"My teenager's treatment"

My teenager was taken in by myself to the emergency department. They had had a lot of strange bruising and pain coming up over their body and had previously had x-rays on the area (5 weeks prior from an injury).

Saw the triage nurse and showed them multiple photos of the bruising and then my teenager was taken to wait outside in the Fast-track area. In this time I had a friend stay with my teenager as I had to go to work to organise a replacement staff member.

My teenager was taken in to see the doctors. On being examined, my friend left the room as the bruising was around the hip area, they thought it was the right thing to do. Once the doctor had examined my teenager and my friend returned to the room, they rang me as my teenager was in a very distraught state and would not let anyone look at them any more.

Once I heard this, I returned to the hospital where my teenager was very upset as they had been asked if they had been applying makeup and could they use a medical wipe to make sure that it didn’t wipe off.  I have never seen my teenager in such a state and I feel the reason was due to being accused of lying.

Since leaving the hospital, and now many months later with many appointments, my teenager has been diagnosed with a rare syndrome called Gardiner Diamond syndrome and they still suffer from extreme bruising, pain, chronic fatigue and nausea. My teenager still suffers, even with a diagnosis, fearing that people aren’t going to believe them, mainly I believe from the treatment they were given at the hospital.

I am hoping this reaches the staff that my teenager was attended to by and that maybe they could read up on this syndrome or at least be a little bit more understanding to young people who attend the emergency department with something different from the standard.

I am happy to be contacted and to give a name so that the correct staff could educate themselves on the syndrome in case anyone else attends the emergency department with this. We are very lucky to have a general practitioner who is amazing and caring and has followed through with the support my teenager needed to try and help them overcome the way they were treated that day.