Before you read my latest post, I want you to understand all aspects of the Alberta Health Care system and its elements. Our province has been suffering for years. We struggle to have enough doctors and nurses to provide proper care for patients. Many healthcare professionals are leaving Alberta due to a lack of respect from the governing bodies, including Alberta Health Services. They have been fighting for sustainable remuneration contracts and are not paid nearly enough for their services to the community. My post is not about getting more doctors or nurses or advocating a raise for them, although that may help the current situation slightly.
My post today focuses on the doctors and nurses employed at the Foothills Medical Center on Unit 42 and how I feel they failed me during my recent stay after cancer surgery.
I have cervical cancer. I was diagnosed a few days before Christmas 2022. I spent the majority of the following months undergoing extensive testing and doctor visits to determine the best course of action for optimal care.
I started with 25 rounds of external radiation and five rounds of chemotherapy. After that was complete, I was to complete three bouts of internal targeted radiation, called brachytherapy. This procedure was to direct radiation directly into my cervix through an appliance that a radiation oncologist temporarily installed with supporting posts. I was to lie still on a bed for three days while I received one treatment on the first day and two treatments on the second day and have the appliance removed after the third treatment. Then, I would be in recovery on the third day and be released to go home.
Unfortunately, during the insertion of the brachy appliance, the radiation oncologist punctured my bowel, causing sepsis in my body. This situation called for immediate surgery, which left me with a lateral abdomen incision of 22 staples and a colostomy bag.
My radiation oncologist told me that I was unlucky. He said this situation had never happened to him with his 200 patients before me or his mentor, who had 300 patients before me. I replied that one in 500 is not good odds and doesn't seem like I'm unlucky, but rather a lack of knowledge/training on his part.
Because I just completed radiation and chemotherapy, my body was not in optimal health for healing. I lost 27 pounds of weight and required three blood transfusions during my stay. Thankfully, I had a Pain Management team that ensured my needs were met during my time in the hospital.
I slowly recovered, only to discover that the radiation oncologist who punctured my bowels left his practice two weeks after this accident. I was sent home without much information about follow-up care and was told I wasn't eligible for home care because of my situation.
Once I was home, my incision dehisced (reopened), causing more pain and concern. My husband was concerned and took me straight to our emergency department. The nurses there were concerned and wanted a scan, and my family doctor ordered home care for me. My local home care team took care of my dressings and ensured that I had everything I needed to heal properly and recover. It took almost three months for my incision to heal and close correctly.
Once my incision healed, I had to undergo a dye test in my colon to ensure that my punctured bowel was also healed. Thankfully, this was successful, and everything seemed great. The next step in my cancer journey was to undergo a Radical Modified Hysterectomy and a colostomy reversal. These procedures would remove my ovaries, fallopian tubes, cervix, and surrounding tissues that may still have cancerous cells to avoid reoccurrence. My GI surgeon was confident I could reverse my colostomy and return to a normal functioning bowel.
Before my final surgery, I had a therapy session with my psychologist, who diagnosed me with medical-induced trauma. She encouraged me to return for further treatment to help combat my PTSD that has developed from my time in the hospital with the cancer treatments and surgeries I've had to endure. At this time, I am still waiting to see her due to my condition at present.
My Latest Surgical Recovery was Traumatic
My surgery was scheduled for October 10, and although I was extremely nervous, I was hopeful that this would be the last one I had to go through. My husband and I prepared ourselves for a long healing journey afterwards.
As scheduled, I arrived at the Foothills Medical Center on Tuesday, October 10, 2023, and received my two surgeries as planned. Everything went well, and I was placed in a semi-private room in Unit 42 Gyne-Oncology after my surgery to recover. My roommate was an elderly woman in palliative care, approximately 80 to 90 years old.
The start of my traumatic experience started with the mistreatment of my roommate. I was in my bed, only separated by a fabric curtain from the other bed in the room which my roommate occupied. As I don't want to reveal too many personal details, my personal account may seem slightly vague to protect her privacy.
