With just a week to go before the extended statute of limitations expires, I am packing it in. The legal interaction with the [non] healthcare provider ends now.
I didn’t get a response from the oncologist so I went to her office. Extra work, for little result. She did state that lymphoma is the most curable of the cancers, that “over 50% of the lymphoma patients survive” and of those “over 70% have total remission.” Sad news to hear. But, she said, that she went over the records, and have found it hard to point fingers in court. The facts are, in her words, “so general.”
So without a medical ally, I am done.
Throughout this whole process, the medical documents are all people looked at. Most specifically they looked at the medical documents form Healthcare Partners, and the autopsy. What no one knows it that, major pieces of the medical documents are missing, despite the law that I am legally entitled to ALL of it. Everyone assumes I had everything.
All Ruth’s 2009 records are missing, except for the December exchange. She had an annual checkup in September of 2009, and all those are missing. On two occasions, I was asked by those who examined the documents if there were more for 2009, and I said I didn’t have any. “If we can look back over 2009” one lawyer said, “and see if there were facts that the doctors missed, we have more to go on.” But those documents are conveniently missing. Is it an oversight on the part of HealthCare Partners or… something more. Ruth also went in to see the doctor on December 29, a crucial turning point in the possible treatment. But there are no records for that day. When we asked for it, the reply from the records clerk was “She didn’t have a doctor visit. It was just a visit for a blood test.” An outright lie, if not from him, but from “higher up.” Those documents never appeared. You would think that, if there was nothing to hide, these actions not not be taken. I have come to learn that there is actually a built in routine for handling a mysterious death. And none of those actions are for the benefit of the victim or the family.
In these cases, much of the reliance for understanding the situation is on these medical documents. But, it would seem to me, that this is like asking a thief for his own statement on whether he stole or not, and that becomes the basis for your verification of facts.
This is a very unsatisfactory ending to the saddest event in my life.