"Within a few hours, he went from a healthy, active, 63-year-old to an unconscious, life-support-dependent ICU patient. Kidney failure followed, plus an obstructed colon and compartment syndrome - all complications of what should have been a routine procedure."
"To make matters worse, the doctor who fucked up his hip replacement was in charge of fixing the mistake. I had trusted too much - the doctors, the hospital, the statistics proclaiming hip replacement common and safe."
"Prepared for a one- to three-day hospital stay, with a return to normal in six weeks, Joel instead embarked on a monthslong hospitalization with no guaranteed survival. And since he was drugged into incoherence, I made decisions for him."
A couple returned from the Rio Olympics planning to visit their first grandchild when the husband elected to have hip replacement surgery. During the procedure, a retractor nick caused a life-threatening bleed triggering cascading complications including kidney failure, bowel obstruction, and compartment syndrome. The patient deteriorated from a healthy 63-year-old to an ICU patient on life support within hours. The surgeon responsible for the initial error remained in charge of managing the complications. The wife, unprepared for medical decision-making and confused by medical terminology during daily briefings, struggled to understand her husband's condition and communicate with their daughters about his prognosis.
Read at BuzzFeed
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