My roommate used her call bell to ask for help from the staff with a personal task. A healthcare aide on the unit was called to help this patient. Unfortunately, the healthcare aide was not eager to provide the much-needed assistance the patient asked for. As my roommate pleaded with her to help her with this personal task, the healthcare aid stood by her bed and refused, telling her she would not, leaving the patient helpless. Her tone was condescending and verbally abusive.
At one time during this awful encounter, my roommate told the healthcare aide she couldn't find her call button for the nurses and asked her to help find it. Angrily, the healthcare aide told the patient she didn't know what she did to it, and it was her responsibility to find it. Remember, this is directed at a palliative cancer patient who is 80 to 90 years old, cannot walk, and is in constant pain.
As an advocate for eliminating verbal abuse (I have been the victim of it myself for years), I was determined to say something and change how this healthcare aide behaved toward their patients. My roommate had a social worker at the hospital visit her daily and check in on her. During that time, I overheard my roommate describe the day's events and how awful the healthcare aide treated her. I felt if I confirmed her claims, it would possibly help how this healthcare aide would handle patients in the future.
I interjected into their conversation to recall my account of the events. The social worker was quite upset when I described how my roommate was treated and how her healthcare aide ignored her pleas for help. I hoped there would be some change and my roommate would receive better care. All I could think of was how I wouldn't want my Grandmother to be treated like that in such a vulnerable state. Unfortunately, I think I made the situation worse for her, and it was definitely worse for me.
I Was the Next Target of Abuse in Unit 42
Once I spoke up about the wrongful treatment of my roommate, things quickly changed in the unit where I was recovering from surgery. Within 20 minutes of my complaint, the nurses moved me from my semi-private room to a storage space without a bathroom as a makeshift room. A nurse told me this move was due to overcrowding and them expecting more patients on the unit.
This space was previously called the Solarium. It was an area for families to gather during visiting hours with patients so they don't overcrowd the hospital rooms that house multiple patients. Due to a lack of beds and overcrowding, it's been turned into a makeshift bed/storage area. A curtain runs along the far end of this space to split it into two, where the other side contains medical carts, broken chairs, and other items for storage. There is no door but another fabric curtain hanging to block the hallway entrance for some level of privacy.
Once I entered this 'room,' I realized the severity of my situation. I was giving cheerful answers to my complaints about not having bathroom facilities. A couple of nurses during my relocation would reiterate:
You have a new fancy new bed here that isn't in the other rooms!
Oh, you have a large TV that other patients don't get
Look at all these windows for natural light
I often replied, I don't care what kind of TV I have or the type of bed; I'd rather have a bathroom, which the nurses would dismiss. Once I was moved, I had to walk out of my 'room' and down the hall to the second room on the opposite side for a bathroom. When I asked why I couldn't go straight across the hall to the bathroom that was closest to me, I was told it was because that room had a patient who was under quarantine and couldn't share.
I sat alone in this makeshift hospital room with a television, a hospital bed, and a few pieces of medical equipment on a portable cart (blood pressure cuff, finger oxygen sensor, etc.). I have a garbage can but no bathroom facilities or additional chairs for me or visitors to use. The remote for the television is connected to the wall by a wire that didn't reach the bed. Once I lie down, I realize the bed is positioned in the room directly under the hospital's Wi-Fi hub with a blue light that beams 24 hrs a day directly into my eyes.
I now had a different team of nurses and went from three or four nurses checking in on me daily to only one. My assigned nurse was an undergraduate student. She was optimistic and helpful, trying to do everything she could to make me comfortable, even with my numerous requests for help. However, it was not enough, as one nurse handling multiple patients will quickly become stressed and overworked.
I was repeatedly told that my room was fine and I just had to walk a short distance to share a bathroom. Unfortunately, my bowel reconstructive surgery and my radical modified hysterectomy it resulted in painful gas and bowel movements that required bathroom facilities more often than others.
Although I pleaded with them that I needed a room with a bathroom after my bowel reconstruction surgery, I was ignored. At one point, I was trying to convince a nurse of my bathroom being a necessity and explaining I have to use facilities every 60 minutes or so; she replied back in jest, "Do you really need to go to the bathroom that much?"
I tried to find a common ground with the nurses on Unit 42. I requested a chair to sit on during the day to eat my meals and for visitors. The nurses responded by moving in a broken chair that was stuck in the reclining position, and the padding was missing from the arms, exposing broken, sharp metal edges.
