A Mother's Day Without Justice for One Mom

By COLIN MINER (Patch Staff)

“Where is the justice,” a weary Lori Spiesschaert asks, after hearing a court decision could force her and her family into bankruptcy.

Lori is the single mother of a child, who while healthy now, has been near death and is a bad cold away from potentially serious problems.

Her son, Tyson, was six-months old when she and her husband took him in for his check-up.

They mentioned concerns about constipation.

“It never occurred to us that it was a tumor,” she says. “Or what would come next.

What was next was that Tyson would end up at Oregon Health Sciences University Hospital fighting for his life.

In the process of removing the tumor from Tyson, the surgeons at OHSU cut vital blood cells and he lay on the table and bled.

For 45 minutes.

And no one noticed.

It caused his liver to fail.

“It was a catastrophic mistake and as they tried to put my son back together they kept making things worse.”

There were three surgeries at OHSU.

“He just kept getting worse,” Lori says.

Tyson ended up at Stanford where they have pediatric transplant specialists who were able to take a piece of Lori’s liver and put it in her son.

There would be four more surgeries at Stanford.

It was rough going for mother and son but they made it through.

At great cost.

They left with a medical bill from Stanford for $5 million; $4.5 million for Tyson’s care, $500,000 for Lori’s care.

OHSU paid the family $3 million - the most allowed after the Oregon legislature passed a cap in 2009.

Lori sued.

“This has never been about getting rich, about padding our bank account,” she says. “Even with what they paid, we were still in debt.

“Millions of dollars in debt.”

As much as $3 million sounds, it barely made a dent.

“We gave a $1 million to Stanford to pay down the bill,” Lori says. “But there was also money that had to be repaid to the insurance companies.”

Understand this. Tyson was not an uninsured child. With insurance from both parents, he was actually double covered.

“But once the hospital admitted to having made a mistake, the insurance companies said it was no longer their responsibility to pay and demanded their money back.

“So, three million may seem like a lot but it was gone very quickly.”

They saw less than one-third of what OHSU paid.

During the trial, the lawyer for the hospital conceded the family deserved “about $8 million.”

The jury agreed. And then some.

They awarded the family $12 million - $6 million for medical bills, $6 million for pain and suffering.

The judge upheld the verdict.

OHSU fought it and appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court, saying the cap is the cap. The hospital’s lawyers argued that OHSU paid $3 million and are not obligated to pay one penny more.

On Thursday, the Court agreed.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Lori says. “I still can’t believe it. This is not about us getting rich. This is us struggling to pay medical bills that they caused. This is us facing what will be a lifetime of medical bills for Tyson.

“We’re not looking for anything other than to pay the bills we have because of what was done to Tyson. I understand the law is the law but how is this right? All we want is for them to pay the medical bills they made necessary.”

Because of the liver transplant he had to receive, Tyson does not have the immune system that most people do. A cold is a threat. Something like measles could be deadly.

“Imagine being a mom and knowing every day your son is at risk and no matter what you do to protect him, it may not be enough,” Lori says. “In reality, we could've gone through all of this and lost him anyway.”

Lori says there were at least a dozen times during their three months at Stanford when doctors and nurses told her they didn't think that Tyson would make it through the night.

“I don't think I could've survived that,” she says. “I just want to keep him healthy for as long as I can and when he gets sick, I want to be able to pay for his medical care.

“He's a great kid with an amazing personality and I want to protect that innocence and carefree nature for as long as I can.”

Lori says she works hard to shield him from some of the more daunting obstacles facing the family - such as the fact that even with the money from OHSU they are millions in debt with a lifetime of medical bills still ahead.

“We will probably have to declare bankruptcy,” says Lori, who works as medical report writer, not a job that will allow her to pay off the millions she owes Stanford because of mistakes made at OHSU. “Right now I just want him to be a little boy and enjoy life as much as possible.

“He's so incredibly worth every bit of stress and worry we've been through over the last 7 years.”

Lori says at some point, when Tyson is older, she knows he will have lots of questions, will have lots of information to read and digest.

“I’ll answer his questions as honestly as I can,” she says.

In the meantime, she says: “Yes, life kind of sucks right now, but at least he's still here with us. Nothing else really matters, in the grand scheme of things.”

She says she hasn't explained the money and bankruptcy issues to him though he could tell she was upset Thursday when she got the news about the court decision.

“He saw the television interview and heard me on the radio,” she says.

“His reaction was so cute. He goes, ‘Hey, that's my name! Are they talking about me?

“Can I go watch Netflix?" It totally brightened my day.”