Who saved me? It was the brilliant team of workers at the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria.
A commentary by a Victorian resident.
You think you’ve been living and eating right. You get humbled by a life-threatening health crisis but then you’re saved.
Who saved me? It was the brilliant team of workers at the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria.
Last week I was parking my school bus and I felt awful. My chest hurt and I was dizzy and nauseous.
“What’s this,” I thought? I almost called my wife to come and pick me up. I changed my mind. I called an ambulance.
I’m glad I did. This started a sequence of actions that landed me in the coronary care unit of the hospital in less than three hours.
I’m going to share with you as many of the names as I can remember because there were a lot.
Ambulance paramedics Sara and Asmir were my first. They arrived five minutes after my call to 911. Promptly they gave me some aspirin and drove me to Royal Jubilee. My blood pressure was fine and I was able to walk to the ambulance. Once we got to the Emergency Department the action really heated up. After a short wait I was hooked up to some machine with various electrodes in my chest.
The technician took one look at the screen and left. About 30 seconds laterDr. Matthew Kulas flung open the curtain and said, “Come this way.”
Twenty steps away I was instructed to remove my shirt and another nurse hooked me up to an intravenous drip of heparin. “You’ve had a heart attack,” said Dr. Kulas.
I was, as the British say, gobsmacked.
I was in denial as they wheeled me down the corridor and up an elevator to the catheterization lab. This is where I met Donna and Dallas.
Dallas was in a striking blue plaid form-fitting outfit, I’m guessing lead-lined. I asked her if she was Scottish. “Don’t do anything,” I was instructed.
They transferred me to a table and Donna removed the rest of my clothes.
Immediately, Dr. Imad Nadra introduced himself. He, over the next hour, dealt with the blocked coronary artery with astonishing efficiency.
In the process we established that his daughter attended the school I worked for and that she was musical (flute and piano) and was not particularly interested in athletics.
Throughout the procedure as Dallas was adding substances to the mix in my IV drip he called out the numbers to a fellow whose name I don’t recall.
After the installation of a stent into my now cleared artery I was wheeled to the Coronary Care Unit where I had a private room.
Becky, the night nurse, attended to me all night. Then there was Shannaz the next morning.
There was Dr. Hayes overnight and Dr. Cale the next day. My principal cardiologist was Dr. Jennifer Rajala.
My nurse overnight the following night was Chen. She was followed by Min on the next day shift.
Also on the roster was Tony, a pleasant and helpful health care aide. And then there were the quiet folks who slid in and carried out various blood extractions and echo cardiograms and other procedures.
The point of this is that I didn’t feel like a piece of meat moving along an assembly line. I feel more like a guest.
Virtually everyone introduced themselves to me. Everyone asked about what they could do to make me more comfortable – different bedding, help with the toilet, more ice water, change in lighting, earplugs.
Yes, they’re all following a prescribed routine, but it felt like they were writing a new script for me.
Everyone responded to my barrage of questions with patience. Is being polite and kind something you can write into a policy manual?
While these people see their heart attacks every day their “iron fist in a velvet glove” attitude inspired and comforted me in my personal calamity.
Say what you may about the state of health care in Canada. My experience on the ground, where I needed it most, was second to none. My most humble thanks to the staff at the Royal Jubilee Hospital.
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