Glaucoma caused by steroid use

[I'mTheFather]

How was your daughter's vision before the glaucoma?

 

[not2cleverRed]

And truly ... I don't want to ruin a doctor's career. I mean, neonatology - and all the disciplines that come after -- is/are all still relatively new areas of medicine. But it is no secret that having a NICU in your hospital definitely adds a lucrative stream of cash to the bottom line. MOO. I believe I've heard hospital admins call it a cash cow. Moo. Grace is one of their calves.

I just want to take care of my daughter. If I could set up a trust with some seed money, that would be preferable to a lawsuit. That probably doesn't happen in the legal realm. But maybe it should. I'm not looking to get rich on the back of my daughter. I just want my daughter to be taken care of when I'm no longer able to be her advocate.

Um... Pardon me, but you ARE in the MALPRACTICE section on a legal forum. That would generally imply that you think that the doctor did something wrong.

Yes, I GET that your daughter is vision impaired, and that it may or may not be connected to treatment received as a newborn, but the question you have to ask is: was the treatment received the standard medical treatment at the time? Did the treatment deviate from standard treatment at the time, and if so, did the nonstandard treatment contribute to your daughter's current medical condition?

Things happen.

It wasn't malpractice.

Read up on Daniel Kish. It'll give you some hope for your daughter's future. She has one - just not the path you planned.

 

[Proserpina]

How was your daughter's vision before the glaucoma?

I think the answer to this question is perhaps the most critical part of the entire thread, and it's going to be perhaps the biggest factor in whether or not the OP has a viable case.

 

[Silverplum]

And truly ... I don't want to ruin a doctor's career. I mean, neonatology - and all the disciplines that come after -- is/are all still relatively new areas of medicine. But it is no secret that having a NICU in your hospital definitely adds a lucrative stream of cash to the bottom line. MOO. I believe I've heard hospital admins call it a cash cow. Moo. Grace is one of their calves.

I just want to take care of my daughter. If I could set up a trust with some seed money, that would be preferable to a lawsuit. That probably doesn't happen in the legal realm. But maybe it should. I'm not looking to get rich on the back of my daughter. I just want my daughter to be taken care of when I'm no longer able to be her advocate.

Wouldn't that be nice?

That's what any parent would want, I suppose. And there are several ways to go about attempting to set up or create an inheritance/a financial trust for one's child/ren. You want to get the money for your child from the doctor who kept her alive. You think the neonatal units at hospitals are just "lucrative stream(s) of cash."

Moo to you, too.

 

[RRevak]

And truly ... I don't want to ruin a doctor's career. I mean, neonatology - and all the disciplines that come after -- is/are all still relatively new areas of medicine. But it is no secret that having a NICU in your hospital definitely adds a lucrative stream of cash to the bottom line. MOO. I believe I've heard hospital admins call it a cash cow. Moo. Grace is one of their calves.

I just want to take care of my daughter. If I could set up a trust with some seed money, that would be preferable to a lawsuit. That probably doesn't happen in the legal realm. But maybe it should. I'm not looking to get rich on the back of my daughter. I just want my daughter to be taken care of when I'm no longer able to be her advocate.

Wow. Just, wow...

So you're REALLY going to insult the very unit that, oh I don't know...HELPED TO SAVE YOUR CHILDS LIFE AND KEEP HER ALIVE!? If that isn't an example of the most ungrateful parent in the world then I don't know what is.

Also being the parent of a sick child, my own infant has spent considerable time in both the NICU and CICU so i'm very familiar with them and how they work. They CONSISTENTLY go above and beyond the call of duty to save infants day in and day out. Its a brutally tough job both physically and emotionally and to downgrade it to simply a "cash cow", esp when you yourself have benefited from said "cow", borders on appalling. You might reeeeaaaallly want to check yourself.

 

[LdiJ]

And truly ... I don't want to ruin a doctor's career. I mean, neonatology - and all the disciplines that come after -- is/are all still relatively new areas of medicine. But it is no secret that having a NICU in your hospital definitely adds a lucrative stream of cash to the bottom line. MOO. I believe I've heard hospital admins call it a cash cow. Moo. Grace is one of their calves.

