Back to the Montreal General

I spent about 6 hours in Montreal General yesterday, mainly on the advice of sarahcarotte's physiotherapist. It seems that she's having trouble with the metal brackets in her foot and lately, they've been causing swelling and a considerable amount of pain.

The physiotherapist (Henry) recommended that we get an appointment with the OrthoSurgeon, but the OrthoSurgeon refused to take an appointment. "Go to Emergency and they'll deal with you," the OrthoSurgeon's lackeys told us. So off we went to Emergency.

We learnt an important trick to getting seen quickly in Emergency. sarahcarotte forced her blood sugar to go high so that the Triage nurse bumped her to the head of the line. We will be remembering that for the next time.

So after waiting about 3 hours in Emergency, we finally saw a doctor. She poked, prodded, took blood samples, and suggested a few possibilities. At that point, I decided to go home and sarahcarotte would call me when she knew what was happening.

At midnight, I get a distressed call. "They're discharging me, but they won't tell me why!" Shaking the cobwebs free, I head down to the hospital.

I find the doctors and nurses at one end, chatting about the Italian/German FIFA game and, when I ask about Ms. Carotte, they wave me off to the last bed in the ward.

When I get there, I see right away that Ms. Carotte is experiencing a low-blood sugar crash. I test her blood sugar and see that she is about 5 minutes from going into a diabetic seizure. I rush out, get some ice tea, and attempt to bring her levels back up. All the while, there's not a nurse in reach.

I go see the discharge person and demand to know why Ms. Carotte is being discharged. "Because the doctor discharged her, that's why," the crone sniffed at me. "Why is she still here? We need that bed to be free!"

"I am not taking her out of here until her blood sugar levels are normalized," I reply, trying to remain calm.

The crone waved me off, turning her head in disdain. "I have no idea what that means. Talk to a nurse and get your wife out of that bed."

So I speak to a nurse and explain the situation. I had to re-explain it 3 times because she refused to believe me at first. Finally, she tests Ms. Carotte's blood herself and puts her on a glucose drip. While she's doing this, she's trying to get Ms. Carotte to explain why her blood sugar crashed, as if she was doing this to herself.

Finally, Ms. Carotte's blood-sugar levels come back up to where they should be, but now the doctor wants to keep her for another 3 HOURS. At first, they couldn't wait to get rid of her and now they want to keep an eye on her. I flatly refused and took Ms. Carotte home.

The long and the short of this visit to Emergency is that there is no sign of infection in Ms. Carotte's foot, which is a good thing. But what kills me is that Ms. Carotte was having a medical emergency, but because the nurses closed her file, they couldn't be bothered to check on her. What if I had not gotten there in time? What if she had had a diabetic seizure while the nurses were not looking?

I'm going to start stealing supplies from Montreal General hospital from now on. It took everything I had not to walk off with the wheelchair when I finally took Ms. Carotte home.