Sandy endures health’s hell

Her story is a living medical nightmare which began innocently enough in 2003 with a miscarriage and would encompass several botched D&C (Dilation or Dilatation and Curettage) surgeries, resulting in a cyst the size of a fist and a grapefruit-sized abscess, mysterious disappearance of her hospital medical file, letters of complaint to the Ministry of Health, years of excruciating pain and great physical discomfort.

Sandy finally awoke from her nightmare last August following a five-and-a-half-hour surgery in another country. During that surgery, her lower abdomen was virtually “reconstructed” at the Jersey City Medical Centre in New Jersey, United States of America, under the guidance of compatriot, Tobago-born trauma specialist Dr Anroy Ottley, and a team of specialist surgeons.

“By God’s grace I made it through from 2003 to 2011. My inner strength, my family, and one or two close friends, kept me going; also my son – I prayed to God to keep me alive to see my son take (CXC) exam, and here I am today”, Sandy affirmed emotionally, tears welling in her eyes, during an interview with Sunday Newsday at her Plymouth, Tobago, home on Wednesday.

Sitting in the verandah of her home, all bubbly, sometimes serene, other times emotional and pensive, it was patently difficult to imagine or even understand the sheer hell this 36-year-old woman had been through and lived to tell her story.

The mother of a 17-year-old boy (who is currently writing his CXC examinations), she vividly remembered one horribly pain-filled night in 2010 around the time of the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

“I was rolling on the floor bawling in pain right here,” she recalled, indicating an area in her living room.

“And I shouted, ‘God, I don’t know where you are; if you in Haiti right now, please, please come and rescue me’… after that I don’t know when I fell asleep. But when I eventually awoke, I felt a sense of peace and calm, and I knew everything would be all right.”

Sandy, a police officer for the past 13 years, will turn 37 later this month. “There is a God! This is the first birthday I will spend without pain in a long time, in comfort with my son and loved ones,” she noted.

The harrowing experience began in early 2002 when Sandy, then 26, became pregnant. On April 11 that year she started bleeding and had to be warded at the Scarborough Hospital for about four days. Two months later, on June 14, she was again hospitalised with complications of dizziness, black-outs and constipation.

“Eventually, my ‘water bag’ burst and on June 19 I had a miscarriage,” she outlined in a letter to the Ministry of Health in early 2004.

The doctor treating her at that time performed D&C surgery that same day. However, following this surgery, she began experiencing stomach pains, difficulty breathing and was vomiting a green-coloured liquid. Seven days later the same doctor performed D&C surgery a second time.

“I started experiencing severe abdominal pains still, and continued vomiting green. I was on a lot of antibiotics and pain killers which did not seem to work,” Sandy said.

She was eventually discharged from the hospital on June 28, but had to be re-admitted on July 8, having been referred by a private doctor who, she noted, told her that her skin colour was “too grey and something was not right”. She said she was given medication for infection of the pelvic region by the first doctor who had initially treated her.

“Around this time the pain got worse and my (skin) colour got dimmer,” she related.

At the same time, however, doctors at the Scarborough Hospital were engaged in “sick-out” industrial action, and Sandy said she spent days without being seen by any doctor, including the first doctor. She was eventually seen by another doctor who discontinued the medication she had been taking as prescribed by the first doctor, and subsequently performed another D&C surgery — her third.

“This doctor later told me that he found ‘afterbirth’ lodged behind my womb and it had my blood septic; that is why I was vomiting and passing ‘green’ stool and having trouble breathing,” Sandy explained.

She was later discharged on August 20, but continued experiencing pain in the lower abdomen. She said subsequent ultra sound examinations indicated there was a cyst or some form of growth on her left ovary, as well as internal bleeding. This was accompanied by very excruciating pain which, she said, caused her to agree to surgery to remove the “cyst”. That surgery was performed by the “second” doctor at the Scarborough Hospital on February 25, 2003.

However, this surgery found no cyst, but five different lesions, and other doctors had to be summoned to complete the surgery. She was subsequently discharged on March 7, but had to be re-admitted three days later due to complications and renewed vomiting. By that time, Sandy said she began to feel a “hard mass” on her abdomen where the incision had been made for the surgery.

The doctor advised her it could be the stitches and it would eventually melt away. This did not happen and, in fact, the mass got bigger in the form of an abscess on the left side of the abdomen.

On March 21, 2003, she was transferred to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital after the abscess ruptured. A doctor there advised that Sandy was too weak for surgery and the ruptured abscess had to be “managed”. She was eventually returned to the Scarborough Hospital on May 27 and discharged the following day. But Sandy continued experiencing a lot of pain and attended out-patient clinic.She later complained to the Health Ministry, at the time pleading, “Can you please assist and look into my case carefully please. It’s too long and I am still suffering.”

The letter was referred by the Chief Medical Officer to the then Scarborough Hospital Medical Director for investigation and submission of a report. Sandy said each of the doctors involved in her treatment at the Scarborough Hospital submitted a report, but the “first” doctor did not since it was claimed that the medical records pertaining to her initial treatment at the hospital could not be located. Sandy’s nightmare of pain and suffering continued over the years, even as she continued working.

“Only God knows how I made it; I was living on pain killers,” she said.

But the move from her surreal existence would soon come! In late 2010 she consulted with Dr Nathaniel Duke, an internal medicine specialist, then newly assigned to the Scarborough Hospital. She was referred to the West Shore Medical Private Hospital in Trinidad, where CT scan and MRI examinations revealed new complications, including a teratoma – an abscess the size of a grapefruit in her abdomen. It was determined that this large abscess was “pressing” on the left kidney and pushing the other organs to the right side of her abdomen. At that time, also, she had to have daily dressing as there were two fist-sized “holes” on her abdomen, through which waste matter from the body was being expelled.

The authorities at West Shore, she recalled, indicated she would need at least eight specialists to “handle my problem, with what was going on in my stomach and abdomen”. The success of the surgery was deemed a ‘50-50 chance’ and there was reluctance to do it. However, Sandy did not give up. Dr Ottley, a relative of Dr Duke, was contacted by the latter, and the move to New Jersey got underway.

“Sen Supt Heflin George (then assigned to the Tobago Division) was the driving force behind the move to New Jersey for the required specialist medical treatment, along with Archdeacon Phil Issaac (of the Anglican Diocese in Tobago), ASP Collis Hazel, and lots of other persons,” Sandy stressed. “But Heflin George never one day gave up on me. I was living on pain killers. He said he admired how I came to work and did what I had to do.” With the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) footing the cost of the return-ticket, she left for New York last August 7 and two days later was admitted to the Jersey City Medical Centre, where Dr Ottley is based. On August 11, she underwent surgery (exploratory laparotomy, sigmoid resection, resection of colocutaneous fistula and excision of teratoma) and continued with post-surgery treatment for the next two months, returning home on October 2. The cost of the surgery and support medical services, including tests et cetera, amounted to US$99, 273.

“This is still to be paid,” she noted, displaying copies of recent “warning” correspondence from the Jersey City Medical Centre seeking settlement of the outstanding bill.

Sandy has not approached the Health Ministry or any other Government agency or organisation for assistance in this regard. In the interim, she regularly consults with Dr Ottley on the progress of her recovery and any concerns she may have. Sandy is scheduled to return to active duty on May 16.

“One lesson I have learned from this whole terrible experience is never to give up… Never give up on God; don’t mind how everything looking dark and hopeless and all gone, and then from somewhere you see a light in the distance,” she told Sunday Newsday, her voice breaking.