Leigh's C-Section Story

The trauma that happened, after a planned C-section, has left me a shell of the person I once was.

It was about an hour after being transferred to my room after having the C-section, I felt something 'pop' and immediately knew something was seriously wrong. I immediately lay down and I had my husband and a good friend with me. One ran to call a doctor and the other hit the panic button. They examined my incision and said that all the staples were intact and it looked fine. I told them the pop was inside and it felt like something burst. They sat me up and I immediately started bleeding. They still insisted everything was fine. For the next two days they applied "pressure bandages". I soaked through multiple pads over the next two days and kept telling them something was not right.

Two residents came and said my wound just needed a couple extra staples. This did not stop the bleeding and the excruciatingly painful pressure bandages continued. Finally in the evening my OB-GYN doctor came in and agreed something wasn't right and that he would be back with the residents to decide what to do next. He never returned.

The next day two residents came into my room. My hospital roommate and our babies present, the fathers had gone to get some sleep. The residents said they wanted to take out a couple of staples and look around underneath to see if they could see the source of the bleeding. When they took the staples out Resident#1 said I don't see anything, #2 asked what that purple bit is, "is that bowel?" #1 panicked and removed all my staples causing my bowels and insides to come out. I think that is about when I went into shock I remember just looking at my insides and screaming. #1 than panicked and tried to shove my bowels back in. I remember her pushing so hard and both myself and my roommate screaming at her to stop. Eventually she stopped and ripped open an IV bag and poured the liquids on my stomach and covered me and only then did she call a code.

The nerves and muscles that control my bowels no longer work and were damaged when the resident tried to push my bowels back into me. Last month I saw the one doctor in Toronto who deals with these issues, had an MRI, and diagnosed with dyssynergic defecation. I get radiofrequency nerve ablations to the main nerves in my stomach every three months and steroid injections. I have a permanent bowel injury that even if I can take morphine in time still leaves me screaming in pain in the bathroom. My two boys have been witnessing this for 10 years.

I now have gastroparesis, dysergenic defecation, chronic pain, fibromyalgia and major depressive disorder, anxiety and PTSD.

I had a lawyer who filed the case. He filed against the hospital and the doctors. He let on he did medical cases and kept assuring me that we had a great case. He then mediated a settlement between myself and my disability carrier. Eventually I found out he had left his law firm and taken the hard copy of files with him. And he had gone to work with the mediating company he had just settled my disability case with.

When this had happened both my husband and I were working full time had just bought our first house. Now I am in bed most of the time. My husband had to leave his job to take care of both the kids and myself. We are scraping by on ODSP. I have reached out to a few medmal lawyers and every time they say they will take a look at my case and give me some answers one way or another and every time I am told they can't help me but I need to get a lawyer to pursue my case.

I was wronged by the medical system and am now also being punished in our legal system.

This is our Canadian health care service.