I just want to take care of my daughter. If I could set up a trust with some seed money, that would be preferable to a lawsuit. That probably doesn't happen in the legal realm. But maybe it should. I'm not looking to get rich on the back of my daughter. I just want my daughter to be taken care of when I'm no longer able to be her advocate.

I understand your desire to make sure that your daughter is taken care of. I truly do. However, many blind and other abled people go on to live very productive lives, without the safety net of a trust fund. If you assume that your daughter will never be able to take care of herself, you may not do all that you can to help enable her to take care of herself. You should really talk to all of the resource people at the Indiana School for the Blind. They have fantastic people there who can help your daughter live a full and productive life.

 

[quincy]

And Quincy - if you google open angle glaucoma and steroids, there are peer reviewed medical references that document a correlation ...

... I appreciate your thoughts. And I hope your child is one of those little fighters who beats the odds.

littlebiddle, for every peer reviewed medical reference you find that says one thing, I can probably find another peer reviewed medical reference that says just the opposite. But I am not going to do a battle of references with you here.

A medical malpractice attorney will have medical experts (specialists in the field) personally review your daughter's medical history and examine your daughter. There will generally be little to no doubt in the mind of the malpractice attorney that a medical malpractice suit has merit and can be sufficiently supported by the opinions of medical experts before the malpractice attorney will take on a medical malpractice case.

The reputation of a valued professional, afterall, can be irreparably harmed by a legal action, regardless of the eventual outcome.

You will not find any medical specialists on this legal advice forum who can personally examine your daughter and personally review your daughter's medical records. Therefore, and as advised earlier, you will need to find a medical professional (or two or three) in your area. I recommend, as I did earlier, that you see other doctors before seeing an attorney.

As to my daughter, she owes her life to the doctors and nurses who cared for her. I hold them all in the highest esteem.

My best wishes to your daughter.

 

[ecmst12]

I can pretty much guarantee you that there is no doctor alive that will say prescribing steroids to a premie having breathing problems is below the standard of care, no matter WHAT long term side effects they may or may not have caused.

 

[quincy]

I can pretty much guarantee you that there is no doctor alive that will say prescribing steroids to a premie having breathing problems is below the standard of care, no matter WHAT long term side effects they may or may not have caused.

It has been known by medical professionals since the 1940s that oxygen treatment can cause blindness.

Retrolental fibroplasia (an eye problem common in premature infants) has been a known and expected consequence of oxygen administered to premature babies. But oxygen treatment is necessary to assist with the breathing of infants born with underdeveloped lungs.

It was in the late 1990s that many doctors chose to use corticosteroids to treat bronchopulmonary dysplasia (a respiratory problem which affects half of all preemies weighing less than 750g). The steroids were, and still are, a way to strengthen the lungs while reducing the amount of time that a premature infant requires concentrated oxygen.

Both oxygen treatment and steroid treatment come with risks. And steroid treatment has never eliminated the risk of blindness. As I mentioned early on, with premature infants it is often a balancing act between risks and benefits - often death versus life with possible complications, some complications of which can be severe.

I understand that sometimes doctors make mistakes and some of these mistakes can be serious. A doctor should be held accountable for the serious mistakes that should have been foreseen and could have been avoided. That said, I still do not see a medical malpractice suit in what has been related to us so far by littlebiddle. I see instead a tragic but probably unavoidable outcome to a treatment that was deemed necessary by the daughter's treating physician.

It would not hurt for littlebiddle to have her daughter's medical history reviewed by other medical professionals, though. Knowing the steroid treatment was a proper treatment for her daughter's BPD could bring to littlebiddle some comfort.

 

[littlebiddle]

Um... Pardon me, but you ARE in the MALPRACTICE section on a legal forum. That would generally imply that you think that the doctor did something wrong.

Yes, I GET that your daughter is vision impaired, and that it may or may not be connected to treatment received as a newborn, but the question you have to ask is: was the treatment received the standard medical treatment at the time? Did the treatment deviate from standard treatment at the time, and if so, did the nonstandard treatment contribute to your daughter's current medical condition?

