Sometime around January 12th, my appendix tore open and proceeded to spew waste material into my abdomen. Thinkng that I had the same flu bug many of my friends had, I simply chowed down on Advil & kept going.

After running out of Advil in the wee hours of last Friday, I waited untill 7am to phone in sick. Got cleaned up & called a buddy for a ride to Scarborough General Hospital by 8am. Now I'm in a wheelchair !
Surgery took place at about 6pm.
The adventure really takes a nosedive after I wake up in the recovery room. Instead of a small incision like most folks get, I've got one that is a full 9" long. Reason being that the waste material was so wide spread that I had to be opened up wide to clean it up.
I was later informed that if I had continued to use pain killers & carried on for 1 more day, my life could have been in "serious jeopardy".
Thank God that huge bottle of Advil ran out !
Over the next 5 days, I witnessed some shining examples of medical staff. Unfortunately, some others were not deserving of their title, or position. They seemed to fit in well with some of the hospital policy which made the facility, in my opinion (and I found out later from everyone I spoke to with first hand experience that this was common knowledge) to be equivilent to a zero star hotel.
So, long story short, I hadn't had a bowel movement for 8+ full days at the time the security guards arrived to remove me from the hospital because my appendix proceedure had concluded sucessfully. After actually begging for relief by any means I was repeatedly told there had been no direct orders from the doctor to do the things I asked. At the height of my frustration I did the absolute worst thing you could do from a hospital bed. I called 911 & asked to be taken to another hospital. Rumour has it that any and ALL personnel from the bottom, right to the very top has to answer for a genuine 911 call placed from a hospital bed.
I just hope that the many other people I saw being treated badly, most of all, old Charlie Bishop, managed to escape to a better place.
For me, I'm lucky to be alive and the nightmare is over.
Perhaps hospitals need more volunteers & candy stripers to help take up the slack underfunding, & etc., that is the cause of many operating problems today.
AL.
P.S. If you think that this was just a rant, you've obviously been fortunate.

 

Glad to hear you are doing better! THey say a ruptured appendix is usually a killer. You were very fortunate you got to any hospital when you did.

 

Thank you.
Yup, this isn't the first time that I've wound up in a hospital from working myself to the ground.
This may sound really selfish, but from now on, nobody comes before me. I really do want to live long enough to see grandchildren and that won't happen if I continue working like a machine.
Also, it's clear to me now that all hospitals are NOT just about equal !
AL.