I then asked if I could have a commode chair during the evening so I wouldn't have to leave my room when my pain was too intense. Thankfully, they did accommodate my request but would get upset when the bottom fell out and spilled, causing them to clean it up.
All other nurses began to ignore my requests for scheduled pain medication. I was told that I wasn't on a regular schedule for pain medication and they would only release my pain meds as I needed them. I was taking multiple drugs and was in constant pain the entire time. With the lack of sleep and medication, I couldn't remember which drug I took last or when I was due for more, making it difficult to manage my pain alone without help from the nurses.
The nurses would forget to check the dressing on my incision and even walked away from me when I requested help. Once, I asked a nurse why I couldn't get assistance, and she said, "This is what you get." When I tried to clarify what she meant, she shrugged her shoulders and walked away.
It wasn't until, after spending two days in the makeshift storage space, I collapsed after walking down the hall to reach a bathroom and needed immediate medical attention. There was an open bed in a nearby room at this time for an entire day, but I was refused the move, even after pleading with the head nurse on the unit due to my condition.
Exhausted, in pain and tearful, I asked my lone nurse if my sister could come. I wanted someone to support me while I was living in agony. She agreed that I could have someone like my sister come to stay in my makeshift room. However, she quickly retorted her statement after speaking to the head nurse.
She returned to me and stated that if my sister came to stay with me, I would not be moved to the open room with a bathroom. If I wanted a room with a bathroom, my sister would have to stay away. This, alone, made me angry, and I felt that they were keeping me from some solace during my recovery.
Eventually, after breaking down in tears from extreme pain and abdominal bleeding, I was transferred to the empty room that sat just down the hall from where I was. I suddenly had two nurses remove the dressing on my incision and watched the look of horror on their faces as they had to remove a dressing stuck to my incision because it was left without care for almost three days.
Once they cleaned up my surgical site, it wouldn't stop bleeding for almost 45 minutes. One nurse stood at my bedside and repeatedly held a gauze on my open wound, soaking up the discharge, hoping it would eventually stop. I was riddled with pain and was finally given medication for nerve damage and bowel pain to help manage my symptoms. This happened FIVE days after my initial surgery. I went FIVE days in Unit 42 without proper pain management or care. And I'm sure I'm not an isolated incident.
After my discharge, I was only sent home with enough pain medication for two days. TWO days. I wasn't given the option to wean off pain meds or to continue them so I could get proper rest at home while I recovered. I had to argue and fight with the on-call doctor for additional pain medication since she told me I was atypical and her patients didn't need meds after two days of being home.
Disregard for the Nurses on Unit 42
I also heard nurses outside in the hall while I was in the makeshift room. I grew concerned each time I heard them talk. One conversation went like this:
Nurse 1: "You have to clean it like this. It won't get cleaned properly if you do it that way."
Nurse 2: "But I can't do it like that with my gloves on"
Nurse 1: "That's how you have to do it"
At the time, I thought that one seasoned veteran was showing a new nurse how to correctly clean an item during her shift. Unfortunately, later, I realized the truth with a follow-up conversation between them.
Nurse 1: "I told you, you have to clean it like this!"
Nurse 2: "I'm not comfortable touching the cleaners without gloves on... " and their voices fade out as they walk down the hall or lower their volume.
My observation on this situation was that a new nurse didn't want to use harsh chemicals to clean an item without protecting herself, while the seasoned nurse ignored her valid concerns. Surely, there can be a safe way for nurses to clean hospital items without putting themselves at risk without taking shortcuts.
Where Do We Go From Here?
I am not sure how we can improve this situation. I don't have the funds myself to hire and pay for quality nurses and doctors at the Foothills Medical Center. I am unaware of all the hospital protocols and how I can make patient care processes better. All I have is my voice. I will try to use my voice as much as possible to help initiate change for the patients and everyone in Unit 42 who needs help.
You can help by sharing my story, my first-hand experience of how my recent recovery from surgery was. If you have a similar story, share it with others. Continue to speak out until the powers that be cannot silence our voices and are forced to make changes!