A 73-year-old woman in Colorado died on Friday, nine months after doctors wrongly removed her kidneys. The surgery followed a mistaken diagnosis of cancer two months prior.
Prior to her death, Linda Woolley told Denver news station KDVR that her “life was totally changed” after she underwent the needless surgery in May, which doctors at the University of Colorado Hospital ordered after telling her in March that they’d found cancer in both of her kidneys based on pathology reports. But she later discovered that the reports actually showed “no evidence of malignancy” from results “consistent with a benign process.”
Woolley had been leading an active life before the surgery, riding horses and swimming in her free time. But the medical mix-up put an end to all that, leading the grandmother to undergo four-hour dialysis treatments three times a week.
“Dialysis is no picnic no matter how used to it you get,” she told KDVR. “It robs you of your life.”
Woolley discovered the nightmare scenario when a follow-up biopsy of her kidneys revealed “no evidence of carcinoma” and “no mass lesion identified.” She called the ordeal “a big mistake,” and told KDVR at the time that she was considering a lawsuit. When asked if she felt the University of Colorado owed her an apology, she replied through tears, “I feel like they owe me a kidney.”
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