Twin Girls Medically Kidnapped Due to Hospital Missing Signs of MBD
Ever since I can remember, I said with a smile “I hope I have twins!” Growing up as a single child I often found myself wishing I had a sibling to share fears, worries, and triumphs. My children shared my womb, DNA, but most importantly, they share a story, our story, about our unrelenting tango with the Justice System. Our story demonstrates the very concept of “full circle” – I’m now able to help other parents navigate the “system” that left me drowning. I remember those days well, because in a system designed for parents to fail, you’re not just fighting against the elements, you’re fighting to become a person you never aspired to be. The monsters are real and they don’t hide under the bed, some of them wear badges and infiltrate your family under the guise of “help.”
I became a mother to twin girls on September 1st, 2020. Our family resides in Los Angeles, California. My husband and I were falsely accused of child abuse, and our children were medically kidnapped over a gross misdiagnosis by UCLA Children’s Hospital and the failure of proper investigation of child abuse allegations by Department of Children and Family Services.
Looking back, our story seems simple compared to other cases I’ve reviewed and audited, but at the time, it felt like the world was collapsing while it teetered on the truth and the justice system. I’ve learned that the “system” is often times incapable of investigating the cases that later become binding agreements about the rights of a family. Most families are not prepared to address a false allegation, that is especially true if they are simultaneously trying to get answers to the medical issue at hand, and sometimes that gets overlooked.
My husband and I both work for multiple hospitals but in six months after we became parents, we learned for the first time what a medical nightmare truly was. Our daughter was hospitalized following a suspected flu or upper respiratory infection UCLA children’s hospital, where my daughter was admitted for three months was perplexed. After several lymphangiograms to identify the cause of our child’s pleural effusion, the only option left was surgical intervention, which was successful, and our daughter got to come home after a grueling two months of questions and concerns. My husband and I spoke to the medical team as well as the surgeon who operated on our daughter, and we were told that the cause of the fluid around our child’s lungs was an isolated “skin tag” that was attached to a vertebral body. The skin tag was biopsied and found to be benign, the problem appeared to be solved.
Our daughter was home was less than 72 hours before we knew something wasn’t right. We were given a prescription for liquid Tylenol and instructed to administer the medication as needed, given our child’s post operative state. Despite this we noted that she was fussy, at times running a low grade fever, and her left leg began to turn pink and was warm to the touch. I am a nurse and reasonably understood that this was not part of routine recovery, our child did not have any surgeries on her leg. I sent a photo of her leg to one of the specialists at UCLA who informed me that its likely “cellulitis” and advised us to bring our child back to get appropriate antibiotics.
This theory was logical, given our daughter’s extensive hospital stay and frequent blood draws. We got in the car and went back to the same hospital that we left just a few days ago. We soon learned that our daughter was discharged with a bone infection, otherwise known as osteomyelitis. We were concerned, we had a lot of questions about her care and importantly, how this was missed prior to her getting cleared for discharge. We were stonewalled, avoided, and accused, and soon the conversation changed from how UCLA discharged my daughter with a bone infection to how we (the parents) caused this.
Child Protective Services
The hospital contacted CPS (Child Protective Services) and accused us of physically abusing our daughter. It happened the day after my husband and I asked reasonable questions which the medical team had no answers to. Instead of figuring out what caused my daughters bone infection, the hospital put her on high doses of strong IV antibiotics and placed her left leg in a sling.
Our daughter was on antibiotics for an entire month, it became a concern that she was developing toxicity, the hospital ran additional labs.
The medical team measured the circumference of her left leg and documented it on a whiteboard. This was done to ensure the swelling is going down, not due to the alleged fracture, but due to the bone infection. One day I decided to measure the leg myself, I used the small white tape measure that was at my daughter’s bedside, and I found that the measurement logged earlier that day was off, significantly. I informed the charge nurse and she re-measured and agreed, then she quickly erased the documented measurement on the white board and replaced it with the true, accurate result.
While it remains unclear why the hospital was intentionally avoiding discussing osteomyelitis, the social worker from the County was made aware of this and ignored the finding as well. Regardless, both of our children were removed from our care while the County investigated the hospitals child abuse allegations. I decided to do my own investigation and began to audit my children’s ten thousand pages worth of medical records.
Metabolic Bone Disease
I extracted every single lab done for my daughter; I arranged the data on an excel sheet with dates, times, results, and discrepancies. I noticed that our daughters vitamin D level was very low and when I brought this up to the Medical team, they immediately ordered a rather large dose of vitamin D supplementation. At one point our daughter’s vitamin D result was abnormal because it was too high, and the medical team discontinued the supplementation.
There was no consideration of the fact that a hormone that’s directly impacts bone health and specifically, bone fragility, made our daughter predisposed to fractures. One of the explanations we received was that “vitamin D alone does not indicate that a child’s bones would be more susceptible to fracture.” This appears to be a mantra of sorts that has been adopted by most, if not all, Child Abuse Pediatricians.
