Pam's story
Fifteen years ago, just before my 60th birthday, I was involved in a bus accident that changed my life. It was my grandson’s third birthday and he asked me for a sweet shop toy. That day, I decided to take the bus into town to get his present. On the way back home, the bus driver went around a corner so fast that I was thrown from my seat into the aisle and landed on the floor.
When I got off the bus, I almost passed out with the pain and the shock but somehow I still managed to get home. Later that day, my son came to visit me and found me in agony so took me to my GP. Once I got to the doctors they asked me to sit down, but I couldn’t sit, it was too painful.
“I tried to explain the pain but felt that nobody was listening to me”
They sent me home and told me the pain will ease and paracetamol was all they could give me. Months passed and my pain wasn’t easing so I decided to call the Brain & Spine Foundation. The helpline nurse explained that they should have sent me for an x-ray. That would have shown that I had smashed my coccyx.
If they had caught it early they could have reversed the damage of the accident however, by the time I was given the opportunity to properly explain my pain it had been seventeen months and the nerve damage was irreversible
I have since been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, a long-term condition that affects the whole body and means I live in pain.
“The Helpline nurse was so kind to me, I loved her although I never met her. I was ready to commit suicide as I couldn’t deal with the pain but now I use Lidoderm pads to help ease my symptoms”
I later found out that the bus driver who caused my injury had twelve previous accidents. No one would take responsibility for the accident that caused me all of this. I had to spend every penny of my mother’s will to cover the costs. I was a senior supervisor at a school with 1700 children, I had to leave my job. No one would own up or help me.
“If I can help one person by sharing my story, it will make everything I went through bearable.”