Appendicitis is a pretty common condition, and can be fixed with a simple procedure.
But even the simplest appendectomy can go terribly wrong.
Anna White was 15 when she was taken to the hospital with appendicitis.
She was admitted for an appendectomy. Everything seemed to be fine, until she stopped breathing and experienced cardiac arrest after the procedure.
Doctors revived her, but at a price: it starved her brain of oxygen and left her unable to walk and talk.
Upon investigation, it was found that the teen was rendered disabled for a completely avoidable reason.
Anna was given anesthetic and fluids through the same tube, during and after the surgery. After she was given anesthetic, the tube wasn’t flushed out, so there was still some anesthetic left behind. So when they gave her fluids, the remaining anesthetic went right into her bloodstream, and caused her cardiac and respiratory arrest.
Her mother is her full-time caretaker now. “It’s like having a newborn baby, because everything a baby needs, that’s what I do now,” said Donna, Anna’s mother. “It has had devastating consequences, but I’m just grateful that Anna is still here and knows who I am.
“I sometimes think, ‘why my little girl?’ She had done nothing wrong and didn’t deserve this. I am not angry for what I go through, but for what they have taken from her.”
Though the NHS Foundation Trust has admitted that their care for Anna, now 19, “fell below an acceptable standard,” Donna is still fighting for compensation for the hospital’s mistake.
However, the Trust isn’t budging. In the meantime, Donna says Anna’s good attitude never wavers.
“She never says ‘Why me, mum?’ She just wakes up ever day with this big smile on her face and we get through it together.”
