Retained Placenta, D&c, Perforated Uterus Resulting In Partial Hysterectomy

[Anum]

I gave birth 12 weeks ago. My delivery went well but it seemed like my OBGYN had trouble removing the placenta. At my 4 week checkup I voiced concerns about my postpartum bleeding and was told it was ok. I continued to bleed until I was 10 weeks postpartum. At that time I developed severe stomach pains and went to the ER. I was told I had a 28mm piece of placenta left in my uterus. I followed up with my OBGYN that afternoon where he scheduled me for a D&C 3 days later. Surgery day came and I was told I would have the D&C followed by him using a scope to insure no internal damage. He came out after surgery and told my husband everything went great and I would have a 45 minute recovery and I could go home. I woke from surgery with mild pain in my ribs and was given pain medication. I was in ER recovery for a few hours, complaint of persistent rib pain along with cheat tightness and difficulty breathing. The nurse continued giving me pain medication and some anti-inflammatory medication. When it was time for me to be discharged, I could barely stand on my own, had a hard time getting dressed, dizziness and faintness. I live less than 5 minutes from the hospital. When I arrives home I blacked out 6 times and was stone cold. After suffering from severe rib pain, worsening chest pains and continued breathing difficulty, I returned to the Er. They couldnt get a blood pressure reading the first 3 times they tried and my heart beat was going close to 200 bpm. After X-Rays and a CT scan, they realized I had massive internal bleeding due to a 2cm perforation in my uterus. I had to receive 3 pints of blood and my husband was told that if he hadn't of brought me in when he did I would have died within the hour with the rate of blood lost. Another surgen had to come in and do corrective surgery resulting in a partial hysterectomy. I am only 25 and can't have anymore children(we were planning on trying one more time). Do I have a case against my OBGYN? A case against the hospital for releasing me in the condition I was in?

[eadelmarr]

By "partial" hysterectomy I presume that means you had the uterus removed but retained the ovaries.  90% of people who contact me with "surgery gone bad" stories I tell them that surgeries do go bad even when the best doctor does everything just right or at least does the best that can be done and therefore, no matter how bad the result, it doesn't make a malpractice case.  The other thing you must understand is that only another qualified doctor can offer an opinion on whether malpractice occured. No lawyer can.  Because of your age and the fairly extreme result to your ordeal, it might be worth finding another OB/GYN to look at it. But that would cost probably 2-3,000 and I doubt that a lawyer would be willing to put that money up front to find out if there is a case. If you told lawyers you contact that you would be willing to pay for the intitial expert review you might get in the front door. Otherwise probably not. You lost your fertility and that is a big deal for sure, at age 25. But you didn't lose your life. So the case has a limited value even if the negligence case is strong. But I wouldn't myself put out the money for the review because I bet the outside ob/gyn would say that there was no evidence of negligence or doing something BELOW THE STANDARD OF CARE. Maybe the placenta was unusually fixed to or ingrown to the uterine wall far more than normal. It took lots of cutting and hard work to remove the placenta which had to come out because it would become infected and kill you. So he cut and he pulled and did his best when another doc might have not even tried as hard and just did the hysterecomy immediately when seeing the problem. You see my point? Your doc did the best he could to remove the retained placenta and still preserve your fertility but at the end of the day, it just couldn't be done.  I bet this is the case. I don't know and frankly no one does except for your own doctor so some other doctor paid to review the case isn't likely to second guess your doctor. He would say he did the best he could but he couldn't save the uterus and there was no negligence, just a much less than desired outcome. Does this make sense to you? If not, read it again. Hope it helps.