Sharon Ereaux, who has been living with an eating disorder for more than three decades, describes a harrowing ordeal after calling an ambulance on Monday morning with a high heart rate, chest pain and fatigue — symptoms of re-feeding syndrome, a serious and potentially fatal side effect of increasing food intake after a period of malnourishment.
By Monday night, Ms Ereaux was told she would be admitted to the mental health unit of her local hospital for monitoring. That transfer never came. She spent the night on a recliner in the emergency department, before being moved to a couch where she waited for updates.
"Tuesday morning I was told there were only two of us waiting for a transfer to the mental health unit, [and] that I would probably go Tuesday afternoon," she said. "But Tuesday afternoon came and went, and by 5pm I knew that it wasn't going to happen on the Tuesday."
Concerned about dehydration, she called a hospital internal hotline to escalate treatment concerns. On Wednesday morning, she was told a bed was finally available — but hours later, a staff member informed her she was being sent home without being admitted.
"I'm partly astonished, like this is next-level bad," Ms Ereaux said. "But I'm also like, 'Yeah, OK, here we go again, this old thing.'"
The idea of "being sick enough" is a fight Ms Ereaux says she has been having since she was 14. She describes her eating disorder as "incredible when it comes to sucking her back in."
"It's like you're a frog in boiling water, but inside a snowball, and you're rocketing down a slippery slope," she said. "[That's] the gist of it, how good it can suck you in and run away with you before you know what's happening."
The first time a counsellor used the word "anorexia" with her was in 1998. Two years later, she presented to an emergency department.