Fw: Dr. Chez

[Guest guest]

I was referred to Dr. Chez to evaluate my son for failure to thrive when he was

9 months old. At the first appt. they took blood. The nurse called me back to

say I had to bring him in for more blood because something happened with the

sample they took. She tried to tell me the lab made a mistake and she said I

had to come in before their office opened so it would be convenient for them. I

told her no, I would come in when it was convenient between my sons' naptimes

since it wasn't my mistake and it would be my son suffering through another

blood draw. So I got there and was waiting in the waiting room and she didn't

see me in there and I heard her go up to the receptionist and say something

nasty about me not being there yet and the receptionist pointed out that I was

there. She left me waiting with a 9 month old and 3 year old for an hour so

they started getting hungry and tired. When Dr. Chez drew the blood he told me

it was his nurse who didn't store the blood sample properly. (I later found out

she wasn't actually a licensed nurse!) As we were leaving, the receptionist

asked the Dr. about insurance codes for us and he said oh definitely something

neuromuscular, and I wasn't expecting to hear it, and I wasn't expecting to have

to pay anything because this was a " make-up " blood test because of their

mistake, so as I was walking out the door trying to get home before I broke

down, the receptionist calls out like I'm some kind of deadbeat, " Excuse

me......I believe you owe us some money! " I wish I could type what her voice

sounded like. So she has me waiting around while she figures it out while I am

still in shock at what the doctor said and then she finally figures out I didn't

owe anything and she didn't apologize or anything. I know a lot of the problems

are with his staff, but he knows about it and allows it.

A few months later my son had to have a muscle biopsy. I knew that Dr. Chez had

said they were sending tissue samples to 2 different labs, one of them on the

east coast and one at Univ. of Chicago. It was very important that the tissue

was packed and shipped correctly too. Dr. Chez's nurse came and told me the

courier was there to take the sample but only mentioned having it sent to the

lab on the east coast. I told her Dr. Chez had said it was going to 2 labs. We

argued about it and I told her to go call him and she came back and told me it

was straightened out. The biopsy was too much for my son to handle and he ended

up in the hospital a couple weeks later. It was 4th of July weekend and new

residents begin July 1st and everyone else goes on vacation. So they yelled at

me for breastfeeding him and said that was why he was losing weight. Then they

put an NG tube in him to feed him similac even though I told them he was

allergic to milk. They said I was crazy to think he was allergic to milk and he

was far too old to be breastfed (13 months and I was feeding him food too?) and

that I was too attached to him and it wasn't healthy for him. They yelled at me

to stop interfering in his treatment and sort of threatened that if I caused too

much trouble they'd get authorities involved. He was in EXTREME distress,

Ican't even describe how horrifying and they blamed it on me not leaving him

alone, and he had bloody diarrhea and I finally manage to convince them I want

to talk to one of his " real " doctors, I don't care if it's a holiday weekend and

where they are, and Chez calls back and complains about me bothering him. 4th

of July night one of the nurses made a mistake with the feeding pump and dumped

similac in him all at once instead of dripping it slowly, so he vomited and

aspirated. They refused to even examine him and one resident yelled at my

husband " Don't YOU say aspirate " I kept telling them I could feel him rattling

under my hands and they said I had to put him in the crib and let him sleep,

that it was my fault he was distressed. The next day Dr. Chez was back and

happened to be there when my son went into respiratory arrest. As they were

working on resuscitating him in PICU, he came up to us and told us we had to

make the decision fast before it was too late, not to let them put him on a

ventilator because he was just going to die a horrible death anyway and to just

let him die now because it would be easier on everyone and if he ended up on a

ventilator he would be better off dead and we'd be better off not having to take

care of him. My sister-in-law was there screaming " You don't have a

diagnosis! " And they didn't have a diagnosis yet because the muscle biopsy

never made it to the lab at U of Chic. The next day Dr. Chez tried to tell me

that the lab was running really far behind on these tests for some strange

reason, that he's never seen them take this long before, but that he called them

and told them we needed an immediate diagnosis. I got it out of him (after

telling him what his nurse did the day of the biopsy) that actually the lab on

the East coast (the one that had received a tissue sample) was now sending

frozen tissue to U of C, which was supposed to have received a fresh sample that

first day and never did, but the test results were worthless now because the

tissue had been frozen. So the muscle biopsy and my son's decline afterwards

were all for nothing because of his nurse and then he tried to lie to me about

it. So they did an EMG to look for signs of denervation which would have meant

SMA- fatal disorder, and didn't find any, but instead found decrements which

meant myasthenia gravis which is not a fatal disorder. The same day they

started suctioning old dried formula plugs out of his lungs, but the night

before Dr. Chez had said he was in respiratory arrest because of his fatal

neuromuscular disease and was telling us to let him die that night. So then my

son was in PICU in Lutheran General and they were in the middle of construction

in the PICU. At one point, my son was the only patient when they admitted

another girl to the bed right next to him. We heard them talking about

encephalitis and having an open spinal tap draining. Turns out she was Dr.

Chez's patient, and I told him I thought the girl should be in isolation but he

said they didn't know for sure yet if she had encephalitis and we argued about

that. Turns out she did have it and they put her in isolation later (whenever

there's ANY suspicion, they're supposed to go straight into isolation as a

precaution) but while she was in the bed next to my sons the nurse made a point

of dumping the girls dirty sheets right at my feet. The rest of the horrors

pretty much have to do with Lutheran General more than Dr. Chez. He is actually

on staff at Lake Forest hospital, and I could write a volume about both

hospitals actually and I have met lots of other parents who could too. Both

hospitals manage to have good reputations somehow, but I and others I have

happened to meet (without even looking for them) could quite literally write

volumes about both of them.