First of all, let's just say that the critics of the Ontario health care system are not entirely correct. I report this based on purely anecdotal evidence -- i.e., the story of my wife and her gall bladder.
Without going into too much gory detail: Nancy experienced severe abdominal pain starting around 5:30 a.m., Saturday, January 8. By 9 a.m., we were in Stratford hospital's emergency room, where she moved admission along very effectively by fainting. By 7 p.m. (I'm eliminating quite a few steps, here), she was in surgery, as a very competent surgeon removed her gall bladder. I was having a conversation with her in Recovery by 8 p.m. She probably won't remember all the details, but I can assure her the new set of Callaways was agreed upon. I digress.
So, from onset of symptoms through admission, assessment, initial treatment, tests, evaluation of test results, preparation for surgery, operation, and recovery in less than 15 hours. Now, that's efficient health care.
I know it doesn't always go this smoothly, and I suspect the superb staff and surgical team at Stratford General had more to do with this happy outcome than did the provincial poohbahs that administer the overall system, but still... I carry my health card proudly, this week.
We learned a couple of important lessons from this experience, by the way.
First -- and please, write this down -- soup is the universal medication. Nancy was no sooner home (and that happens within hours of surgery in this cost-conscious era), than wonderful friends appeared, bearing soup. Turkey soup. Vegetable soup. Squash soup. Chicken soup. Soup in Mason jars and crock pots and recycled yogurt containers and, of course, Tupperware.
We could have opened a soup kitchen. But we didn't, being less generous than that, and as I write, most of the soup has been consumed. By Nancy. Well, at least by her close, personal husband.
Soup is, well, super. Especially in trying times.
The second lesson is, almost everybody has had gall bladder surgery. One would not guess this -- I certainly didn't -- but if you, or someone you love, has said operation, the truth emerges like smoke from Mount Etna.
I don't think I have talked to one single person, post-op, who has not had their gall bladder taken out, or at least who doesn't know someone who has. And not only do they know the patient, they know they all know the intimate details of the operation.
Me, I'm not a big one for intimate details of surgical procedures. My sister in law is threatening to send me an on-line link to a video record of just such a surgery. I may need a new sister in law.
I will avoid the video evidence at all costs, but I sure heard enough spoken testimony to last me a life time. The first, superb, nurse in emergency guessed it was a gall bladder issue, and told us about her own experience. That wasn't so bad... kind of soothing, in a macabre way. But then the deluge started friends, parishioners (Nancy's, of course), joined the chorus.
After the operation, the surgeon came and assured me that all had gone very well. Then, I waited, lonely as a spouse, in a waiting room empty but for me (and Don Cherry on the TV). A cleaning person arrived to mop a bit, and within seconds, was telling me all about her own personal gall bladder surgery. With plenty of detail.
Well-intended, but disconcerting at that moment. Better she had popped out and made me some soup.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
