I mentioned in an earlier post that while I was still suffering from sciatic and back pain I had to go to hospital for an overnight stay. I was treated very badly and this is just the start of my official complaint letter. I can’t sit at the computer for huge amount of time so the letter will take a while. There are four or five more incidents similar to this one and I’ll share it all here as I get through my letter.

This day, was by far the worst day of my life. I could not move. If I did any number of muscles would seize up. Sometimes for more than ten minutes at a time. If you could imagine a charlie horse cramp in your leg and then imagine them happening…in every muscle of your back all at once. Or in every muscle of your back all at once as well as all of one side of your body. Imagine having a cramp in your cheek muscle, right under your eye. In your neck, so you couldn’t ever turn left or right. In your big toes, in the arch of your foot. Having your achilles heel feel as if someone has grabbed it and is wringing it out just like a wet towel. I even had one of my eye lids seize up. It was much like my body was in labor, going through full body contractions that I could do absolutely nothing about. I physically could not move myself out of them and spent time frozen on the floor, the couch, in bed and in the bath.

This went on for more than ten hours before I decided it wasn’t going to stop and had to call an ambulance because I would not have been able to sit in the car without screaming all the way to hospital. My only relief was having Tim and Jaxon there to help me through it. To help me move out of a position just to try and stop the cramps. So going to hospital, was meant to be BETTER than the care my husband and four year old son could offer me at home.

It turned out to be the exact opposite in every way, and I will not sit here and let those heartless Dr’s and nurses get away scott free in regards to how I was treated over a 24 hour period.

As discussed on the phone I wish to make an official complaint about the treatment that I received in my recent visit to the Emergency Department of “said hospital”. I believe that the way I was treated for my 24 hour stay was unprofessional, unethical and at times, inhumane. I left the care of the facility feeling belittled traumatised and humiliated. I wish to bring this to your attention. I expect that serious attention will be given to this matter as I am extremely unhappy with how I was treated.

I wont go in to the details of my medical condition, as I know my medical files will tell you of my visits and history. For your information, you can contact Doctor Zaid whom I have been seeing for this issue for quite a few months now at the Health Care Centre in Hoppers Crossing for further records of my pain and management of said pain.

I will tell you that my leg pain started in the 32nd week of my pregnancy (November 2010) At that point it was mild sciatic pain in my upper leg. I expected it would go when I had my baby on December the 1^st 2010 but it continued to get worse after he was born. By the time I started seeing Dr Zaid eight weeks later, I was experiencing all sorts of sciatic and back pain and unable to walk, stand or hold my baby for more than a few minutes at a time. I have been house bound for months.

On the 27^th of July, at 1.30am I started to have full body cramps and spasms that could not be stopped. Perhaps you already know what sciatic pain can do to someone but I’d like to put it here, just so that the issue of the severity of my pain when I called the Ambulance cannot be questioned.

A sciatica muscle spasm is the most painful of all back and leg pain symptoms. Spasms occur when a muscle contracts violently and uncontrollably, ever tightening in a vice-like grip of shear agony.

For nearly 10 hours I stayed at home with my husband and two sons having cramps that would last up to ten minutes and occur up to three or four times an hour. I was desperate for relief when I finally called the ambulance.

They arrived and picked me up and I was brought to the Emergency Department. I was wheeled in to the entrance where I assumed we were waiting for a room to be seen by a Doctor. I was laying on the Ambulance gurney going through one of these attacks when I was told they were going to put me in the ED waiting room to wait for a room. Hearing this news, I had a panic attack, and could not move anything but my neck. I was hysterical and begging them not to take me in to a public place in that condition.

At this point I would like to mention that the male Ambulance officer who attended my pick up told me “Don’t you think you’re laying it on a bit thick?”

I was placed in a wheel chair, frozen in pain, crying and begging not to be left alone, and wheeled in to the emergency waiting room in this condition. The ambulance officers simply walked off without looking back. This, I must say, was the most humiliating experience I have ever had to endure in my entire life. And I’ve been through child birth twice. I had people staring at me. I had no way of contacting my husband to come and help me. I could not move to get my phone. And my cries for help from your staff were completely ignored.

I could not go through this again. It was just awful. I was crying. Jaxon was crying. And Tim had to watch as the love of his life lay writhing in pain on the floor.

If anyone would like to comment and help me get through this letter without it sounding too over the top or too rude (because I am furious now, I was just traumatized when this happened. Now I’m flaming mad!) please feel free to edit this or any other part I put up and put it in to the comments section so I can get it just right.