41-year-old mother of four, Michelle Turner, must face the consequences of her doctors’ failings for the rest of her life.
Turner had lived with sciatica – pain in the lower back and legs due to nerve compression – for eight years before she began to experience more severe pain. In 2011, she woke up one day with stabbing pain that progressively got worse over the day, until she could no longer walk.
That night, she went to the hospital, but the doctors there didn’t run an MRI scan, or any other test commonly associated with spinal pain and injuries. The doctors simply sent her home with a muscle relaxant drug, diazepam.
A few days later while on a walk with her daughter, Turner realized that she’d wet herself – and she hadn’t noticed at all when it happened.
She returned to the hospital the next morning where she was immediately sent to nerve decompression surgery. The doctors didn’t provide further explanation of the procedure or her condition, and again, sent her home just a week after the surgery.
Turner went home, unaware that she had cauda equine syndrome (CES), a serious condition that causes paralysis, reduces bladder and bowel control, as well as other physical problems in the lower half of the body.
The diagnosis only came to her, in a mailed letter, several months later.
After turning to the internet to learn more about her condition herself, Turner realized that her physical ailments were conditions she would have to live with for the rest of her life – all because her doctor had failed to provide her with proper care.
The hospital has now formally admitted and apologized for failing to provide Turner with the proper treatment when she first came into the hospital. Eddie Jones, head of a medical negligence team at a law firm, wrote, “The tragedy in Michelle’s case is that the hospital missed a clear opportunity to operate and prevent permanent damage from being caused. The mistakes that were made were basic and avoidable.”
Turner’s life has been unalterably changed by the hospital’s failings. She says that she is “a shadow of her former self,” she laments that she will never be able to physically play with her four children anymore, and she mourns over the deterioration of her 12-year relationship with her partner.
“[CES] has basically taken most of my life away,” she said.