Both my husband and I got an attorney, but as I did more research, I came across an attorney that spoke about bones as if it was an art. “You have to look at the bone from the inside out, not from the outside in.” Medically, this makes perfect sense, so we began our search for an expert in the specialty of Bone health. We had the pleasure of working with two doctors, Dr. Michael Holick from Boston University and Dr. Thomas Grogran from UCLA.
It was clear that the medical community is not bursting at the seams with physicians eager to challenge Child Abuse Pediatricians. Dr. Holick was recommended by several people who found themselves in similar situations. Dr. Holick is an endocrinologist, and he evaluates the case by looking outside of the obvious; the imaging may reflect findings that appear to be fractures in the bone, Dr. Holick looks at the biochemical and genetic make-up of the patient to determine what, if anything, contributed to these occult injuries.
Dr. Holick published over 600 manuscripts in well-respected peer-reviewed journals and more than 200 reviews and book chapters. There have been more than 150,000 citations for his work in the field of calcium, vitamin D and bone metabolism on Google scholar.
I emailed Dr. Holick in 2021, the year our nightmare began. The response was immediate and it was evident that Dr. Holick is an expert who has a true passion for this work. By the time we got an appointment and booked our trip to Boston, I heard from three other families that Dr. Holick helped by performing a comprehensive record review and offering testimony in Court to explain his conclusions based on supporting evidence.
Boston University Medical Center
Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome
Dr. Holick and his partner evaluated my husband and I to determine if there was evidence of a connective tissue disorder, which could explain bone fragility. A Beighton test was performed, and it was clear that I had the markers for EDS, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that affects the collagen elastic matrix, which is fifty percent of our skeleton. Currently there is no specific test for EDS which is why patients are diagnosed based on clinical presentation, family history, and the patients hypermobility.
Dr. Holick diagnosed me with EDS, and he did not find that my husband met the criteria for any connective tissue disorder. We learned that given my presentation, there was fifty percent chance that our daughters too, had EDS.
Metabolic Bone Disease
Dr. Holick reviewed the laboratory values, chemistry panels, and imaging for our daughters and noted additional areas of concern, specifically, the presence of bone remodeling on imaging within two days after birth. It wasn’t inferred that our daughters had fractures in utero, these findings supported that presence of diminished bone mineral density.
We left Boston full of hope as we now had answers. Dr. Holick didn’t just evaluate and diagnose, he spoke to us about considerations moving forward, such as specific sports the children should avoid. Our evaluation wasn’t marginal, it included a prognosis for the future, something we lost sight of during our battle with the system.
When I envision a perfect world, I don’t hear birds chirping on a slow Sunday morning, I see an abundance of physicians like Dr. Holick, they have a passion for helping people and despite facing criticism from colleagues and society, they do not waiver in their quest for justice.
Dr. Holick wasn’t the only physician who disagreed that our children were victims of child abuse. Dr. Thomas Grogan is an orthopedic surgeon that practices at the same hospital that accused us of abuse; UCLA. Dr. Grogan reviewed six months’ worth of imaging focusing on the “healing” progression of the alleged fractures ultimately concluding that the finding on imaging were not fractures. Dr. Grogan wrote a report concluding that our daughters did not have any findings of child abuse, and the findings instead suggested congenital anomalies of the bones.
Our attorneys presented Dr. Holick and Dr. Grogan’s report to the Court, and our case didn’t make it to trial. After a period of negotiation, our case was settled and our children came home.
Full Circle
After our case closed, I decided to go to law school to pursue my Juris Doctor degree. My motivation was the injustice I witnessed not only in my own case, but in several cases that I was lucky to assist in. One case in particular included an allegation of severe child abuse upon discovery of fractures on imaging. Dr. Holick wrote an incredible report and was available to testify to his findings. County Counsel vehemently objected to Dr. Holick testifying, the basis of her argument was that he was “remote.” Nonetheless. Dr. Holicks report was read and considered by the judge.
A few years later another family reached out to me asking for guidance in navigating the Juvenile Justice system. They too had retained Dr. Holick and his report and testimony resulted in a full dismissal of all counts and the family was reunited.
Recently, I was retained on another case as a medical auditor. I learned that Dr. Holick was the expert witness that testified at trial. Due to the family filing a civil lawsuit, Dr. Holick’s expertise was needed a second time. I reached out to Dr. Holick and worked closely with him and the attorneys to secure a report for the purposes of mediation. The judge appreciated Dr. Holick’s professionalism as well as his availability during mediation to answer any questions that may come up.
I know that the truth was on our side. I know that we had proof that this was not child abuse. However I cannot help but wonder, how many people who have had their children taken away based on false allegations, were wronged the way that we were? And how many of them lacked the knowledge to reach out to Dr. Holick, or other experts in their pursuit of justice, to support their cries of innocence? How many of them were paired with a corrupt social worker who did everything in their power to keep the children from ever coming home? The next time you take your child to the emergency room, may be the last time you ever see them again.
