Most parents would be hoping and praying their child receiving cancer treatments would be getting better with each dose.
However, one Indiana mother is facing up to seven felony counts after it was discovered that she was putting fecal matter into her son’s IV line as he was receiving treatment for cancer.
Tiffany Alberts, 41, has confessed to the heinous crime and will be facing a pretrial conference in the new year, on January 17.
Alberts’ 15-year-old son’s condition was investigated soon after the staff at Riley Hospital for Children noticed that he was developing a series of unexplained infections that were not typically associated with his treatment. Doctors even found bacteria consistent with fecal matter in some of blood tests, which left them perplexed as to their origin.
On November 17, a nurse witnessed Alberts injecting something into her son’s IV bag.
When questioned, Alberts says she “flushed the line” of his IV with water, claiming that her son told her the medication they were giving him was burning. However, she later confessed to also injecting fecal matter directly into his IV.
She explained that she did so because she felt the treatment he was receiving was not good enough, and if he were to become sicker, hospital staff would take more notice of his condition and transfer him to a better unit.
Investigators later found a bag full of fecal matter in the boy’s hospital room bathroom, which is believed to be the mother’s.
She has been barred from visiting her son since the November 17 incident. Since then, the boy has not developed any more fevers of unknown origin and is no longer suffering from mysterious bouts of diarrhea, however they note that he is still very sick and suffering from infections as a result of her actions.
Because of the incident in which Alberts injected the matter into her son’s IV line, the boy may have had his treatment delayed much too long, meaning the treatment for his leukemia may not prove to be effective.
He has been in intensive care for 18 days and doctors are putting his chemotherapy on hold to deal with his current health issues and ensure he is strong enough for treatment.
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