An Alberta woman says her life is wasting away after a series of missed communications, long waits and gaps in the system have left her waiting more than a decade for surgery to relieve the severe pain in her back and neck.

CBC News investigates ​
“It’s such a waste of my life, when I know it could be fixed. It’s so frustrating. I sit around and do nothing and watch life pass me by,” Cathie Burnup told Go Public. “So the last 10 years are pretty much a waste of my life, waiting for surgery that could have been done years ago.”

Burnup is from Strome, Alta., a small village southeast of Edmonton. She has a history of congenital scoliosis and osteoarthritis.

The 56-year-old had to quit her job 10 years ago and now spends her days lying on the couch wearing a neck brace. She takes high doses of fentanyl for the pain as she waits for surgery to fuse two disks in her neck and a joint in her pelvis.

“Life is awful. It’s chronic pain, so it’s lonely, because you really don’t fit in with society, you can’t interact with people so you kind of become a hermit,” she said.