Sacramento Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog

(Please note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the proceedings.) XV. LIFE CHANGE Since being diagnosed as a quadriplegic, Mr. Smith's entire life has changed. In his deposition on page 184, lines 10 through page 189, line 4, Mr. Smith testified how dramatically his life has changed: “A. My life has changed. I lost control of my bowel movement. I have accidents two or three times a month. I lost use of my legs and my left hand. I can’t work because as a plant supervisor there are no other job at this time. I worked a lot. I spent a lot of money on my backyard building a fish pond and building water falls, put a lot of trees in, a lot of bushes in so I could take care of them when I retired and I can’t do that now and that’s what I planned on doing when I retired, but now most of it is lost. I can’t drive so I need to have somebody to help me every time I go somewhere. When I get up, I have a hard time dressing myself. I need to do that while I’m still in bed to get my pants on. I have trouble getting in my wheelchair on my own. I can do so, but I wouldn’t want to do it without somebody being there. My bathroom, I need extra room and I had to lower everything down in my bathroom so I could shave and clean myself and shower. The toilet, I need bars on there and I have had a hard time getting off and on. I need to stimulate my bowel movement every morning in order to have a movement, which we already talked about. If I take stool softeners, which I’m supposed to do, I have more accidents and that’s probably one of the worst things that happened to me in this whole thing, I think, is my own personal - - is having a bowel accident. I have to, you know, and it’s just - - I go to pieces when that happens. I have a three-inch hole in my back that needs to be changed three times a day. I put down two, two or three times a day. Someone has to - - my son has to do it now. I take a lot of pain pills, the Vicodin, because of my pain in my back and my legs hurt a lot. I wake up during the night hurting a lot and have a lot of leg spasms. I feel a lot better now since I came back from Palo Alto, though, this time. I have a better attitude. I’m trying to work towards trying to have a better attitude making myself - - before I went to Palo Alto, I was - - laid in be all the time and I didn’t do nothing besides lay in bed and feel sorry for myself. I’m trying to change that. Just dressing, I need to rest afterwards. It’s a shame here, I try to dress myself, then I have to rest, you know, because I get tired. Taking a shower I get tired which don’t sound like it makes sense, but I get so tired. Just sitting in a chair sometimes I get so tired and so sick, I have to lay down. If I lay down a couple hours I feel I can get back up like today I went pretty good.