Back to the Montreal General

[mythteller]

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.

Comments

[jdhobbes.livejournal.com]

Ms. Carotte made several calls to the hospital today (including the hospital Omsbudsman) to complain. The hospital agreed that they handled her case VERY badly. The Ortho dept. has called her and setup an appointment for next week. Progress!

I guess when it comes to healthcare in Canada, you really do get what you pay for.

Get what you pay for...

[(Anonymous)]

Like anything else Hobbes; if you want top notch medical attention? You pay for it. Our doctor opted out of Medicare about 5 years ago and since then? We've had excellent care and service. If we need a specialist? Some kind of test? We usually get an appointment within a week. M.R.I's - blood tests, CT scans and at my age? Mammogram.

It does cost - it does cost a lot but we budget and sometimes, take from Peter to pay Paul. Is it right? No. Is it reality? Yes. Is there anything we can do about it? No.

Dark Lillith

[polywolf.livejournal.com]

Does ms.carotte have a walker or wheelchair to use at home?

I'm glad you guys have already complained and i would be asking for an apology also

Take care you guys, i hope to see you both or at least one of you at KG. I'll be in montreal Aug 27 for work, maybe we can arrange dinner?drop me a line

[kino-kid.livejournal.com]

We learnt an important trick to getting seen quickly in Emergency. [info]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.

I'm sorry, that's stupid. Short term gain, long-term loss. Find another way.

[jdhobbes.livejournal.com]

Do you have another way to suggest that reduces the waiting time from 12 hours (4 hours in the waiting room, 8 hours in Emergency)?

High blood sugar is a fact of life for her (due to another of her complications). This time it helped in our situation, but extremely high blood sugar levels (higher than the meter can read) happens at least twice a week. It's practically unavoidable.

[kino-kid.livejournal.com]

No, I'm afraid I don't. I agree with you that wait times are a big problem and have experienced them myself.

HOWEVER, extremely high blood sugar levels, as you know, means something is terribly wrong with the current maintenance of those levels. Part of it is the tough knocks of diabetes, but even with complications, a lot can be managed.

It's practically unavoidable is the wrong approach. Completely. You will create a self-fulfilling prophecy if you think that.

[jdhobbes.livejournal.com]

Sarah has an additional problem of having a lazy stomach, which means her stomach does not immediately process the food in her stomach. Because of this rare condition, her diabetes is more uncontrolable that most because she never knows when the sugar from her food will get in her body.

I found out yesterday that the Emerg nurses gave Sarah extra insulin whilie she slept, which caused the sugar crash. If the nurses truly understood Sarah's unique case, they wouldn't have done that.

Please don't tell us that we're doing a bad job of maintaining her blood sugar levels. You don't know the Big Picture, so you have no idea how difficult it is, so please don't assume you have all the answers on this.

[(Anonymous)]

Well that is significant information. And yes, the nurses are stupid. But you're missing my point.

I am very aware diabetes affects people in many different ways and to different degrees, but maintenance is still extremely important, as you know, and if sarahcarotte has complications then it is even more important, as you know. Driving up blood sugars when it is unneeded is going to cause her more grief later.

Also it is called emergency for a reason. It is not a place where people can stop and look over your file in the same way they do during an appointment. Also driving up sugar levels deliberately could make them look at the wrong issue, instead of the real problem.

I didn't say I had all of the answers. You should know me better than that. I readily admit when I am wrong or make mistakes, and I don't say things if I don't have some experience in what I am talking about. In this case I have some, very up close and personal experience of my own including taking care of a partner with diabetes and his own set of complications over a long term, including many emergency room visits, and a paternal family line ravaged by the disease.

[jdhobbes.livejournal.com]

If you have all the experience, then you should know what it's like to do your best with what your given, be ignored by the professionals who are supposed to help you through it, suffer because they don't listen, and then have others criticize you for trying to find a way through it.

When we try to play by the rules, we get whacked for it. When we try to stack the odds in our favour, we get "I told you so"s from others.

It's frustrating and the feelings of helplessness can be overwhelming. So maybe you can understand that when someone else tells us what we did is stupid and we should try harder to manage our own affairs, maybe you can understand my reaction to it.

Or maybe you can't. And if you can't, then let's just drop this because I'm tired of trying to explain it. We're doing our best to navigate an overburdened medical system.

[kino-kid.livejournal.com]

There's no need to be so defensive. In my previous comment, I didn't write I had "all the experience" I said I had "some."

I agree the medical system is EXTREMELY frustrating, but I was concerned about exacerbating an existing condition of sarahcarotte's to get help at emergency. It can also create confusion or distraction during diagnosis of a problem.

Yes, concern. I'm not telling you how to do things, but if you are going to post something like you did and leave the comments on, as your friend I am going to have the backbone to say something about it and engage you in a dialogue about it.

It seems to me by your responses you don't want to do that anymore. That's ok. Your message is loud and clear. I hope that if you see something that raises a read flag when you read about it on my blog or I tell you in person, you will be able to tell me, especially if you think that it could possibly save me grief later.

All the best.

[jdhobbes.livejournal.com]

Of course I will. Sorry for being defensive, but the event was too recent to be detached about it.

I know you're right about what you said about the whole thing. I know it and you're right to give me your opinion about it. The thing that set me off was that you described our actions as "stupid". That's a harsh word to use, even between friends. I don't imagine that you would take it any better from me if I described your actions that harshly.

But what's done is done, what's said is said. Apologies for my harsh reaction. Are we okay?

[kino-kid.livejournal.com]

We're okay. I do stupid things. I think I am quite intelligent. You are not stupid, but I was questioning an action that I think is a bad move. In the future, I will be more careful with my terms, but I will still be rather straightforward. It is the only way I live.