Oregon Woman's Claims Doctors Removed Her Breasts, Uterus After Nurse Misread Report

An Oregon woman is suing multiple medical professionals who she claims removed her breasts and uterus after misreading her test reports.

The 36-year-old Elisha Cooke-Moore is seeking $1.8 million from Curry County Health District and members of her medical team after she underwent a double mastectomy and a hysterectomy last year based on genetic tests that medical professionals mistakenly showed she carried cancer-causing genes.

According to the Oregonian, Cooke-Moore stated her gynecologist Dr. William Fitts told her that generic blood tests indicated that she had up to 80 percent chance of getting uterine cancer and 50 percent chance of getting breast cancer.

According to CBS affiliate KTVL-TV, the suit filed last Thursday also named a nurse Lori Johns and a surgeon Jessica Carlson. Cooke-Moore claimed she underwent a genetic test to determine her risk of cancers in 2015. She was tested positive for BRCA 1 and BRCA 2— inherited gene mutations associated with elevated risks of cancer.

She also said Fitts erroneously told her she had the MLH1 gene mutation and Lynch syndrome which indicate an increased risk of colorectal, uterine, ovarian and other cancers, the Daily mail reported.

Although the results came negative, Johns misunderstood them and told her that she had the MLH1 gene mutation and Lynch syndrome the mother of five said in her lawsuit. However, the Oregonian said the lawsuit did not explain why doctors removed her breasts based on the diagnosis of the gene mutation and Lynch syndrome.

The doctors did not verify the results and “continued to negligently rely upon the misinterpreted genetic testing results,” the lawsuit further said.

Cooke-Moore said she found the mistake earlier this year when she was reading through the results of her tests and found that they read “negative.”

She said she felt “devastated at the time. “I’m just not sure how you can mistake a negative for a positive,” Cooke-Moore said.

“It’s terrible, I can’t even find the words to tell you,” she added. “As a woman, they took what God gave me. I don’t even feel like I am one at times.”

The lawsuit further claimed that the surgeon botched the mastectomy and placement of implants. Cooke-Moore said she had more than 10 corrective surgeries over the course of months and is still in pain every day.

“Almost every week, every seven to 10 days, I was in there for surgeries,” Cooke-Moore said. “Sometimes I don’t believe this is real. How could this happen to me?”

The Daily Mail also quoted her saying: 'My nipples rotted, my implants were popping out, my skin was ripping,'

“Quite frankly, we are stumped to why they would make this mistake,” said Cooke-Moore's attorney, Christopher Cauble told the Oregonian.

Responding to the reports, Fitts told the Daily Mail: "I got the medical literature to support what I did and we'll see how it comes out in court. I'd love to sit down and tell everyone what happened, but that could make me look vindictive."