Things happen.

It wasn't malpractice.

Read up on Daniel Kish. It'll give you some hope for your daughter's future. She has one - just not the path you planned.

------------------

Just to let you know, my daughter is also intellectually impaired due to oxygen deprivation. (I was prepared for this.) And the reason I addressed "ruining a doctor's reputation" was in response to someone's previous comment. (My parents taught me not to roll my eyes.) I am not asking for a public flogging of the doctor but sometimes doctors do make mistakes. That's what I am exploring. I am just asking for informed opinions.

My daughter is currently at The Blind School working to achieve a certificate (life skills) rather than earn a diploma. Her brain was damaged somewhere along the way, probably by lack of oxygen when she was being ventilated for weeks on end, sick with pneumonia, etc.

I am wondering why would you assume that I am unfamiliar with Daniel Kish? I find that fascinating. I have a very strong grasp on the people who populate the visually impaired community of which my daughter is a part. I've had the last 17+ years to do research, learn and try to navigate this However, since you brought it up, there are very few comparisons to be made between my daughter and Daniel Kish. Daniel lost his eyesight - his eyeballs, actually - when he was just over a year old from a cancer known as retinoblastoma. Daniel was born at a normal gestational age, remaining protected inside his mother's womb for the duration of her pregnancy. My daughter was born twelve weeks early, weighing one pound, three ounces. Her brain developed outside the womb and under no circumstances is that the ideal. She may be able to learn echolocation ... the skill that Daniel has perfected ... but she's not going to be the one to meticulously document it and figure out how to teach it. Her birth experience would be more accurately compared to Stevie Wonder, who also suffered from retinopathy of prematurity. Stevie Wonder, however, was born just six weeks premature. And try as I might, I haven't been able to teach Grace how to play the harmonica. (Read up on it. That's the instrument that Stevie Wonder played that impressed Barry Gordy enough to sign him. Barry Gordy didn't even like his voice. )

I could go on.

It's astonishing to me that you would assume I have no knowledge of the people who populate my daughter's visually impaired community. I haven't been sitting around for 17 years doing nothing and hoping that the sky would one day open up and hand me the keys to the kingdom.

I came here to ask a question. I wonder what makes you so angry that I feel conflicted about this issue. Perhaps it's that I don't understand legalities as well as you. Assuming you are an attorney, I guess that makes sense.

I do appreciate your deep and thoughtful insight. And thank you for the kind words about my visual (sic) impaired daughter. That - how was it you phrased it - that she "has a future, just not the path planned." Yes. Damn. All 5'2" of me planned to have a child that played in the NBA. Or at the very least, in the Big 10 Tournament. Oh, that would have made my mom so happy. Big 10 ball was a huge hit in our house. My mom adored Bobby Knight.

I don't recall providing you with a map of the future I had perfectly planned for my daughter before life so rudely (and inevitably) got in our way.

I assume your are intimately familiar with the philosophy of poet and artist Khalil Gibran. I very much subscribe - both on a cerebral and emotional level - to what he wrote about children and our role as a parent. I thank my 7th grade English teacher for introducing me to his work and believing that even a little WASPY girl who grew up in a Midwestern town of 1,000 people had a mind that could stretch to understand the abstract concepts put forth by Gibran.

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

All that I am when you get right down it it is a well-intended mom asking for help navigating some rough waters. Asking for help is an exercise in humility. It shouldn't be humiliating.

It's been said those who give with joy get joy back as their reward. And those who give with pain find that pain is their baptism.

 

[littlebiddle]

Wow. Just, wow...

So you're REALLY going to insult the very unit that, oh I don't know...HELPED TO SAVE YOUR CHILDS LIFE AND KEEP HER ALIVE!? If that isn't an example of the most ungrateful parent in the world then I don't know what is.

Also being the parent of a sick child, my own infant has spent considerable time in both the NICU and CICU so i'm very familiar with them and how they work. They CONSISTENTLY go above and beyond the call of duty to save infants day in and day out. Its a brutally tough job both physically and emotionally and to downgrade it to simply a "cash cow", esp when you yourself have benefited from said "cow", borders on appalling. You might reeeeaaaallly want to check yourself.

