This is Elizabeth's story
I lost part of my bowel after it ruptured when I was sent home from the local ER department without tests or diagnosis or treatment for what I was to later learn was diverticulitis.
These people had been nothing short of good to me and I couldn’t believe what was happening to me.
I was so panic stricken and helpless to do anything about it. From the start in the hospital and for six months afterwards I tried to tell any one I could that something had gone wrong, that my bowel ruptured because I got sent home, that I didn’t believe in surgery that I hadn’t been told any of this was going to happen. But no one seemed to be capable of hearing me. My own doctor originally made excuses for what happened saying by the time I’d gotten to hospital it had taken on a life of its own. The resident laughed at me when he and a female resident had come in to see me I think it was about the next day, when I interrupted him after he said surgery had gone well. I said that I don’t believe in surgery- they laughed at me and the male resident said to me “so is that a religious thing or what?” The female laughingly chimed in. “Don’t tell Mike that. He just loooooves surgery”. I had tried to tell social worker and Ostomy nurses who recorded in the notes that I was suicidal and tried to ascertain any suicidal ideation. The social worker seemed to understand more and mentioned on several occasions writing a letter about what happened to me she mentioned the College of Physicians and Surgeons.
The last time I saw the surgeon was six months after the surgery and I told him that I couldn’t stand to live this way. I knew he was upset. So was I. But he wrote in my file that I had visited the ER a month before for abdominal pain where I was diagnosed and treated for a sexually transmittable infection. He also skewed questions I asked in the notes he took. The letter making me sound crazy and that I had an STD was on the top of the pile of photocopied notes sent to me from the College. I was never diagnosed or treated for a sexually transmitted infection a month before or have dyspareunia (painful intercourse) because I had had blood tests that proved I had no infection, sexual or otherwise. I had asked the College of Physicians to access the records from this visit to the ER which weren’t included in the records they sent because it didn’t involve this doctor. He knowingly falsified my records.
The College never did access these records. I did because I knew I could prove it a lie – It took six weeks for me to get the medical records. The college threw out the case without checking the information I asked them to. I am also by law effectively gagged about anything that occurred during their process of looking at my claim. I wrote the College showing copies of the records I had received and asked how I went about getting them corrected. I was sent to the Hospital’s privacy office to begin the process again. Eventually the STD portion of the story was corrected. The surgeon refused to correct the other falsehoods, instead he confirmed some of the lies.
I had been suffering for about four days at the time with unexplained abdominal pain, my bowel ruptured approximately 30 hours after I was sent home. I woke up in the middle of the night with even more intense pain and projectile vomiting. I did not return to the ER at this time. I had been sent home – told to eat something preferably high fiber and that the ER was for emergencies. There were no blood tests done at this time or any kind of tests MRI’s, or cat scans to try to discover what was wrong. I was told by the resident that the ER was for emergencies, which made me feel ashamed that he thought I was abusing the system by coming to the ER.
For four days I continued to work and I was very, very ill, vomiting almost constantly. I could barely walk as the pain was so intense with no sign of relenting. Three days later, I was returned to the ER by my roommate. This time I had blood tests that showed I had a white blood cell count was 28.02. Normal is nine. The attending told me I had diverticulitis and he seemed quite apologetic at my mishandling by the resident the trip before. They gave me gastro-graffin dye to drink and told me to return the next morning for a CT scan. I was told my bowel was ruptured in four places but it was actually only ruptured in one place and the resident told me he was rather impressed that I had walked in of my own accord as he said I shouldn’t be able to walk at all. I was told by him it could be handled in one of two ways: either have the abscesses drained, by needle and let the bowel heal on its own or by surgery. I immediately said no to surgery because I had my spleen removed against my will as a 16-year-old and I suffered PTSD ever since. In fact I had tried to leave the hospital on my own following a car accident.
I said no, I’d do the other one. He hadn’t at any time told me what “surgery” would entail. He said he thought I’d say that but he needed to go upstairs and check with the boss. When he returned he told me I would need surgery anyway. No mention was ever made of what they were going to do…I assumed, wrongfully, that they were just going to drain abdominal abscesses and allow the ruptures to heal on their own as this was the only thing we’d discussed at all and he had seem casual about it like it wasn’t a big deal.
Instead I woke up screaming and having to be held down with an ostomy and part of my bowel missing. I knew immediately something had gone seriously wrong. I felt like I had been cut in half, so extreme was the pain. I don’t know whether I passed out or was given something to put me out.