Progress.... but totally not in the way you think! Yes, making good progress on the medical side, but this is progress on the justice side (or as much justice as I can get from all of this). I mentioned in an earlier blog post that I finally put a formal complaint in against my original surgeon and orthodontist with the Dental Board of California. I tried to get my story in a nice little summary for them and submitted it back in late 2016. I knew it could take a while for them to process the paperwork and notify me of an investigation, but I've heard nothing in the last 5 months. I was honestly starting to get concerned. I have read tid bits that said the dental board won't investigate a complaint over two years old. At the time I put mine in it was just over 2.5 years old. Why did I wait so long to finally put this in? Multiple reasons. First and foremost I wanted to take care of me medically. That was exhausting and overwhelming enough. And at first I was actually talking to a lawyer and was going to go full on legal with all of this. That too was exhausting and overwhelming. I just thought this was going to be one more thing to battle in the middle of everything else and I wanted to wait. Turns out that the process wasn't that bad (so far at least), so in hindsight I should have done it earlier. Anyway, I was afraid they would tell me my complaint was too old, but I got a letter today saying a case is open and they requested more information from me:
Letter from the dental board. Right click "view image in new tab" to see bigger image.
I actually already sent them this information with my original complaint, but I didn't waste any time putting it all together and sending it again today. I looked at the list of doctors after it was done and it just blows my mind. I bounced around between a dozen docs all over CA (some of which I drove 6 hours each way for) on the path to fix me. All of them will have to have records released to the dental board about my case, and more than likely I bet they might actually interview and chat with my current team. I talked in the previous blog post about how I spoke with my surgeon about that. How unsettled that left me. Time has helped me get over that a little and things are totally kosher between us, but it still sits in the back of my mind. And now getting this letter from the dental board just brings up all the anxiety again and I am left wondering if any of my doctors think I am wrong or a bad person for going after my first surgeon and ortho like this. I'm not suing them or anything, but this is still going after them the best I can otherwise. And then it leaves me thinking, "What will they tell the investigator if they have to talk to them?" Who knows. I am not asking them to do me a solid and speak to the level of care I got in my first treatment with these guys, but I hope them explaining my records and answering questions offers enough information where it all just speaks for itself.
I am cautiously optimistic that this is the direction this will go. I mean, there are many things that were wrong in my first round of treatment, but some of them were blatantly illegal/negligent, IE: my surgeon totally abandoning me. Pretty sure that is illegal. You are not allowed to abandon a patient like that. And my ortho taking forever to get me my records and giving me a hell of a time with that. And then both my surgeon AND ortho were missing or "lost" all of my records pertaining to my surgical planning and anything pre op having to do with my surgery. Nothing. Whether that was done on purpose (and come on.... what am I supposed to think here? How convenient is it that both of them "lost" all records pertaining to most of what was in question in terms of the level of care and negligence factor in all of this?) or it truly was a mistake that everything in my records relating to my surgery or any notes, discussions, plans, etc were gone, either way it's illegal and they can be dinged for that. EVERYTHING is to be charted during treatment. Even looking at my charting when I am sitting in my current ortho's chair I see a ton on the screen for me. If my ortho so much as called my surgeon and spoke to him for 30 seconds, that call was annotated in my records. If they email, then that email is saved. If they got together and talked, then those notes were saved and discussion date/time annotated. Nothing was kept from my first treatment. When I questioned why there wasn't even so much as a mention of an email back and forth between my surgeon and ortho talking about even the simplest of things, my ortho's office told me, "We don't keep those kinds of things." Hopefully they will be dinged for that because you ARE supposed to keep those kinds of things. And I have a feeling they do keep those kinds of things for their patients.... but it was conveniently lost for me because they knew they screwed up and it was going to come and bite them.
Anyway, this is the only form of justice I will ever have with this. My last chance. I will never get a chance to look my surgeon in the face and get answers for what she did to me (or what she allowed her resident to do to me unsupervised or ill supervised), let alone get an apology....which doesn't even matter to me honestly; I'd rather have everything explained to me instead and have the answers for what happened. The best I can hope for here is that the board that holds her license will find that she really did do me dirty and she'll have some consequences to face. Same with my first ortho. If anything, hopefully I am doing a service so something may come of this and help a future patient avoid what I had to go through. Maybe they will be put on performance plans and have to take training on something. I dunno, but I hope it's something that gets done and I can have a little bit of closure over all of this. And again, I really hope none of my current docs think I am a bad person for doing this. So far they are not even close to giving me the impression that they are against what I am doing, but they're not showing outright support either. They're just super mum, and damn they do a good job of it! Drives me crazy, but I know this is the way it has to be. So I am going to wonder what they really think and get anxious thinking they're not too fond of what I am doing with this and then think less of me. Ugh. Hopefully they're on my side.......hopefully.
