Dear Listfriends,

    I am finally recovering from DISASTER at Dr. Colette's office, the
Medicaid-paid oral surgeon,  whom I had never met before he butchered me
on Wednesday.
   The oral surgeon,  left me in the chair alone for almost an hour, from
11:00 AM til nearly noon,  after I told him I needed ONLY the 3rd lower
molar extracted  I had no caregiver with me (she was patiently sitting in
the waiting room out front) to find out what was going on.  I finally got
out of the chair,  and tracked him down myself.

  He was sitting at a desk in what lookede like a medieval recovery room.
 Two patients were sitting in the other corner of the room with huge
whitebandages fwrapped around their heads.
 Dr, Colette told me he was looking up the rates on his services.  I
thought, why isn't his office staff doing this?  There were at least five
different women working there that I saw.

  Dr. Colette said he had been on the telephone to Augusta, talking to
the regulators.  He admitted to me that they had told him that I was
RIGHT, that if I was experiencing pain, the other teeth could be treated,
rather than being extracted. Again, I'm thinking, and I have to be
ignored and left alone while he calculates how much money he'll make??

   Maybe he was behind on payments for his new car or his boat.........

     This long wait, until 11:58, left just two minutes for the ENTIRE
extraction pocedure..   Because he wanted to extract more teeth, and make
more money, despite my having told him I wanted to save them instead, I
suffered nearly a complete loss of the time allotted for my appointment.


    So then, the "procedure" began.

     He spilled liquid novocaine on my tongue, after he jammed the
syringe in and out of my cheek, leaving me writhing in pain, and setting
off dyskinesia.  He ignored me when I complained that I needed help to
stay still, that I needed a few moments to try to settle down.  My right
foot and knee for falling off the dental chair.

    Also, the left arm of the chair had nothing to hold on to, my neck
was not adjusted comfortably, and I was starting to panic when he pulled
out what looked like two HUGE steel shoe horns..

    The butcher proceeded anyway. He pulled my jaw so hard that my head,
arms, and back were up IN THE AIR while he meanwhile wrenched and
wrenched at the third molar . I am not kidding, I WAS EXTREMELY
FRIGHTENED.

    Out came the molar, while my torso was still in MID-AIR (no belt,
noone holding me down) in less than a minute.  It was AWFUL. I did not
know until 7:15 PM that he had LEFT  ignored, laying in the  wound, which
bled ALL day, a large chip of freshly severed jawbone, and, a piece of
the tooth in front.

   Dr. Collette did NOT clean the wound.

.  All Dr. Collette  did was to stuff a huge wad of gauze in my mouth,
and disappear down the hall in his blue, open-heeled clogs, while his
dental hygienist sheepishly smiled, and told me I was all done.

     It was when  I fnally  regained normal movement of my tongue just
after 7:00( remember that Dr. Collete spilled novocaine on it as he
withdrew the syringe),that I discovered the bone chip, floating under the
scar tissue. Also, the floating piece of tooth enamel..

     The bone chip had been piercing the scar tissue for seven hours, so
I could not stop the bleeding.  He had  broken off the back 1/6 of the
2nd molar. That was the enamel. also down in the pit where the 3rd molar
had been.

     Now I have to search for a different surgeon, while meanwhile, the
broken second molar can't be seen by my regular dentist until January
4th.  And I have to make decisions about penicillin, which I was on prior
to the 3rd molar disaster, because I had pain going on.

      I am disgusted, angry and know I'm not the only one who gets
mistreated.  I hope Dr. Colette is hauled before the Licensure Board and
investigated.  And what about damages for my pain and suffering?  I'm
caught in a nightmare.

       Meanwhile, II still have NO nighttime caregiver- noone wants to
take the job since the pay is ridiculously low. So my nighttime care is
at this moment UNCOVERED after December 25th.


      When I appear on the Jim Lehrer News Hour in January, I'll have
LOTS to say about lots of subjects.

     If anyone has an e-mail address for National Public Television
station WETA in Washington, please send it so I can forward things I need
them to know to the Lehrer News Hour producers.

  Thank you.

    IVAN

^^^^^^  WARM GREETINGS  FROM  ^^^^^^^^^^^^  :-)
 Ivan Suzman        49/39/36       [log in to unmask]   :-)
 Portland, Maine   land of lighthouses   27  deg. F   :-) snow
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On Fri, 18 Dec 1998 20:00:58 -0500 Camilla Flintermann
<[log in to unmask]> writes:
>First, I hope we can  be a little more tender with each other---we're
>all
>in this togetjher, one way or another!
>
>Second, I talked with Ivan today, and he has had a terrible experience
>with
>an oral surgeon who *butchered* him, this on top of the CG gap he's
>facing.
>He seldom has strength to read the list or post, but if anyone wants
>to
>cheer him up,  a call would be welcome: (207)797-8488.
>