Earlier this month, a woman filed a medical malpractice lawsuit based on claims that a doctor’s failure to properly her pseudotumor cerebri resulted in her blindness.
Jenoise Callahan filed the malpractice lawsuit against Dr. Scott Bledsoe and Wesley Medical Center on May 13 in Kansas. Here, she claims that she sought treatment for vision loss and severe headaches at the Wesley emergency room on May 15, 2014. She says that though she was previously diagnosed with pseudotumor cerebri, Dr. Bledsoe believed treatment for that condition was unnecessary and sent her home from the ER with a prescription for Diamox (a drug prescribed for symptoms of altitude sickness W) and for Lasix (a diuretic).
Two days later, her symptoms had worsened to more severe pain and increased vision loss. She returned to the Wesley ER on May 17, 2014. This time, an MRI and a spinal tap (lumbar puncture) confirmed that she had elevated cerebrospinal fluid indicative of psuedotumor cerebri. Though a neurosurgeon implanted a shunt to drain this excess fluid from around her brain, the treatment was too late and she says she suffered irreversible vision loss.
Pseudotumor cerebri (PTC) gets its name (“false brain tumor”) because it mimics the symptoms of a brain tumor. Also referred to as idiopathic intracranial hypertension, this condition is a result of accumulated cerebrospinal fluid in the skull which puts pressure on the brain and optic nerve. According to the Mayo Clinic, symptoms of PTC may include headaches, vision loss, visual disturbances, and double vision, among others. If diagnosed early, some patients may be effectively treated with medications. In other cases, however, it is necessary to place a shunt or take more extreme measures to reduce the pressure caused by the excess fluid as quickly as possible. When this does not occur, as in the alleged case of Jenoise Callahan, permanent blindness can result.
According to Callahan’s lawsuit, Dr. Bledsoe should have recognized that her symptoms were indicative of excess cerebrospinal fluid, especially as she had already been diagnosed with pseudotumor cerebri. As a result of his failure to provide the correct treatment, she claims, she has suffered permanent vision loss.
She claims, “Plaintiff Jenny Callahan’s permanent loss of vision/blindness was caused or contributed to be caused by the failure to decrease her intracranial pressure and cerebral spinal fluid pressure through a lumbar puncture/spinal tap while she was a patient of the emergency department of defendant Wesley during the afternoon of May 15, 2014, and the failure to decrease her cerebral spinal fluid pressure and her intracranial pressure through the placement of a shunt.”
It is not noted what caused Callahan’s pseudotumor cerebri. In recent years, a number of women have claimed that the birth control device Mirena caused them to develop this condition, and that the makers of this IUD (intrauterine device) failed to disclose this risk to American consumers. If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with pseudotumor cerebri or other dangerous Mirena side effects, you could be entitled to compensation.
When patients’ trust in their doctors is violated by medical negligence and/or malpractice, those patients may suffer severe, permanent, or even fatal consequences. To learn more about how injured patients and their loved ones can pursue justice after medical errors, please contact us for a free legal consultation.
