We Trusted Methodist. They Lied to Us. And Now My Son Will Never Be the Same.

By Reasa

On December 23, 2023, we took our 11-year-old son, Nicholas, to the ER at Methodist Southlake Medical Center because we trusted Methodist.

He had a fever, was vomiting, dizzy, and couldn’t urinate. We were scared. But we believed he was in good hands. We trusted the hospital. We trusted their emergency room doctor, Dr. Teresa A. Proietti, DO.

We were wrong.

Dr. Proietti never came to speak with us about Nicholas’s lab results. She had the nurse tell us that his labs were "normal" and that his inability to urinate was “no big deal”—we were told to “give him a little bit more time.” We were not given a copy of his labs. We were not told that his kidney numbers were rising. We were not told that his vital signs were showing early signs of shock.

We were reassured he was fine. We were told it was viral.

We were misled. We were lied to.

Here’s what we found out after it was too late:

• Nicholas’s creatinine was 1.45—abnormally high for a child, a warning of kidney dysfunction.

• His bilirubin, AST, and glucose were all elevated—evidence of systemic stress and possible liver involvement.

• He was tachycardic (heart rate of 130) and hypotensive (104/49)—classic early signs of sepsis.

• He was unable to urinate, a red flag for serious dehydration or acute kidney injury.

  
  

Despite all this, Methodist never initiated a sepsis protocol. There was no pediatric consult, no ICU transfer, no antibiotics, and no admission. Just Zofran and a discharge.

Nicholas was in the ER for less than two hours before Dr. Proietti discharged him. Later, we obtained the records and discovered something chilling: Dr. Proietti documented that Nicholas’s condition posed a “threat to life or bodily functions.” But she never told us that. She let us walk out of the ER believing our son was stable, knowing full well that he wasn’t.

Less than 48 hours later, our son was in septic shock.

He was rushed to Cook Children’s Hospital, where he required vasopressors to keep his blood pressure from crashing. He underwent four surgeries—two on his wrist, two on his hip—to drain infected joints. He spent over a month hospitalized, most of it in the Pediatric ICU. His life was changed forever.

When we began to share our story publicly, someone commented:

“You’re too stupid to know your kid was deathly ill. People like you shouldn’t be allowed to have kids.” “That’s what you get for going to a non-children’s hospital.”

Let me be clear: We didn’t know. Because the doctor didn’t tell us. Because Methodist didn’t tell us.

We asked questions. We followed instructions. We trusted the answers we were given because we trusted Methodist.

Dr. Teresa Proietti had his vitals. She had the labs. And she chose not to tell us the truth. That’s not just negligence. That’s a violation of medical ethics, of patient rights, and of human decency.

Now, Nicholas lives with the consequences and a long road ahead.

We live with the knowledge that it could have been prevented if only Dr. Proietti had done her job and been honest.

What causes us even more pain is the way the system protects the hospital and the doctor far more than it protects the child they failed.

We’ve been dismissed.

We’ve been ignored.

We’ve had to fight not only the hospital, but cruel, careless voices in our own community who say, “It happens.”

Would they say that if it were their child?

Some relief came when the Texas Nursing Board and the Texas Medical Board began listening.

And when CMS cited Methodist for an EMTALA violation, it explicitly stated what we already knew:

The doctor never told us the truth.

I’m not writing this for pity.

I’m writing this so that no other parent is blindsided by false reassurances in a hospital where they should feel safe.

We trusted Methodist.

Methodist failed us. They lied to us. And now, our son will never be the same.

Read the documents here https://linktr.ee/fighting4nic