in any state. Anyway, I see no validity for such a lawsuit based on your father's decision and choices. Hope for your children's sake, you can reverse your decisions and get back the life you had.

BTW, did your father continue to see the doctor who had misdiagnosed him with not having the virus? Or was it a one-time visit? That will, I'm sure, be a consideration.

I understand now. Thanks for straightening out my reading, guys. One thing that came to my mind here is that the drug that cures hep C has been a recent thing. We went through the treatment with one of the members here on the board. Before the drug, immune bolstering medications were used and some people (e.g. Jim Nabors) had to get liver transplants because of the damage. Because hep C was not curable until recently, I don't know if a lawsuit would be successful, particularly given that one doctor of the two had correctly diagnosed it. You could try, because sometimes insurance companies will choose to settle rather than to take it to court. An attorney well versed in malpractice would be able to give you a better idea of what he/she thinks the outcome would be.

I have to agree with jeannegibbs here. You are probably aware that only a tiny percentage of people in your position would have made the same choices as you. There are reasons for that, very good ones. You may be thinking that your husband is healthy and can take of himself, as opposed to your poor dad, but what about your kids? There is no way to care adequately for a newborn and two growing kids while taking care of a very ill parent who needs 24/7 care.

I believe you need to think long and deep about why you feel compelled to make choices that fracture your family this way. Does your father, or his current state of helplessness, hold some powerful hold over you? Are you perhaps trying to win the affection and approval you didn't get from him in younger years? Are you trying to prove something to somebody else in your life by rejecting the option of a nursing home for your father? I hesitate very much to tell another person what's right or wrong for their situation, but you are making some very costly choices here, and you are not the only one who will pay the price. Please think about what you're doing here. Good luck!

From what I have read, diagnosing HepC is very difficult because most people do not have any symptoms, so how could you blame the second doctor for malpractice? There might be an attorney out there that would take the case, but what if your Dad lost the court battle.

Most people if are faced with one doctor telling them they have a certain disease, then go to another doctor who says they don't, will have a 3rd opinion to see if the first opinion or the second opinion was correct or not.

Your Dad had a choice and he decided by his own doing of staying with the doctor that said he didn't have HepC... remember this was 15 years ago, maybe the testing back then wasn't as accurate as it is today.

Sadly because of his choices, and because your Dad choose the path of least resistance [the doctor that told him what he wanted to hear] he put you in the situation of choosing between him and your husband. Thus, you left your husband. Does your Dad own up to his part in this breakup? Any chance of fixing the marriage?

I am hoping everything works out.

Let's see if I can follow this: Fifteen years ago your father consulted 2 physicians. One said her had hepatitis c; the other said he did not. He chose to accept that he did not. But he actually did have hepatitis c, and by not treating it he developed liver damage. Is that right? And now you are wondering if you can sue the doctor whose diagnosis he followed. You should consult a lawyer who specializes in malpractice suits, but my guess is that it is too late. I'm NOT a lawyer, though.

The second part of this situation, it seems to me, is that now that the diagnosis has been revisited, your father is getting treatment and needs 24-hour supervision. This will last about a half year, and then there will another 5 years for healing the liver. Will Dad need 24-hour care then, too?

You quit your job, left your husband, and are taking care of your father around the clock. You have 2 children and are pregnant (?). I guess you didn't ask about this part of the situation, but I expect you are going to get advice anyway. I'll start.

It is very understandable that you want to see your father get good care, that you love him, and are willing to sacrifice for him. He has had some raw deals in his life!

But what kind of raw deal are you willing to hand to your children, depriving them of a normal two-parent home? What are you willing to sacrifice of your own future. If you aren't working, and aren't married to someone who is, what is your own retirement going to be like? Should your loyalty to your father outweigh the vows you took to your husband?

If Dad went into a skilled nursing facility of some kind, there would be 3 shifts of workers to care for any need that arose. They would all work their shifts and then go home to the rest of their lives. They would sleep. They would come back refreshed. One person taking all three shifts plus taking care of children (or are you leaving them, too?) can't possibly provide the same level of care that a professional staff can in a setting that is designed to keep patients safe and comfortable. Do you really want your father to have less than the best care possible? What does he think about this? I don't think we are talking the rest of his life, here. Perhaps he'd be there 6 months. The job of visiting and advocating for him and making sure he is getting good care is a great deal to take on, but it is far more feasible to do while also caring for a family than trying to do it all yourself.

After the treatment for hep C, then the situation can be re-evaluated. Does he need a convalescent setting? Continued skilled nursing? Could he return home with some in-home help?

This is a very sad situation. I am sorry you have to deal with it.

I'm confused. If he doesn't have hep C, why would he need to have the 24-week treatment to be cured of it? What was it that the doctors did that led to cirrhosis?