Misdiagnosis

My daughter had a hysteroscopy (removal of a uterine polyp) last week and when she received the lab report it suggested the polyp was pre-cancerous and she would probably need a hysterectomy. Her doctor thought the lab report was confusing so checked into it further and found it had indeed been written incorrectly. The polyp was not pre-cancerous and no hysterectomy was needed.

Because of the wording of that lab report my daughter could have been subjected to needless surgery. In our euphoria over the good news I still had a niggling feeling that it's possible many of the lab reports that we await with baited breath might also be wrong.

How many people have body parts removed unnecessarily because a lab report was ambiguous or poorly worded? How many people suffer and die because their lab reports were misdiagnosed?

When my husband was ill and dying we trusted the doctors who diagnosed and cared for him without question. When you are ill you have to trust the "men in white coats" because they sometimes literally hold your life in their experienced hands. When you are seriously ill you feel very helpless and need to depend on the medical field to take care of you.

I still admire the profound abilities of doctors but I do wish they were perfect and incapable of making mistakes. An impossible wish.

My oldest daughter and I were planning to head out tomorrow to care for my youngest after her surgery but instead we're heading out to have a little vacation with her. What a wonderful outcome.