A Nanaimo woman who’s been in pain for two-and-a-half months says she was shocked to discover packing material was left inside her body after a routine surgery.

Marilynne Toole thought she was going in for a straightforward procedure.

“You put your faith in going into having surgery, never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect this would ever happen to me,” Toole told CTV News.

The 66-year-old underwent bladder surgery on April 28 at Nanaimo Regional Hospital.

She came out feeling understandably sore, but then there was a strange odour, she says. 

“Like something was rotting, it was just a horrible, horrible smell,” Toole recalled.

The Vancouver Island woman complained about the smell at a six week follow-up exam, but says the doctor simply shrugged his shoulders.

She also suffered medical complications including several urinary tract infections. 

Seventy-five days post-surgery, during a trip to Ontario, Toole realized what the issue was. 

“I got up in the morning and went to go to the washroom and wiped myself and thought oh I’ve left toilet paper,” she said. “I just reached down to grab the toilet paper and felt something and thought oh this isn’t toilet paper.”

The toilet paper-like substance was packing material left behind from her surgery in Nanaimo. 

According to Toole, the Ontario doctor she went to go see was shocked by the discovery.

“He couldn’t believe I was walking in on two legs and didn’t come in a body bag, that I hadn’t gotten septic,” she said.

When she got back to Nanaimo Toole went looking for an apology.

“I feel, like I said to my husband, I feel like I’ve been raped and no one’s bloody listening to me,” Toole said.

Following an inquiry by CTV News, Island Health issued a statement with an apology on Wednesday.

“While incidents like this are rare, the health care system is a human system and human beings make mistakes,” it reads.

Toole plans to see a urologist in Victoria to make sure there are no further complications.

She’s trying to get the Nanaimo hospital to cover the cost, but so far she’s been unsuccessful.

With a report from CTV Vancouver Island's Gord Kurbis