Just to backtrack a bit. After I went to the GBS Specialist and was told was what actually wrong with me, and after my new Family Doctor called the lawyer, I was still at work. Even though I had beaten two blood clots in my leg, I loved my job, my company, and the people I worked with. I ended up working weeks more until my legs swelled up for a third time. Back to the Doctor I went. Another Doppler did not show a clot but the Doctor thought the risk was too high. I was sent home to bed rest with orders to stay home indefinitely until my condition improved. Even after seeing the GBS specialist, who told me that my situation “was most likely permanent”, I still held out hope that I would get better. By that point, I could walk with a walker. My legs were both numb and my left leg was virtually paralyzed but the nerve function needed for muscle control was somewhat functioning so the Physical Therapy people were able to teach me to walk again though I looked like Frankenstein on training wheels. I still had MAJOR bowel and bladder issues but with the great help of Home Health Nurses, I was struggling through but surviving. I had been receiving short-term disability through my employer which meant that I was still drawing my full paycheck while I was at home those first few months. My wife and my parents, who live nearby, were driving me everywhere, and I was making things work the best I could. Now, that the Doctor sent me back home to wait and see if things would improve, I crawled back onto the bed and waited. But, nothing improved.

The word of the lawsuit was now out. The fact that I had sued anyone in the medical profession will hang over my head, haunt me, and follow me the rest of my life. You can NEVER escape it. When you sue a Doctor, they don’t just run and grab your chart and then write “LAWSUIT” all over it for every future medical person to see….they are much more subtle. Imagine the alarm bells that go off in the Doctors office when they get that first letter from the Court requesting that they send ALL medical records, charts, films, reports, x-rays, everything to the Law Firm of so and so in the case of…… What they do is they put a copy of that court order in your chart. And there it stays, forever. Any Doctor or Medical Professional that looks at your chart ANYTIME FOR NOW ON…will see that order and know that you filed a lawsuit. It is a HUGE red flag that hangs over you for the rest of your life. Most Doctors have you fill out a new patient questionnaire when you first see them. Some even ask on the paperwork if you have ever been involved in any legal proceedings against a Doctor. If you answer YES, you are screwed. If you answer NO, it’s no use, they WILL find out the truth and then your still up the creek. The sad thing is that my wife and 3 kids were also named in the suit. They too are red flagged forever. Years after the lawsuit was filed, I needed to see a Neurologist for some problems related to the injury. The family Doc back in my town called every friend he knew in the Neurology community, even in cities up to 200 miles away, and no one would touch me. I was radioactive to them. I had sued a Doctor (a bunch actually) and they wanted no part of me. Do I blame them, No. I would probably do the same thing. Did I realize all this BEFORE I sued them, no.

By now, all the people you are suing have been notified. All of them have in turn contacted their own attorneys and medical malpractice Insurance carriers. Your side is now represented by your law firm and you are now going to battle against well over a dozen other law firms who all represent the Doctors, the Hospital, and everyone else involved. Everyone starts getting court orders for records from everyone else. My side is just worried about getting all the facts about who actually hurt me and caused my injury. The other sides are looking out for each other. If their guy did nothing wrong, they want proof that the other guy was at fault, so the defendants are now battling me and each other at the same time. It’s like a bunch of little kids standing in front of a broken window. They are all pointing fingers at each other going “I didn’t do it….he did it!”. The bottom line is that this little jockeying for records goes on for like 6 months! After that time, someone is undoubtedly missing some key records so the entire case gets postponed and pushed back another 6 months! You are looking at 1 year or more, just for everyone to get copies of every record under the sun.

While this is going on, I had now run out of short-term disability and it was time to apply for Social Security Disability. Of course, I was denied. My medical records, for the most part, said that I had the rare neurological disease GBS and that I was progressing and would recover. To social security, there was no way that I would be disabled for the rest of my life. The records from the specialist and my family Doc did not carry as much wieght as the records from the Surgeon and Neurologist so I was rejected. My disability carrier reviewed my records and their Doctor determined that I was indeed going to be disabled for the rest of my life. They then hired a law firm in Boston, Massachusetts to represent me in my 2nd attempt to get Social Security Disability. Here I was living in a tiny North Texas town and I had a huge malpractice firm in Fort Worth representing me and now I had lawyers from Boston flying cross-country to help me. The lawyers got a hearing in front of a Judge for my Social Security Appeal. I went in and testified about my condition, the lawsuit, everything. The Judge called a Doctor, hired by Social Security to testify. He had reviewed all my records and films in advance. He got on the stand and testified that not only was I permanently disabled but he also threw in the fact that I was disabled as a result of a malpractice action. That was now in my record! The judge closed the hearing, I left, and a few weeks later, my appeal was granted and I was awarded Social Security Disability, retroactive all the way back to my surgery date. That was about 2 years AFTER the surgery.

