MAYO CLINIC-5cm deep necrotic infection

I’m really hoping for your healing to be strong and complete. Was this a satellite of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota? As you said, thank God you have your life. Reconstruction will be able to help you if you choose in the future. In the meantime, I’m wishing you peace.

Yes-this was a satellite of the Rochester Mayo. This was the Mayo Plastic Surgery Department in Jacksonville, FL. I developed eschar after the surgery and at my 2 week follow up appt Dr. Waldorf told me it would fall off on its own. The follow week the eschar on the areola was surrounded by warm and redness. The swelling had never improved. He told me that the warmth, redness and swelling was due to blood flow. A week or so later - when I was having weepy, yellow discharge and reported this in the Mayo portal with a picture. His PA-Lee Phan told me that this did not necessitate a culture. They did not want me to come back until the following week. By then - I knew they were incompetent and sought the help of a specialized wound care center - I had several surgical debridements, negative pressure wound vac, skin grafts to rebuild volume (where Mayo left me a pothole) Hyperbaric therapy etc. I am on week 12 with a small 1 cm opening that they are closing now. I will have a left breast that will be significantly smaller than the right-buy they did save my nipple. Fortunately, I did really a culture from my wound care team and I had pseudomonas, Klebsiella and serratia. All hospital acquired gram negative infections. With a 5cm deep necrotic infection - I was close to developing sepsis. Had I waited - as Mayo instructed- I truly don’t know what the outcome would have been. Mistakes happen. But for Waldorf and Lee Phan to ignore eschar, swelling, redness, warm and weepy yet discharge is incompetence by anyone’s definition. I am mad at myself that I let him convince me that the eschar, redness, warmth and swelling were normal.

I understand feeling mad at yourself but PLEASE give yourself a break, and focus the anger on whom it belongs which is the medical team. I know too well the helpless anger we can feel when a trusted doctor fouls up that badly. My husband has had a situation in which a doctor did a procedure on him while he’s taking chemotherapy that should never have been attempted and now we’re in trouble. I kept asking myself why we “let” him but these people are our physicians, and we trust them by necessity. I, too, would think redness, heat, and swelling indicate infection, but if the doc told me it wasn’t that I’d probably assume he knew what he was talking about. I hope somehow you can get some justice for what sounds like negligence that’s caused you both physical and psychological pain. Please stay strong!

So sorry that you're dealing with this. Stay strong, and best wishes.

Are you saying you had the initial surgery at Mayo and they refused follow up, or were you looking for them to provide follow up care after you had surgery elsewhere?

I had surgery at Mayo Jacksonville by one of their plastic surgeons, Jamie Waldorf. They followed up with me weekly. And despite the follow up and me sending pictures and questions through the portal they ignored repeated signs of abnormalities and serious infection. 1. Cool Left Breast hours after surgery. 2.Red blistering around Left areola 3.Eschar on left areola 3. warm, red swollen left breast 4.weepy yellow discharge from under eschar on left breast
I will always wonder if they had treated that the red blistering around the areola and subsequent eschar - would I have ended up with a tennis ball size necrotic infection that caused me to lose half of the volume in that breast.