"Treated like an inconvenience"

Just before moving to the area I suffered a ruptured gallbladder and sepsis. This resulted in the fitting of a liver drain. The drain produced around 150ml of bile per day for 6 weeks fairly consistently. Unfortunately after moving I caught the drain tube accidentally and pulled out several inches of tubing.

I immediately went to A&E (late at night). I was seen pretty promptly as I was bleeding from the drain site. I was x-rayed and sent to SAU. I saw a Junior doctor who recommended an ultrasound to check where the drain was and ensure I hadn’t damaged anything.

By about 3:30 am I was given a bed.

At around 7:30 (so only 4 hours later) I was woken by a senior consultant and his team who declared I was fine and could go home. This was without examining me and without a scan. He did not listen when I explained how I was no longer draining bile and dismissed this as a coincidence. He based his diagnosis solely on the fact that I hadn’t shown any infection markers in a blood test taken shortly after I arrived in A&E. Of course there weren’t - insufficient time had passed to develop infection. The hospital had never seen the type of drain I had - this became obvious when the sister, who had been instructed to replace the belliows- could not find any mechanism in the hospital that she could use to connect it.

I was extremely upset and asked to see the consultant again. I had a delay at the original hospital that had considerably complicated a simple gallstone issue which resulted ultimately in the rupture so was very scared that I’d contract sepsis again and be worse than before as I was in a weakened state. I was treated like a nuisance - how dare I question a consultant!the ward sister was incredibly rude. My husband arrived and voiced my concerns again and she was rude to him. I was afforded no dignity, treated like an idiot when in reality I’m a very intelligent woman, have been to medical school and have more than a basic grasp of medicine. Eventually we were allowed 5 minutes of his senior registrars time who again just reiterated the same message. I was assured that my drain had not moved in spite of the FACTS that several inches had come out (there was a ‘ring mark’ where it was originally next to my skin) and I was no longer releasing bile. It was a build up of bile that caused my rupture and sepsis and this was my main concern. I was then discharged concerns ignored.

Within 24 hours I was vomiting and had a very high temperature. At 36 hours I was in extreme pain around my liver. I had another infection. I had to have another liver drain but this was not inserted correctly and didn’t drain anything. I was an inpatient for 10 days on strong painkillers and three types of antibiotics to get the infection under control.

Once the 2nd drain was removed and I was discharged I developed a cyst. This was where the bike had effectively found its own way out. I had an open wound leaking bile till my gallbladder was removed (privatemy)