Totally different topic and to end on a lighter note-- I was up in Tahoe snowboarding this weekend and got some pictures for the first time post treatment. They automatically got added to an album that has pictures as far back as 2011 from the same resort. I was slightly amused by a few people (it was mostly people who have only met me in the last year or two and don't know what the pre op teeth looked like) who did a whole "whoa.... this is a totally different person," comment on some of the pics from 2011. Not going to lie, it's nice to see the difference after this really long and tough journey. I try to enjoy those moments and be thankful for what I've got now, but at the same time it always comes back to "but it wasn't worth your 7-8 front teeth." It's the truth. I would have never traded all of my front teeth for this, but it is what it is. Here are the pics!
I am cautiously optimistic that this is the direction this will go. I mean, there are many things that were wrong in my first round of treatment, but some of them were blatantly illegal/negligent, IE: my surgeon totally abandoning me. Pretty sure that is illegal. You are not allowed to abandon a patient like that. And my ortho taking forever to get me my records and giving me a hell of a time with that. And then both my surgeon AND ortho were missing or "lost" all of my records pertaining to my surgical planning and anything pre op having to do with my surgery. Nothing. Whether that was done on purpose (and come on.... what am I supposed to think here? How convenient is it that both of them "lost" all records pertaining to most of what was in question in terms of the level of care and negligence factor in all of this?) or it truly was a mistake that everything in my records relating to my surgery or any notes, discussions, plans, etc were gone, either way it's illegal and they can be dinged for that. EVERYTHING is to be charted during treatment. Even looking at my charting when I am sitting in my current ortho's chair I see a ton on the screen for me. If my ortho so much as called my surgeon and spoke to him for 30 seconds, that call was annotated in my records. If they email, then that email is saved. If they got together and talked, then those notes were saved and discussion date/time annotated. Nothing was kept from my first treatment. When I questioned why there wasn't even so much as a mention of an email back and forth between my surgeon and ortho talking about even the simplest of things, my ortho's office told me, "We don't keep those kinds of things." Hopefully they will be dinged for that because you ARE supposed to keep those kinds of things. And I have a feeling they do keep those kinds of things for their patients.... but it was conveniently lost for me because they knew they screwed up and it was going to come and bite them.
Anyway, this is the only form of justice I will ever have with this. My last chance. I will never get a chance to look my surgeon in the face and get answers for what she did to me (or what she allowed her resident to do to me unsupervised or ill supervised), let alone get an apology....which doesn't even matter to me honestly; I'd rather have everything explained to me instead and have the answers for what happened. The best I can hope for here is that the board that holds her license will find that she really did do me dirty and she'll have some consequences to face. Same with my first ortho. If anything, hopefully I am doing a service so something may come of this and help a future patient avoid what I had to go through. Maybe they will be put on performance plans and have to take training on something. I dunno, but I hope it's something that gets done and I can have a little bit of closure over all of this. And again, I really hope none of my current docs think I am a bad person for doing this. So far they are not even close to giving me the impression that they are against what I am doing, but they're not showing outright support either. They're just super mum, and damn they do a good job of it! Drives me crazy, but I know this is the way it has to be. So I am going to wonder what they really think and get anxious thinking they're not too fond of what I am doing with this and then think less of me. Ugh. Hopefully they're on my side.......hopefully.
Totally different topic and to end on a lighter note-- I was up in Tahoe snowboarding this weekend and got some pictures for the first time post treatment. They automatically got added to an album that has pictures as far back as 2011 from the same resort. I was slightly amused by a few people (it was mostly people who have only met me in the last year or two and don't know what the pre op teeth looked like) who did a whole "whoa.... this is a totally different person," comment on some of the pics from 2011. Not going to lie, it's nice to see the difference after this really long and tough journey. I try to enjoy those moments and be thankful for what I've got now, but at the same time it always comes back to "but it wasn't worth your 7-8 front teeth." It's the truth. I would have never traded all of my front teeth for this, but it is what it is. Here are the pics!
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