Doctors in California are held to a high standard of providing quality care. Unfortunately, there are some who make mistakes and misdiagnose patients. A young child died of a rare form of cancer after being misdiagnosed with constipation.
Child suffering from pain
The child, a little girl who was still a toddler, was experiencing stomach pain and having trouble having bowel movements. Her mother knew something was wrong and took her to the doctor. The result was a medical misdiagnosis of constipation and they were sent home.
However, stomach pain wasn’t the only problem. The little girl also had a tumor on her buttocks that was visible. This caused pain not only in the abdominal region but in other areas of the body as well. The mother stated that she took her child to see their primary care doctor nearly a dozen times over a three-week span. There were also a few hospital stays due to infections.
Mother is blamed until the true diagnosis comes
The child’s condition further deteriorated to the point where doctors began to accuse the mother of maltreatment and improperly feeding her daughter. She kept stressing that her child was sick, but doctors started dismissing her fears. However, she knew something was very wrong and continued to fight for answers. She told doctors about the pain her child was experiencing and even about the tumor, but they didn’t run the proper tests.
Later, the child was moved to a different hospital that ran diagnostic tests that revealed the truth: her daughter had a large liver tumor that was obstructing her bowel. This time, there was a definitive diagnosis of germ cell cancer. Although that type of cancer is treatable and has a high survival rate, the diagnosis came too late and the child died.
The child’s organs and tissue were donated for research purposes, but this was a tragedy that didn’t have to happen.
