With all the news stories about the plummeting oil prices and the financial devastation that is befalling not only Alberta but all of Canada our trip to the South Calgary Health Campus last evening proved uplifting.
The promised new cancer care centre has been seemingly delayed again. This time due to the poor oil prices and the empty financial purse. Tom Baker Cancer Centre has been to capacity for many years already and since Bob and I have been regulars, past 6.5 years, it has gotten more and more congested. The hall ways have boxes of supplies stacked everywhere. People are sitting in every possible nook and cranny waiting to see doctors, social workers and the myriad of other professionals who work in cancer care. One time we may see our docs in an out patient clinic , the next time in day medicine and the next time down the hall , through the waiting room and into an area that at one time stored boxes of supplies. Yes, the facilities are crowded but staff is wonderful and they take time with you as needed. They only seem to be harried in between patients.
The people of Alberta and the disease of cancer are not going anywhere so build the facility already and when oil prices go up the government can take all the kuddos plus the kuddos for building a new cancer centre when the cost of construction is down.
Last evening we made the short trip to the new hospital which is only a few miles south of us. Bob has struggled with this horrible cold, or more of a cough for a month now. Around suppertime he couldn't get his breath. That was very scary, we got him calmed down and sitting. Bob could hear the crackling but we had to wait for 15 minutes until the baked pancake was baked. It was my Sunday to provide morning snack for the worship team and pastors as they are at church for all three services. However, I digress. We arrived at the hospital around 5:30pm and only waited maybe 10 min. to see the triage nurse. The hospital is new and big and did not feel the least bit crowded. Bob was given a bed right away. Him, being a senior, coughing, short of breath and with chest pain ...yeah right in.... on the machine lickety split. A young lady came in with another neat machine, She said it was to take a look at his heart. To me it looked like another machine that measured the heart rhythm.
Now we found our way to a "real room" in the emerg department. Bob was now more or less in quarantine. There was a steady line up of nurses in and out with blood sampling needles and vials of all different types, someone to hook up the vital signs stuff, heart monitoring equipment. The procedure to come in was to gown, mask, glove and the gloves up under the gown. I was beginning to feel very vulnerable. Lots and lots of questions ---where had we been, have we been on a plane, who else is sick. THEN a nurse came in all dressed plus had the clear visor on covering the whole face and mask. I said to Bob you either have Ebola or that chicken flu. Off to have a chest x-ray. Back again. Sheesh I didn't get time to sit and look at any reading material. Altho, at this hospital, there really isn't any reading material out and about. Any books or magazines handled by a patient is recycled not given to any one else to read. I had volunteered here for a while and stopping the flow of germs was highest on the list. I still wonder about the puzzles as a few of them belonged to the hospital but any playing cards etc were a patients. I was always a bit pleased I could say "sorry I don't play crib".
This time we had a nurse come in and give Bob lessons on how to use a Ventolin puffer. Bob's blood oxygen levels were not what they liked but were pretty much always in the 90s. Bob did two rounds of the Ventolin plus another drug through the puffer. Tat particular drug kills bacteria. This of course meant carefully rinsing the mouth so the good mouth bacteria didn't get killed. Bob did two rounds of this and thought that yes the breathing was improving. By now the results were all coming in from the blood samples and x-ray. At one point it was all I could do to keep my hands off of my phone camera. Two doctors and a nurse were standing in a row talking to Bob. They had matching yellow gowns, purple gloves all matching and the blue/white masks covering nose and mouth. The doctor in the centre wore a hijab that was also a two tone purple, along with a purple long sleeve shirt that I could see. Three sets of eyes going back and forth, they looked like three Easter chicks all set out to enjoy the Easter festivities!!!!!!! OK another aside-----there could be a place for a sewing entrepreneur to make hijabs for doctors and nurses. I see the need that these doctors have so their ears are free. The face masks generally hook around the ears, the stethoscope goes into the ear. I was thinking ..................like a big button hole that the ears could pop out of when needed. I could see that these actions were a little frustrating and took some finagling to get the ear free.
One of the emerg doctors put an antibiotic IV drip in for Bob. His thinking was that they didn't know what they were dealing with and so he went with antibiotics plus more prednizone. His idea was to keep Bob in hospital for a couple of days and monitor everything. The young pharmacist came in to go over ALL the drugs Bob is taking and could we bring in the pomalyst as she wouldn't be able to get that for a few days? She didn't even worry about her ears just held the mask up to her mouth. "Yes of course if Bob stays I will bring whatever you need."
Shift Change. From what I could tell only the doctors changed. "Our" nurse came in and talked about going home. The tests didn't show anything definitive and if the Ventolin helped would he like to go home? The cultures wouldn't be back for a couple of days and if they showed anything Bob would be called and back he would go to their department. First the nurse thought Bob should take a walk to see how he was breathing. Shoes on ready to go and the nurse sits down . "Oh You are still officially infectious, you need to walk in here. Ha Ha really down one side of the bed across the foot of the bed up the other side, turn around and away we go again. The hospitalist was called and boom before you could turn around he was standing in the door way introducing himself door and was off to read the chart. These guys loved Bob's chart because they of course could read all the stuff from Tom Baker, all of Dr. Bahlis' notes (which are apparently very good) and seemed to enjoy the complexity of who Bob is. Bob could not be admitted unless this hospitalist admitted him as the ER doctors don't have admitting power. Our hospitalist turned out to be a resident in internal medicine. A very young resident in internal medicine. He also checked Bob out very carefully and very fully. The nurses had talked with him "our' nurses. He came back in and visited for a while and decided that staying in the hospital may not be the very best option as there were some very sick people up stairs. All the options were left open for us to decide. We could return at any time by ambulance if necessary. So, no, he wouldn't admit Bob. A nurse came in to unhook Bob and said "good, glad you are going home". The new ER doctor that came in at shift change discharged Bob.
Naturally leaving didn't go smoothly. Somehow I got hand sanitizer on the parking ticket????? The machine couldn't read it even when I insisted on trying several times. This is a hospital, hand sanitizer happens. A phone call later and after paying, a new ticket was issued out of the parking machine. How does that happen??? Five hours almost to the ten minutes we were back home. Amazing, the best care with the greatest of attitudes, a myriad of tests. No waiting for anything or anyone. We were both tremendously blessed by the health care Bob received and has received over the past nine years. Praise God for His Hand of care through all the people we have come in contact with in the health care profession in Alberta.
Amen
