(No, I did not ask permission from my sister to write this post. Part of me is furious, the other is devastated. Nobody can change the past, but we can learn from it.)
I can rest assured, that my sisters face will never be forgotten and that the sound of her sobs will never be wiped from the memory of an OB who made the biggest mistake of his life.
I can only hope that the biggest mistake of his life will save countless lives in the future.
Christmas Day my sister called the OB on call because she was so sick and knew something wasn't right. This OB asked my sister a question he is guaranteed never to ask another patient:
"What exactly do you expect to change between now and Tuesday (the next OB visit)?"
I can only assume that he was eager to get back to his Christmas dinner and thought my sister was being a whiny, pregnant woman with nausea.
He got his answer a day later as he cut into my sisters womb.
Today he told my sister that he "had missed it" and that although he would never understand her pain, that she should be grateful to be alive to take care of her daughter because he didn't think she would be. This same doctor called up to ICU after he went home that night to check to see what my sisters condition was...because the (pregnancy induced) diagnosis that he told her today...if left untreated, was fatal.
It was left untreated and would have taken my sisters life along with that of my nephews if my sister hadn't been adamant about letting this doctor know that she really was so very, very sick.
This same doctor told my sister that she did exactly what he told her to do and that she had absolutely no fault in what happened.
We already knew that.
So, as he lays down to sleep tonight, I truly pray that our God watches over this man and takes the mistake that took two lives - almost three - and turns it into an opportunity to find the compassion that he probably had the day he graduated med school and help this man to save lives in the future of babies and mothers that trust him to care for them.
We have the answers we needed and it doesn't make it any easier.
It only makes the "what ifs" that much more troubling.