So, I felt we were sitting pretty good. We had a Doctor in town on my side, a specialist in GBS who could shoot down all claims that I had the disease, and now Social Security was saying that I was permanently disabled. Any efforts by the Doctors being sued to claim that I would still probably recover were quickly going down the drain.

There was one thing that all the Doctors and people being sued did not know about me before they all got my records and the tons of documents on me that I provided. I was a Nurse. Though I worked in the computer section of a military Hospital as a contractor, I had been with that company only a year and half. Prior to that, I was a Nurse. I was still a licensed nurse when I got injured. When I went in to see all these Doctors for the first time and when I was in the hospital, I did not tell anyone that I was a nurse for one main reason. It makes everyone uncomfortable. When I was a nurse, I hated taking care of other medical professionals. Everything you do for them while taking care of them causes you to wonder if you are being scrutinized. It’s just weird for a nurse to be taking care of another Nurse. Most Nurses will explain to you, the patient, what they are doing and why. With another nurse, you don’t need to do this. So, as a rule, whenever I went anywhere, medical wise, where people did not know me, I was just another patient, not a nurse. Prior to my surgery, I had never had any type of surgery before, let alone a spinal surgery. I wanted to get the exact same information and treatment that any other person would get. So, when I went in to the surgeon and he asked what I did for a living, I was honest….I told him I worked with computers.

The reason I bring this all up is that as a Nurse, I held Doctors up on even a higher pedestal than most people currently do. I idolized Doctors and was always amazed at their vast knowledge and skills. I even ran the office of a busy Doctor in San Antonio. As the person who ran his office and as his nurse, I did everything I could to protect him. He was sued a couple times, (all Doctors are) and I remember hating the people that would dare sue MY Doctor! These losers were just after money, plain and simple! In truth, they probably were. Both lawsuits were pretty stupid and looked like they were totally without merit to me. But, I trusted Doctors and their skills a lot more than the average person would. Over the course of this lawsuit, I would be asked thousands of times…”Why didn’t you do this…Why didn’t you ask this”? etc….all because I was a nurse and should have known what was going on. The truth is, when this was all happening, I was just a patient like anyone else and my being a nurse was the farthest thing from my mind.

Until I started reading all my medical records.

I was bored. I was at home all alone every day and thanks to my local Doctor, I now had copies of the mountain of papers and records that the lawyers were all chewing on. I sat down and started to go through my medical records from the very beginning of this fiasco. I was shocked at what I found.
This where being a nurse came in handy. I knew all the abbreviations, slang terms, lingo, and gibberish that Doctors use when charting. It is well known that only Doctors and Nurses can actually read another Doctors handwriting and this is so true. Look at your chart next time. If it is handwritten in ink, you will not be able to read a thing! But, I could.

I quickly saw why Social Security had turned me down the first time. Reading my chart, there was NOTHING wrong with me!

I am an honest person. I know what happened to me. I know what injuries I have and what limitations I have as a result of those injuries. I know that everything I told my lawyers is the 100% truth as to what happened to me.

Reading my chart, from the time of the surgery onwards, was like reading an entirely different story altogether. I read everything the main Docs involved had written over the months after the surgery. It was lie, after lie, after lie, after lie.

Will a Doctor lie? YES
Will a Doctor write lies in your chart? YES
Will a Doctor actually ALTER your chart AFTER the fact, which is a crime? YES
Do Doctors make mistakes? YES, (Why would they be any different than the rest of us)

As a nurse, the myth about these Doctors being all-powerful Gods that could do no wrong was forever shattered. I was reading entry after entry that were just plain old LIES. My wife, who was with me in the Hospital during many of the encounters with the Doctors, also read the chart and could not believe what she was reading. The Doctors were telling us one thing to our faces and writing a totally different tale in the chart.

The Doctors being sued were LIARS! But, as the lawsuit dragged on, it soon became apparent of what the defense was going to be for those Doctors…

They were not the LIARS,…….. I WAS! They were the innocent victims of a baseless lawsuit by me and my family. I was lying, not them!

So, be prepared. No matter how strong your case, no matter how damaging your evidence, you will always be made out to be a money seeking Liar, a cheat, and a thief. They will pound this into your skull for year, after year, after year,…….until you ultimately feel like a totally worthless human being…when you did nothing wrong.

If you had any self-esteem before you filed your lawsuit, kiss it goodbye, possibly forever!

YOU ARE A LIAR!!