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Post Jury Duty depression.
Fig-D
SoCalRegistered User regular
SoCalRegistered User regular
(Please excuse the bad grammar and sentence structure. I haven't been feeling well and it's about 3:30am my time.)
I had always heard horror stories about jury duty, about how it consumes a good chunk of time and how our legal system is rather flawed, but I have a different kind of problem. I was chosen for a jury and served for about two weeks on a medical malpractice trial. The trial is over now, and we found a verdict, so I can finally talk about it (if you didn't know, you can talk about a trial your on while its in progress. If they catch you it can lead to a mistrial).
Story is basically this, a guy who works in manual labor starts feeling sharp pain in his leg. He goes to a hospital and is diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer, parosteal osteosarcoma. He is told to wait for two weeks because the hospital has just recruited an expert on this sort of cancer from New York. Apparently this type of cancer as a very low rate of recurrence if operated on properly, 95% of cases have no recurrence within the first 5 years. The expert shows up, does the operation to remove the tumor by removing part of the patients femur and putting in cadaver bone, tells the guy that the operation was a success (and all evidence does indeed point to a successful surgery) and the guy goes home coming back the hospital every once in a while to treat an infection in the area of the surgery.
Almost a year passes, and the pain returns again. He has two small tumors where the first one was and a large mass up by the upper surgical margin. The surgeon takes out the two cancerous smaller tumors while the pathologist (sample studier) looks at the biopsy (mass sample) from the larger mass. She thinks it's cancer and so does her supervisor, but it's sent out for second opinion to the MAYO Clinic. A word famous pathologist says it's not cancer, claiming it to be heterotopic ossification (calcification of surrounding muscle caused by issues between the patients bone and the cadaver bone.). He explains his reasoning and the pathologist at the patient's hospital agrees, changes her diagnosis, and the surgeon leaves the mass alone (heterotopic ossification isn't cancerous or malignant).
Weeks pass, and the assumed harmless growth has increased in size to that of a soccer ball (I'd say football but that might confuse some). Upon reexamination the growth is revealed to be recurrent cancer and to make matters worse it has stepped up in grade (the higher the grade the greater the chance of spreading elsewhere.). At this point the patient takes his problem elsewhere, and another hospital performs an emergency amputation in hopes stopping it from spreading to other areas of his body.
Months later, an MRI scan shows that there may be two small tumors in his left lung. Problem is, MRIs can't pick up tumors until they are a certain size. It is found that the patient actually has 20 tumors in his chest. He probably won't live to see 2009. He's down a lung, missing a leg, bound to a wheel chair and has an assisted breathing tube... and he was looking right at me. Myself, and 11 other people would decide if the first hospital was responsible for letting his cancer get to the point where it spread to his chest and will later kill him.
There wasn't much evidence to prove this. Quite the opposite, it seemed like they did everything by the books. The misdiagnoses of the tumor was the most questionable, but the surgeon and hospital were the defendants, the pathologist was minor as far as the plaintiff's case was concerned. The lawyer tried to pin it on the surgeon, and made a lot of claims, but trials are about evidence.
We found the hospital not guilty, in a vote of 10 to 2, I was one of the 10. I did what I felt was right. I think the doctors in that hospital did their jobs, did what any one of us would have done.
Why then, do I feel like shit? I'd love to hand out money to everyone who has had to go through the pain and suffering related to this disease, but I can't justify taking money from a hospital that was trying to provide the best care for it's patient to do it. The man will be dead soon, his young wife left with nothing but legal bills after he's gone. He was 24 when he was diagnosed, only two years older than I, and he'll die before he reaches 30. I can't stop thinking about how pathetic he looked, how hopeless, bound to that chair, breathing out of a tube. I can't shake the image from my mind.
I don't feel like doing anything. My hobbies don't cheer me up, I've been alienating my friends, I'm not sleeping well, the list goes on. I did what I know was right, I don't question that and I haven't changed my mind about it. I just wish I felt better about it.
I'm not even sure what sort of help I'm asking for here, but if you've got any suggestions about depression or dealing with guilt I'll take what I can get.
I had always heard horror stories about jury duty, about how it consumes a good chunk of time and how our legal system is rather flawed, but I have a different kind of problem. I was chosen for a jury and served for about two weeks on a medical malpractice trial. The trial is over now, and we found a verdict, so I can finally talk about it (if you didn't know, you can talk about a trial your on while its in progress. If they catch you it can lead to a mistrial).
