November 8th 2018 11:30am.

Today is November 8th 2018 and it has officially been an entire year since I lost my grandma. I have never experienced losing a relative this close to me in all of my adult life so when she passed away I was honestly very depressed and unsure of how I was going to manage life without her. I would constantly have dreams about her when she passed away and I still do if I am being honest. I know it has been a while, and this is going to be my last blog post but before I sign off for good I wanted to give people a few lessons so that what happened to my family does not happen to yours.

One of the mistkaes that my family made I feel like was completely putting our trust into the hands of a doctor who had absolutely no personal connection to our family. While doctors are not supposed to become personally involved in the lives of their patients, the disconnect that developed between our family and Dr. McGuire was very unsettling in hindsight. It should not be asking too much for a family to be able to trust wholeheartedly that the doctors who take care of our loved ones actually care and are not just in it for a paycheck. While this expectation is not absurd it is an expectation I will never have again, because all it did was leave our family hurt and disappointed. My lesson here is that for anyone, but especially black patients and the families of black patients, it is important that you feel comfortable and like you can trust the doctors you interact with. While white doctors have had a history of treating black patients poorly it would be wrong to say they all did this. There were signs such as negative attitudes, dishonest reporting, and weird test results that you should look out for, that should have alarmed us but we were too blind with our trust, thinking that he would never let something happen to my grandma that could have been preventable. Although, her death might not have been intentional we feel like if he had been a little more attentive the outcome might have been completely different.

After my grandma passed away the general practitioner that diagnosed her with the early stage kidney failure that Dr. McGuire never caught not only called us and spoke to us for 10 minutes to send her deepest sympathies, but also sent our family a card. Mind we have known this doctor for about 5 fewer years that we have know Dr. McGuire and he only spoke with us for about 45 seconds after her passing. While neither of them were in no way obligated to call or send us anything it was heartwarming to know that her general practioner Dr. Meyer cared enough to do so anyways. I think the lack of care on part of Dr. McGuire was very telling of his true feelings towards not only my grandma, but also our entire family. For me it confirmed earlier suspicions that I had regarding the way he was treating my grandma.

Our progress on our lawsuit is doing well because our lawyer does feel like there was wrongdoing on part of Dr. McGuire. He told us that there were quite a few steps that Dr. McGuire did not take that he could have which could have ultimately prevented her death. Without even having to mention it to him our lawyer Aaron Suggs actually told us that he feels like he could even make a case for racial bias towards my grandma, which was shocking to me because I thought it was my paranoia that was telling me this could have been a possibility. The fact that a seasoned lawyer also thinks this lets me know that there was a big issue in the case of my grandma.

Essentially, what I want you all to take away from this post is that there are deep rooted issues within the medical-industrial complex and black patients are usually the ones who endure the consequences. For too long black and brown bodies have been used, abused and manipulated by white doctors and I want everyone to know that this is not something that is only talked about in papers. It is real. It happened to my family and we would do anything to go back and make changes, but we cannot. All we can do is enlighten other people about what is going on and hope that other families do not have to feel the same pain that we deal with everyday. It is hard to not blame ourselves because sometimes we think if we had done something differently then she might not be here, but this is wrong. We did not do anything wrong by trusting Dr. McGuire, he was the one who messed up. I hope our story can teach those who read my blog about the injustices within the medical-industrial complex.

November 17th 2017 12:59pm.

Today is November 17th 2017, and this morning we laid my grandma to rest. I am very hurt by this, but I wanted to let everyone know that we are seeking justice for her. My family is under the impression that my grandma’s life was prematurely taken because of neglect on part of her doctor and my aunt and my mom have already taken the steps to file a lawsuit accusing Dr. McGuire of negligence. Now I know this might seem drastic, but based on some information we know we believe this is the best thing to do. While this will not bring my grandma back, or heal the pain that was caused, it might protect someone else’s relative from the same fate. Now here is why we think it was negligence.

1. if you go back few posts you will see that I mentioned a doctor telling my grandma that her valve was badly calcified, just a few months after Dr. McGuire said her valve looked amazing. (Severe calcification does not occur in a matter of months, meaning that Dr. McGuire was dishonest with his report).Why did he not catch this?
2. The first time my grandma went to the hospital and Dr. McGuire said he already saw the poor report from the doctors, and ordered another echo scan for her he also told us he would recommend her for Silver Spring Hospital Center to see if she was a candidate for TAVR and he never did. Why did he not follow up? Also when we told him that she was having symptoms of shortness of breath why did he not get the process for TAVR started if he knew it would take a long time? Why did he take so long to even reccommend this treatment?
3. My grandma was diagnosed in the hospital with multiple organ failure, but this was something that was new to us (aside from her primary care doctor telling us a few days before that she had kidney failure). If Dr. McGuire did blood tests and urinalyses on her everytime he saw her why did he not catch this?
4. My grandma died from Asymptomatic Severe Aortic Stenosis and this was a diagnosis that Dr. McGuire NEVER made, it was made by a doctor at Olney Hospital. Why did he not make this diagnosis?
5. In the final days of my grandmas life she lost her appetite and was in so much pain that the doctors had to put her own morphine. She was in such agonizing pain because of multiple organ failure, which Dr. McGuire did not catch, but her doctor at the hospital Dr. Sandy told us was related to her heart condition. Why was this something that Dr. McGuire did not pick up on?

