He could die or what not say in front of a seven year old

[starsinthesky]

My son has an AVM in his brain. 1/1/11 it ruptured and he nearly died. He is perfectly fine now, just goes in for a MRI and angiogram.

Anyway, he was in a children's hospital for 20 days and was transfered to St. Josephs because that is were the Barrow Neuro is and due to his AVM placement that was the best place. So after the test, the whole family is in my son's room, and the resident walks in. And just launches into the results and then says he does need surgery, and they have the following Monday scheduled. Then the idiot starts talking about the risks, and in front of my kid just flat out says he could die. We are stilling in shock because we had been told over and over no surgery. Moron resident suddenly realizes that my son was paying attention eveyword and is visibly upset tries to cheer him up by saying that he is going to have a cool scar. If guessed that that didn't work and we had a child who barely slept the whole weekend dreading surgery, you win a prize.

My sister chased him down the hall and told him that he was terrified. He did come back to apologize, but my sister still wanted to slash his tires. My mom told me that for being the "best" you would think that they would have some common sense.

[Sapphire Silk]

He's a resident. That says it all.

Agreed. He did need to tell the parents all the risks, including that of death. But he should have done so in a private area, away from the patient.

[Eevie]

What an idiot! Poor kid. Hope the surgery goes perfect, sending prayers and good thought your way!

[starsinthesky]

He is fine now. 2nd year of survival and going strong. He has an MRI (in which he is a rock star, not even a twitch of his toes) in March/April. Depending on those results he will either go in for an angiogram or an MRI next year.

[Pixilated]

Glad to hear it all worked out, but yeah, that was beyond stupid, not to mention profoundly insensitive. It's one thing to tell adults all the risks, but kids don't need to hear that.

[firecat88]

That happened to me when I had my spinal fusion.

I was 13, terrified because, to date, this still is the biggest surgery I've had (10+ hours in the OR, 5 days in ICU, another 2 weeks in the hospital after that because of various crap that happened, then a month-or-so of being bedridden), and already a weepy mess. So this guy walks over while we're in the waiting room during pre-op day and starts going over the procedure. The look that my mom gave him when he mentioned that one of the risks was death could've frozen fire.