A woman trapped in a holiday insurance nightmare wrote a last letter of love to her family while stranded and ill in Thailand.

Evelyn Pavlovic set off with her 13-year-old daughter Catherine last month on what was meant to be the trip of a lifetime to Pattaya, Bangkok and Phuket.

However, disaster struck when the 33-year-old came down with food poisoning on the second day of the trip, leaving her teenage daughter to cope in the country's notoriously seedy, violent districts.

Her nightmare worsened as she was repeatedly sent blind by drugs she was allergic to and forced into a non-English speaking hospital, leaving her daughter to fend for herself.

Her insurance company, booked through Thomas Cook, then refused to fly her home despite a doctor's certificate dictating it was the best course of action.

The series of events reached its climax when Mrs Pavlovic, weakened by eight days of vomiting and diarrhoea, fell ill believing she was having a heart attack, phoned her mother in Brighton and wrote what she believed to be the last words to her family.

Now back in England, Mrs Pavlovic is slowly recovering from her ordeal which has left her signed-off her job at Brighton and Hove Council for three weeks and emotionally-scarred.

She said: "It was a nightmare and still is. I keep waking up in the night and have lost a stone in weight and am really worried about the effect it has had on Catherine."

Mrs Pavlovic booked her dream £1,400 holiday with Kuoni through Thomas Cook and at the same time bought their Premium Care insurance, which claims "One call does it all".

Mrs Pavlovic said: "I was absolutely terrified. I was thinking to myself what do I do about Catherine. I can't see and I am in a foreign country. They insisted I went into hospital for tests and said Catherine would have to stay alone in the hotel.

"Bangkok is a place where men go to pick up young women and I couldn't leave my daughter there."

Her father, Peter Baxter, was liaising with his daughter by telephone from Brighton and was desperately concerned for her welfare.

He said: "I wasn't even sure she was going to get through the night. The last few days I thought they might be bringing her home in a body bag."

Arriving back in England she was visited at her home in Overhill Drive, Brighton, by her own doctor who said she had been overdosed on drugs.

Now signed off work ill for three weeks she is unsure what permanent damage may have been done to her stomach and is trying to get the insurance company, Axa Insurance UK Plc (Inter Partner Assistance) to accept liability for her losses and thousands of pounds worth of expenses.

A statement from Thomas Cook said when Mrs Pavlovic had contacted Inter Partner Assistance they had advised her to contact a hotel doctor immediately.

The spokesman said: "In line with the terms and conditions of the insurance, IPA advised her to fax over the medical report from the hotel doctor so their own medical officer could review the information and advise regarding repatriation.

"In the opinion of the medical officer, Mrs Pavlovic was unfit to travel home and should be hospitalised for treatment of her condition.

"As Mrs Pavlovic was travelling with her daughter, she was offered the choice of IPA escorting her daughter back to Pattaya to join their friends or to fly a relative out from the UK to look after her.

"However, against medical advice, Mrs Pavlovic arranged her own travel back to Pattaya and later contacted IPA with details of her location."

When her condition deteriorated IPA transferred her by ambulance to a local hospital, ensuring her daughter was looked after by the family's friends.