A pattern that can be seen with Dr. McGuire is a series of missteps that lead to my grandmother’s death. I am not one to play the race card, but Dr. McGuire was a white male doctor dealing with a black patient and the black family of the patient. I am not calling him racist, but the medical industrial complex has been known to treat black patients less fairly leading to thousands of preventable deaths of black men and women. I personally believe my grandma was a victim of this. I am really struggling to understand how this happened to our family, I honestly never imagined this happening to us. I thought this only happened in movies or in article we read in school. I am really shocked. I guess it doesn’t matter how educated you are, how much money you have, or how good your insurance is, racism seems to transcend all of that.

November 9th 2017 11:54pm

It is Thursday November 9th and I am saddened to report that my grandmother has passed away. I. cant. believe. it. I literally have no words, I keep saying how shocked I am. The last time I wrote to you guys was last saturday and I told you that she was back in the hospital. Unfortunately she never came home. Here is how things went:

Yesterday Wednesday, November 8th I was at school and I told my mom I wanted to come home to see my grandma in the hospital. I was able to do this because my classes on Thursday were all cancelled and I do not have class on Friday so I told my mom I would come home Wednesday evening, and she told me we could see her in the hospital on Thursday morning. My mom has always told me that she thought I was psychic, but I always just thought she was crazy and dramatic until Wednesday kinda. For some reason all day long on wednesday I felt this really eerie sense of foreboding as if something was wrong, but never did I think it was possible. When I arrived at home, my aunt was there because she had been helping my mom with my grandma and as soon as I walked into the house my aunt and my mom told me we could see my grandma that night. I was excited and my aunt went upstairs to put on her shoes and my mom told me to come sit on the couch. As I approached her she told me she needed to tell me something about my grandma and I asked her “does she look thin” I asked because I knew she had lost her appetite and had not been eating well. My mom shook her head no and when I sat down she told me that she had passed away. Guys, I really do not know what to do, I know people do not live forever and my grandma was 83, but she really had so many years left in her. She has always been such a vibrant woman who looked and acted years younger than her actual age so that fact that she is gone is completely shocking to me. Anyways I needed to vent, but I can no longer see the screen very well through my tears. I would never wish this type of pain on anyone. I will update when I can.

November 4th 2017 5:30pm

Sooooo my mom told me that she had to take my grandma back to the hospital on Saturday. She is doing really poorly and my mom says that she is in a lot of pain, on Wednesday she had an appointment with her family care doctor and they surprisingly told her that she had early stages of kidney failure, which is odd because she drinks a ton of water. My mom thinks it has more to do with the fact that her heart is not doing what it is supposed to, and I agree, but the good news is that she is in the hospital and they think she might be able to get the surgery in a few days to fix her valve and then hopefully everything can get back to normal. Of course, Dr. McGuire has been absolutely no help during this process, and the one time my aunt called him he gave her an attitude. I am beginning to think more and more that he really just does not have my grandma’s best interest at heart. Anyways I have classes to study for, my dad is at my apartment at school this weekend helping me clean because I have a really messy roommate. My grandma told him to bring some toilet paper and cleaning supplies from home lol it is good to know she has not lost her funny spirit.

October 15th 2017 9:50am

My mom told me that my grandma’s appointment on Monday with Dr. McGuire went alright. They told her that she would need another surgery to repair the valve, they gave her two options an open heart surgery or a TAVR (Transcatheter aoritc valve replacement), the TAVR is much less invasive, but it is relatively new in the states. Another problem with TAVR is that the process for it being a candidate for it are relatively long, but Dr. McGuire said he would see if he could get the process started. I am excited that we have found a long term solution to fix the problem, but at the same time I am disappointed that she needs another surgery a little over four years since she got her first open heart surgery. They told us she would not even need to think about this happening for at least 10 years but clearly they were wrong. Everyone is different so I am trying not to be too pessimissic, but I am pretty frustrated with everything going on. Dr. McGuire has not been too good at keeping us in the loop so that is aggravating me because I feel like he dodges questions and is not very thorough. Why is he not concerned that her vlave went bad already if he said in 2013 that is should last for 10 years? I will update again soon.

September 10th 2017 11:20am

Sooo it has been a few days since my grandma came home from the hospital, but I came home because I wanted to spend some time with her. She unfortunately is not doing very well it seems because she does not really have much of an apetite, and she seems to be breathing heavy just from walking from her room to the kitchen which is literally about 20 steps. In my opinion, that is not very good. She has a doctors appointment with on Monday and hopefully we can get some answers then. I am just really upset today because just a few months ago she seemed to be doing much better, now all of a sudden she is in and out of the hospital two times in the matter of a couple of weeks. It does not help that Dr. McGuire is being rude to my mom and not really attentive to my grandmother. I will let you guys know how everything goes in a few days.

