My boyfriend's mother recently passed away from esophageal cancer. She was in the hospital for a month prior to her death. She was having trouble eating so her doctor told her to go to the hospital for an endoscopy the next day. We ended up taking her to emergency that night for esophageal pain where they admitted her. They performed the endoscopy the next day and told us that her tumor was narrowing her esophagus. The doctor also told us there was food stuck where the narrowing was. He said that he did not remove the food because he figured it would pass on its own. The last time she ate was a week before so that food had been stuck in there for a week. The doctor was very short with us and seemed like he was in a hurry. A few days later she developed pneumonia from food aspiration. They put her on antibiotics. She started to get over the pneumonia so they took her off antibiotics. She redeveloped the pneumonia again so they started antibiotics back up. Roughly 3 weeks before she passed they put a stent in her esophagus to help her eat some soft food. They finally after 4 weeks of the food being stuck in there a different doctor who put in the stent removed it. Long story short she did well for a week on liquids then was told they missed another tumor and there was nothing more they could do. So after 4 weeks in hospital she went home on hospice and passed away 2 weeks later and she still had pneumonia. My question is....we feel that the very first doctor that saw food stuck in there should have removed it. The food was not aspirated until a few days after the first endoscopy. It cannot be healthy for anyone to have what I assume was rotten food sitting in there for so long. We feel like the doctor was rushing the endoscopy. She was his last patient of the day and he was very short and sort of rude to us when he explained it to us. It made us feel like he just wanted to go home and not take more time to remove it. We also feel like maybe we could have had a little more quality time with her before she passed if that doctor would have taken the food it out. Who knows maybe she would have never aspirated it and gotten pneumonia. We don't want to see this happen to someone else and want to know if this is grounds for seeking an attorney. Any help would be much appreciated.
The person in question died of cancer, yes?
This is a terminal cancer and nothing could have changed the outcome. It is literally a death sentence.
I am sorry for the loss but you will only be further angered by pursuing a dead end lawsuit, whatever took place with treatment or lack of probably has medical precedent and you don't know if you would have had more time or not, perhaps a puncture could have resulted and she was gone in a day.