Story is basically this, a guy who works in manual labor starts feeling sharp pain in his leg. He goes to a hospital and is diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer, parosteal osteosarcoma. He is told to wait for two weeks because the hospital has just recruited an expert on this sort of cancer from New York. Apparently this type of cancer as a very low rate of recurrence if operated on properly, 95% of cases have no recurrence within the first 5 years. The expert shows up, does the operation to remove the tumor by removing part of the patients femur and putting in cadaver bone, tells the guy that the operation was a success (and all evidence does indeed point to a successful surgery) and the guy goes home coming back the hospital every once in a while to treat an infection in the area of the surgery.
Almost a year passes, and the pain returns again. He has two small tumors where the first one was and a large mass up by the upper surgical margin. The surgeon takes out the two cancerous smaller tumors while the pathologist (sample studier) looks at the biopsy (mass sample) from the larger mass. She thinks it's cancer and so does her supervisor, but it's sent out for second opinion to the MAYO Clinic. A word famous pathologist says it's not cancer, claiming it to be heterotopic ossification (calcification of surrounding muscle caused by issues between the patients bone and the cadaver bone.). He explains his reasoning and the pathologist at the patient's hospital agrees, changes her diagnosis, and the surgeon leaves the mass alone (heterotopic ossification isn't cancerous or malignant).
Weeks pass, and the assumed harmless growth has increased in size to that of a soccer ball (I'd say football but that might confuse some). Upon reexamination the growth is revealed to be recurrent cancer and to make matters worse it has stepped up in grade (the higher the grade the greater the chance of spreading elsewhere.). At this point the patient takes his problem elsewhere, and another hospital performs an emergency amputation in hopes stopping it from spreading to other areas of his body.
Months later, an MRI scan shows that there may be two small tumors in his left lung. Problem is, MRIs can't pick up tumors until they are a certain size. It is found that the patient actually has 20 tumors in his chest. He probably won't live to see 2009. He's down a lung, missing a leg, bound to a wheel chair and has an assisted breathing tube... and he was looking right at me. Myself, and 11 other people would decide if the first hospital was responsible for letting his cancer get to the point where it spread to his chest and will later kill him.
There wasn't much evidence to prove this. Quite the opposite, it seemed like they did everything by the books. The misdiagnoses of the tumor was the most questionable, but the surgeon and hospital were the defendants, the pathologist was minor as far as the plaintiff's case was concerned. The lawyer tried to pin it on the surgeon, and made a lot of claims, but trials are about evidence.
We found the hospital not guilty, in a vote of 10 to 2, I was one of the 10. I did what I felt was right. I think the doctors in that hospital did their jobs, did what any one of us would have done.
Why then, do I feel like shit? I'd love to hand out money to everyone who has had to go through the pain and suffering related to this disease, but I can't justify taking money from a hospital that was trying to provide the best care for it's patient to do it. The man will be dead soon, his young wife left with nothing but legal bills after he's gone. He was 24 when he was diagnosed, only two years older than I, and he'll die before he reaches 30. I can't stop thinking about how pathetic he looked, how hopeless, bound to that chair, breathing out of a tube. I can't shake the image from my mind.
I don't feel like doing anything. My hobbies don't cheer me up, I've been alienating my friends, I'm not sleeping well, the list goes on. I did what I know was right, I don't question that and I haven't changed my mind about it. I just wish I felt better about it.
I'm not even sure what sort of help I'm asking for here, but if you've got any suggestions about depression or dealing with guilt I'll take what I can get.
SteamID - Fig-D :: PSN - Fig-D
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You might not feel like doing anything with your friends, but I think you should try anyway. Get together with them, talk to them about it. If they know how you're feeling, they can help you through this bit of depression you've got right now, and believe me, talking about this kind of thing with someone face to face is a hell of a lot more effective than words on a screen.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Grumpy cynicism aside: it is important you talk about this with others, letting it linger inside your brain is not going to cheer you up, if you can tell the story to others you can create some distance between it and your own mind.
Aside from that, we then have this issue. If you want to now go and try to help this guy then there's nothing stopping you doing that now the trial is over. You could see if there are any charities you can volunteer for/donate to, and that kind of thing.
EDIT: Surely there must be something set up to counsel people like this after jury duty. The nature of it means that quite a few people feel like this afterward.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
What's done is done. And you felt like you did the right thing. If it means anything, I also feel that you did the right thing. Your logic is completely sound.
But please...please don't alienate the people around you and get sucked into a well of depression because someone else's life sucks. Misery loves company and it looks like his misery is dragging you down too.