September 5th 2017 4:30pm

Soooo, I feel like recently my blog post has taken such a turn for the negative and as much as you guys probably hate to read about it all the time, I hate to write about it even more than you hate to read about it. So it has been about a week since I last updated, and my grandma is in the hospital again, for something similar she was having shortness of breath and of course Dr. Knowitall McGuire was already notified of it. The doctors at the hospital not my grandma’s doctor asked for an emergency echo scan, the one I mentioned a few blog posts ago and told my mom that her valve looked SO BAD and calcified (when calcium deposits form on the valve) that if he did not know she already got it replaced he would have thought that this was the original bad valve. Now let me ask you a question, why is it that just a few months ago her cardiologist was saying that everything looked perfect. Im sorry, but I refuse to believe that calcification that bad could be caused within a matter of months, it just does not make sense. So I believe Dr. Knowitall McGuire has been slacking a little bit on the job when it comes to my grandma’s health. My mom is already looking into switching to another doctor, but that process is kind of hard because Dr. McGuire was supposed to be the best in the area. I am sorry if it comes across as though I am being disrespectful of a medical professional, but honestly my grandma’s health means a lot to me and it upsets me when I feel like her doc is not taking her seriously. She should be home from the hospital soon, but I really wish she did not have to go through this.

August 31st 2017 11:45pm

Okay guys so I know I already posted early and it is late at night, BUTTT I just really needed to get on here to write something quick to vent. Earlier I said that there was a miscommunication between my mom, Dr. McGuire and my grandma, but I am really pissed off with something Dr. McGuire did. I totally respect all doctors because they are healers and their jobs are stressful with such long hours, but my grandma’s cardiologist was actually very rude to my mom and my mom just told me about it. My mom called Dr. McGuire earlier to tell him about how my grandma was in the hospital and as she was going to tell him why she brought her there Dr. McGuire interrupted her and said “You dont have to tell me I know”. I mean HOW RUDE IS THAT?!?! are you kidding me??? Even if he did know about why she was at the hospital he did not have to say it in such a condescending manner. He is really on my bad side now and I feel like he is not treating my grandmother very fairly. I understand that he is the doctor and that he is the one who went to years of medical school but this is my grandma and my moms mom and we spend everyday with her. No, we are not physicians, but we do know when something is wrong and we should be allowed and feel comfortable enough to let my grandma’s doctor know right? am I wrong for feeling this way? Idk I just feel like something is very off with this, but I hope I am wrong. Maybe he was just having a bad day or something. I just want to make sure my granmda is getting the best treatment because we have really great insurance and if Dr. McGuire will not take her seriously maybe we should see someone who will. Maybe I am just being over dramatic. Anyways I just needed to vent about that…I will post another update when I can.

August 31st 2017 4:15pm

I know this is a pretty different post from my last one and it has been a few months it is now August, but my grandmother unfortunately landed herself in the hospital because she started experiencing shortness of breath. My mom took her to the hospital early in the morning because it really started to bother her and they basically told her that she had been taking her lasix incorrectly. For those who do not know, lasix are basically a pill that she was given by her cardiologist to help prevent fluid from building around her heart. So it is a pretty important medication and she had been taking it once a day when she should have been taking it twice. I am pretty disappointed for a couple reasons 1. because I hate to see my grandma not feeling well, but 2. my mom is convinced that Dr. McGuire had originally said the wrong thing. My mom was at the appointment when he told her abou the lasix and she said that he told her to only take it once a day because she was doing so well. I do not know who is correct really because it is a matter of he said she said, but I am more inclined to believe my mom because but idk, all I know is that this should not have happened. The good news is that since she changed the way she started taking the medicine she is already beginning to feel better, and the doctor at the hospital idk his name said she should be able to go home by tomorrow, so that is pretty exciting.

June 19th 2017 11:07am

Sooo its been a couple days since my grandma saw her doctor and the news she was received was great. My mom went along with her just so she could also hear what he had to say and she told me that Dr. McGuire said he would not have to see her again until June 15th 2018 because everything looked so good! I am really excited for my grandma because I know how much she hates driving all the way down to silver spring and having to wait for a long time for her appointment (he is a very busy doctor and she is a little pretentious, but we love her lol). Anyways she is happy about not having to see him for a while as well, but best of all this means that she is healthy and I will get to have my grandma around for years to come. I was so happy about the news that I took her to Jimmy Cone to celebrate, that is her favorite place to go because she says they serve “Real Ice-Cream” whatever that means. Anyways we had a good time and I think we will do it a few more times this summer because we both had a really good time. My grandma lives with us and basically had a hand in raising us so we are really close and I consider myself lucky to have such a close relationship with her. Well that is all for this update, I am pretty busy this summer, working at the pool and taking a spanish class at my local community college, so forgive me if I take a while to post another update.