The day she went silent

Medical mishap leaves woman voiceless

LIBBY WILSON Oct 13, 2014. updated: 05:00am

Karyn Bunyan loved to sing. But these days the karaoke enthusiast struggles just to talk.

Medical mishaps and a cancer diagnosis have left her wrung out and living a shadow of her former life.

"I'm emotionally, psychologically and physically exhausted," she said.

"I've had to put up with coughing up s*** every day, waking up not being able to breathe."

It started when the Hamilton woman noticed changes in her voice in late 2011.

"One minute I was singing like Mariah Carey and within a week or two I was singing like Barry White ... It got lower and lower," she said.

She was referred to Waikato Hospital's ear, nose and throat clinic, and treated for reflux.

Seven visits and 18 months later she was diagnosed with cancer, which she says spread before surgery.

But it didn't stop there - a vocal cord nerve in her throat was nicked during surgery, a family bone carving and pounamu went missing, and she ended up being dropped on the floor during a bed transfer.

Bunyan has laid complaints with the Waikato District Health Board and is now waiting for the hearing.

In response to Waikato Times inquiries, health board communications director Mary Anne Gill said the board was working with Bunyan and her advocate.

The fall during her transfer was being reviewed as a serious adverse event and Bunyan had received full details and an apology from the board, she said.

But Gill declined to address Bunyan's other concerns.

"Our general policy is not to discuss specific clinical matters with the media," she said.

"Ms Bunyan and her advocate are in touch with us and we are working together. We respect Ms Bunyan's right to have advocacy and would prefer to work that way than through the media."

Bunyan said she was not the type to sit around doing nothing, but her illness had forced her to.

The former foster carer no longer has the energy for her beloved Waikato Cadet Service Unit, which she founded.

Gone are the karaoke gigs which used to supplement her income and she can't record her second album.

"That was my heart. Singing, entertaining people, making them happy. I can't do it."

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While Bunyan was thought to have been suffering from reflux in 2011, she had about four emergency trips to the hospital, unable to breathe.

The last time, a doctor told her she wasn't leaving until he figured out what was going on.

It was thyroid cancer.

"By the time I got to surgery it was at stage four," she said.

It had spread, including to her vocal cords and voicebox.

During the August 2013 surgery a vocal cord nerve was nicked by the surgeon, leaving it paralysed, she said.

A lymph node was also nicked and leaked fluid into her stomach.

And family pounamu and bone carvings that had been taped to her as a good luck charm disappeared either during or after her surgery.

"Somebody stole it ... How do you replace that?" Bunyan said.

The same month she ended up in intensive care, after the bed transfer went wrong.

"They forgot to put the brakes on the bed. So when they said ‘Shift your bottom over to here', I did. The bed went that way and I went that way. Now I'm lying on the floor in intensive care with tubes out of every possible hole you could think of," she said.

"Where's the accountability for hurting a patient further in intensive care?"

She was left with a possible fracture to her left wrist.

Bunyan had also been hit with infections, and found what she thought was a surgical suture in her breathing tube.

She battled insurance and lost and is currently looking for a review of ACC's decision not to compensate her.

More than anything, she wants her family treasures replaced and she wants compensation for the loss of her voice.

"I just want to get better. I want apologies. In writing."

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Original post from www.stuff.co.nz