There are some harsh realities in life. Some things just suck and some choices we make really between a rock and a hard place. Some dilemmas are morally insoluble.
All you can do is be happy with your own situation and move on.
Very true. Perhaps especially so for cancer. Its a lesson we'll all learn in life, sooner or later. Shitty, shitty stuff happens to all sorts of people, and it can be totally random (or seem that way) as to who comes through fine, and who ends up with a situation like the man in this trial.
Willeth raises a good point, there may be counselling available for jurors, I'd recommend contacting someone from the court and see what the options are. Alternatively, theres various counselling options available depending on where you want to go and how you want to handle it. You may want to talk to your doctor as well, you've got a lot of the standard depression symptoms.
If you feel like maybe doing something to help people with cancer, you could look into volunteering for a cancer related charity, there are all sorts of those, or participating in one of many charity runs/walks they hold. It might make you feel like you're doing something positive for people in this man's situation.
I'm not sure you should just wait and hope this gets better as others have said. I think you should take some action to try and work through this.
Like, life support, or something.
It's a shity situation all around, and you feel and know what you did is right.
thats also why health insurance is so high nowadays.
Dude, seriously, don't bring that shit up in here. If you want to be like that, please go to D&D.
OP: You did the right thing. The doctors' did the best they could. No-one could ask for anything else. It's sad for the guy, but he couldn't be helped, through no fault of anyone. You will feel better in time, because you know inside (even if you can't feel it right now) that you did everything right.
If after a few weeks you aren't feeling any better, or are feeling more "blah" or "blue" or however you want to describe it, then you should seek professional treatment for possible clinical depression.
I think a lot of the above posters nailed it on the head - you did do the right thing, but you became relatively close to someone who suffered very badly - it's only natural to feel very shitty about what that guy went through.
But seriously, do whatever it takes to re-engage with life. This may sound over-dramatic, but: Depression can absolutely destroy your life. Not to mention the toll it takes on those who care about you.
It's not his fault
It's not his surgeon's fault
It happens. Even if surgery had been performed immediately, two weeks would not have made a huge difference in that guy's prognosis.
Now not taking out the mass that was beyond the surgical margin was a bit of a mistake; those should always go, but oh well. I've only studied cancer ad nauseum; I'm no physician.
Basically, everyone makes mistakes. You did not make a mistake. It's time to enjoy your own life while you have it.
They cast a shadow like a sundial in the morning light. It was half past 10.
Typing everything out is a great start, try going over the same stuff with a friend or family member. Add in how things made you feel, the verdict, having to look at the man, the doctors etc.
There's nothing wrong with getting back to work, and into your normal pattern, but make sure you've dealt with the emotions you've been going through, pushing them down is not the best answer.
This may sound all touchy feely, but it really truly works. It's stupid, but everyone deals differently, so don't be ashamed or embarrassed about how you feel or what your reactions are/were.
Your crisis shouldn't be "did I fuck up?" Your job had nothing to do with that man's life, and only to do with the failure of those doctors to do their jobs. It seems like you got (reasonably) really sad about seeing how screwed that guy got, and how someone's fate can change in seconds due to factors completely out of their control. The way you've described it, it seems like you feel powerless to help even though you were technically empowered some way in this whole debacle, and now you feel guilty that you didn't use your power to "help" the man by finding the doctors guilty. Now you feel like you're part of the problem, like another factor weighing against that man's life in a long series of him getting screwed by others.
Don't.
You have no control over that man's fate, only over the fate of the doctors. You made the right decision.
If you feel powerless, if you want to help, have you thought about volunteer work? There are lots of people in really shitty situations that absolutely need someone like you (who clearly has a lot of empathy) to lend a hand. Some suggestions would be volunteering at a hospice, helping out at youth groups, helping out families in need, etc. The shit that goes down in a single day in places like the DRC and Darfur are literally unfathomable even after you start hearing the stories.
Don't just take "man, the world is fucked up" away from this experience. Try and figure out how to make things better and then follow through.
I'll be alright, time is a wonderful healer, I just felt really down after the trial. I hate seeing people go through that sort of thing. See, my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2002, and my grandfather on my mother's side was diagnosed with prostate cancer earlier this year. I kept thinking about how I would have felt if my dad had been given the same sort of death sentence, I would have been angry to. Chances are I'll run into prostate cancer later down the road and I can only hope the doctor's will do the best they can for me. No one is perfect, but I like to think that the people who make a career out of helping others do their best.