The 55-year-old police officer describes in his lawsuit the tragic sequence of events and the negligence of the doctors that turned his life into a nightmare, after he entered the hospital for an appendectomy and was informed a year later that he had terminal cancer.

As the police officer recounts in his lawsuit, which is available to protothema.gr, his nightmare began in early December 2022 when he was admitted to a military hospital for an appendectomy. During the surgery, a portion of his appendix was removed and a sample was sent for biopsy, but the results of this biopsy were delayed for an entire year.

Police Officer in Thessaloniki Informed He Has Cancer a Year After Surgery

The officer specifically describes: “On Saturday, December 11, 2022, while on duty, I felt sharp pain in the lower right side of my abdomen. After my shift, I went home, and the pain continued, even worsening. I took some painkillers (Depon) and lay down. By the afternoon, the pain had intensified, so my two sons, Nikos and Antonis, took me to the emergency department at the military hospital. There, a doctor from the A’ Surgical Clinic examined me, palpated the area, and said that it was likely appendicitis, although he found it rare at my age since I was 53 at the time. After some tests, the diagnosis was acute appendicitis. Based on this diagnosis, the doctor decided that I needed to undergo emergency surgery.”

And so, it happened. The 55-year-old police officer underwent surgery, and the doctor informed him that everything had gone well and that a sample had been taken for biopsy, as is standard with appendectomy procedures. However, the nightmare had already begun without the officer knowing.

He continues: “The next day, December 12, 2022, I was discharged from the hospital. The discharge document, under the heading ‘K.E.N.’ (which stands for Closed Unified Admission), stated ‘Appendectomy without malignancy or peritonitis, no systemic or coexisting destructive issues,’ while the final diagnosis listed ‘Acute Appendicitis.’ However, one year later, on December 19, 2023, I received a phone call from the director of the A’ Surgical Clinic at the Military Hospital, who called me from a mobile phone and asked to schedule an appointment in his office. Given the long time since my surgery in December of the previous year, I didn’t immediately think of the biopsy and asked what the appointment was about. The doctor told me that they had received the biopsy results from my appendix surgery. When I asked if it was something concerning, he said, ‘Unfortunately, it is. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have called you.’ After our conversation, he asked me to call him back a little later on the same mobile number so he could check his schedule and arrange an appointment to fully inform me about the matter, which he did.”

The appointment was scheduled for the next day. Indeed, the following day, I went with my sister and other family members to the hospital for the scheduled appointment. The doctor started the conversation by saying, ‘In the days leading up to Christmas, it’s unfortunate for us to announce such cases.’ He continued by saying, ‘But unfortunately, I have to tell you that the biopsy sample revealed adenocarcinoma (malignancy), and further tests need to be done to see how we can address it, such as CT scans of the abdomen and colonoscopy.’”

When my sister asked why the biopsy results had taken so long, the doctor replied, “I was expecting that question. Normally, they take a while, but in your brother’s case, the results were delayed a bit more because it’s one of those cases that isn’t considered so dangerous.” My sister replied, “It’s tragic that, after a year, you’re telling us that he has cancer,” the officer describes in his lawsuit.

A New Battle for Life Begins

From that moment on, the officer began his battle, as he was informed that during this year, the cancer had metastasized to other organs and had become untreatable.

The officer concludes in his lawsuit: “The cancer I had was related to the acute appendicitis. In the surgery I underwent a year ago, I had cancer inside me for an entire year without anyone, including my doctors, informing me, without any preventive surgeries, or receiving any preventative medical treatment, such as chemotherapy, and without doing anything to save my life!”

“Later, I turned to private doctors and diagnostic centers, and after getting the results of a second biopsy, it turned out that the cancer had advanced. I decided to visit a private oncologist and not continue with the military hospital, as my health had deteriorated to an irreversible point. Ultimately, the surgery was not able to remove all the tumors because the cancer had spread to other organs and was at an advanced stage. The surgeon’s report reads, ‘The condition is considered non-operable,’ a phrase that betrays the advanced stage of the cancer.”