I am sorry if my wording was off-putting to you, but it is truthful to say that NICUs provide hospitals with a very positive revenue stream. My daughter was born in a hospital that greatly expanded its NICU for that very reason. Hospitals are a business just like any other business. I learned the term "cash cow" from some of the very professionals that took care of my daughter. I am sure the field of law has areas of practice that are more financially lucrative than others. And those would be your cash cows.

As I have already said during this thread, I am allowed to have conflicting feelings. It is not imperative that each of you agree with me. The path we have been on for years has not been unobstructed and it sometimes looking through the dark glass of the unknown brings up emotions in me and in others that are messy, painful and not tied up in a neat little package with a shiny bow. The what-ifs have threatened at times to take me under. The guilt that my body failed her when it perfectly nourished two other children is something that I will always carry with me. I can't apologize for being imperfectly human.

I came here for advice and points of view. I have worked/am working every day to ensure that my daughter is taken care of, both emotionally and financially. I know that coming here to ask a question and seek opinions opens up my own wounds as well as wounds that others carry.

Her fairly recent diagnosis of glaucoma came as a complete shock. When something happens that obliterates a child's vision completely in one eye and reduces the visual acuity of the other eye to 20/400, it's devastating.

I am not unappreciative of the people who took care of her. If you want to view me in a different light, so be it. We all handle things at our own pace in our own way.

I will take what I want and leave the rest. I encourage all of you to do the same. We are all humbled at times by our both our actions and our reactions. I am surprised at some of the very personal attacks on a professional forums but I cannot judge because I haven't walked in your shoes.

Peace be with all of you.

 

[littlebiddle]

I understand your desire to make sure that your daughter is taken care of. I truly do. However, many blind and other abled people go on to live very productive lives, without the safety net of a trust fund. If you assume that your daughter will never be able to take care of herself, you may not do all that you can to help enable her to take care of herself. You should really talk to all of the resource people at the Indiana School for the Blind. They have fantastic people there who can help your daughter live a full and productive life.

I do understand what you're saying. I truly do. In the end, sometimes fear gets the best of me. And I am so happy with the change we've made and am thankful every day we moved to The Blind School. She started a program today that is sponsored by Bosma and she is working six hours a day for the next four weeks. She was able to choose the job she wanted and she chose child care. She stays there during the week and comes home on the weekends. She approached it with some apprehension but I know she will grow from it and gain both independence and confidence. And yes. They have great people there. Thank you. <3

 

[littlebiddle]

I think the answer to this question is perhaps the most critical part of the entire thread, and it's going to be perhaps the biggest factor in whether or not the OP has a viable case.

Before the glaucoma she was 20/200 in each eye. Now she is blind in one eye and 20/400 in the other.

 

[littlebiddle]

Wouldn't that be nice?

That's what any parent would want, I suppose. And there are several ways to go about attempting to set up or create an inheritance/a financial trust for one's child/ren. You want to get the money for your child from the doctor who kept her alive. You think the neonatal units at hospitals are just "lucrative stream(s) of cash."

Moo to you, too.

If you are interested in learning what adding or expanding a NICU does to a hospital's bottom line, just google that phrase. I will share a link here but sometimes when I have added a link, it kicks the comment over to a moderator. I am going to submit this without a link and then reply with the first link I found when I searched "What does adding a NICU do to a hospital's bottom line." If you don't see a link in a reply comment, it is because it got kicked out.

Making money does not an evil intention make. But higher risk care creates increased liability. That's just a fact. It may sound distasteful, but it's true.

 

[littlebiddle]

If you are interested in learning what adding or expanding a NICU does to a hospital's bottom line, just google that phrase. I will share a link here but sometimes when I have added a link, it kicks the comment over to a moderator. I am going to submit this without a link and then reply with the first link I found when I searched "What does adding a NICU do to a hospital's bottom line." If you don't see a link in a reply comment, it is because it got kicked out.

Making money does not an evil intention make. But higher risk care creates increased liability. That's just a fact. It may sound distasteful, but it's true.

Here is a link... http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/29/11/2114.full