Hydroponic Tomato

Things got worse in the morning. Nicole complained of increased bleeding and pain. “We’re going to the hospital, now!” she told me after hanging up the phone. She had spoken to her doctor, who was practicing at another hospital that day. Another emergency ward. Will it be like CHUL? or like CHRTR? On the road to Christ-Roy hospital.

The first thing that stroke me, was the parking lot. There are three types of parking lots: free, pay-as-you-go, pay-in-advance. This was a pay-in-advance. 1$/hour or 6$/whole day. Emergency wards are unpredictable. At the CHRTR we stayed for nine hours. At the CHUL for three. What should I do? No-brainer: I paid for the whole day. Will leave the ticket for the next patient in need.

I think it is wrong to charge hospital patients parking fees. Customers at shopping centers seldom have to pay for their parking, why should customers at the hospital do? Of all payment models pay-in-advance is the most inconvenient one, unless it was designed specifically to take advantage of patients in need that can’t really predict how much time they will need? Anyway, this is a battle to be fought another day.

The waiting room was crowded. The building was old, with some unergonomic design decisions dating back to the Seventies. Very dark, brownish, oppressing ceiling. But things were moving forward CHUL-like, not CHRTR-like. Despite system inefficiency (once again she had to register with the hospital and answer basic questions for about 15 minutes) service was excellent and Nicole could see her doctor within less than an hour. Things got worse indeed. She prescribed her pain killers and told her to fast and to be available on call for surgery at CHUL.

Waiting, again…

We did not do much for the rest of the day. The pain killers helped. Evening came and just when we started to cope with waiting another day, the phone call arrived and we were driving to the CHUL.

While Nicole went back home with her parents, I picked up the car at the garage. We were waiting for a call from her doctor to schedule surgery. I stopped at Simon’s place again, configuring his network. He and his family have been a big comfort in this difficult time. No call from the doctor. That evening was the scheduled Typo 3 User Group meeting at Université Laval.

It was pouring rain outside. Instead of parking in the underground garage I parked far away, in the shopping center facing the hospital, and walked 15 minutes under the cold rain, no umbrella, thinking of our master plan that has been drammatically changed. Many thoughts crossed my mind. First and foremost that I should take care of Nicole right now, that the emergency is not over yet.

In the university’s bathroom I quickly wiped off as much of the water I could and got ready for the meeting, as if nothing happened. But my head was not really there, Only toward the end, when I got a chance to ask the question for which I came. I wanted to integrate multi-media content by XSS injection, like I am already doing in WordPress and in MediaWiki. A young guy, Jean-Philippe, took the challenge and in a few minutes he showed one way of doing it. Amazing how he was mastering Typo3’s complexity.

At the end of the meeting I discussed a bit with Jean-François, his boss. Potential for business. But my mind was not very clear at this stage. I shared with him what was keeping me busy.

That night, when I got home to Nicole’s parents, she told me that surgery was scheduled for Friday. Three more days to wait…

The next morning. Early wake up and a 90 minutes drive. OK, it was 60 minutes. The mood is still hopeful, Nicole’s bleeding has not worsened. I drop her at the CHUL hospital entrance and drive the car to the garage. The big service (whole day) was scheduled well in advance.

Rain starts. I drop by quickly at Simon’s to pick up a few things left on Panic Day. Nicole calls saying she has already been through admission, including making a hospital card. That was blazing fast compared to CHRTR.

I continue to the garage. Service there was excellent as usual. This was the first time I made use of their complimentary shuttle service. I usually try not to cause more expenses than necessary and just take my notebook with. This time was different. They immediately understood the situation and drove me A.S.A.P. to the hospital.

In the meantime, in less than one hour, Nicole has been through admission, triage and a doctor performed an initial sonography on her. A three minutes procedure. When I arrived she was waiting to be taken upstairs for further investigations, though she already had a sense that it was only to confirm the inevitable.

Compare this: Same symptoms description. Simple prescribed solution: a three minutes sonography to diagnose what causes the symptoms. Same country. Same province. Same government. Same ministry. Same money. CHRTR: nine inconclusive hours of waiting. CHUL: One hour until provisional assessment plus two hours for in depth verification and decision over the course of action. Spot the difference? The emergency admission room was smaller and more crowded at CHUL than at CHRTR, but at CHUL things were moving forward.

We overheard a nurse talking to another patient. He had severe burning all over his face. The nurse noticed he was from Bécancourt, near Trois-Rivières. “Why didn’t you go to CHRTR?” she asked. “A 90 minutes drive to CHUL is quicker than waiting 12 hours at CHRTR” he replied. We could relate to this! In the current situation, the day we lost at CHRTR did not make a difference, but what if it did? we won’t take that chance next time.

It was not yet lunch time and we were in a sonography room. The first doctor (or maybe she was just a technician) zoomed in on Nicole’s womb. Left ovary, right ovary, the embryo. “What week are you in?” 9-1/2. “This is pretty small for 9-1/2 weeks”. She called a more senior doctor. He confirmed: the size is max. 7th week. “Happens one out of five pregnancies, it’s common. You’re unlucky that it has happened on your first attempt. We don’t even analyze this unless you have a history of 3+ miscarriages.” It had not flushed naturally, it will have to be removed.

We arranged for Nicole’s parents to fetch us. Her dad even shaved for the occasion. For the past ten weeks Nicole had followed recommended pregnancy diet. The first thing we did out of the hospital was breaking that diet. Sushi.

I was shooting on assignment at the Jewish cemetery in Quebec-City that afternoon, with my friend Simon. It was a perfect Indian Summer weather, with temperatures above 20°C. Then we went to a shopping center buy him a new router. While at the checkout counter, my cell phone rang. It was Nicole. Something bad happened but the line fell. Panic! It took fifteen minutes to re-establish communication. Already the initial interaction brought to light how inadequate our emergency planning was. We had no plan!

She was bleeding. Many women have bleedings during the first three pregnancy months. Her doctor said she should schedule an emergency sonography but it was already past 15:30 and the hospital’s scheduling line was no longer attended. We decided to go to the emergency ward and wait there. Little problem: she was in Trois-Rivières, no car. I was in Quebec-City, 90 minutes away. Rush hour was just beginning!

Simon was kind enough to let me drop him at the next bus station. Then I drove toward Trois-Rivières. I was speeding. All I had in mind was to reach Nicole A.S.A.P. I was very lucky when I drove past two police cars busy enforcing speed limits. Compared to Switzerland, Germany and France, Quebec’s police use inefficient speed limit enforcement.

Later on there was a work zone. For eight long kilometers I could not pass the cars ahead of me. Speed was reduced. The slow down made time for me to actually think and tinker with the cell phone. Why had I not thought of it before? one of our local friends could drive Nicole to the emergency ward.

Danny was just back home from his work day. In ten minutes he drove Nicole to the local hospital where his girlfriend Guylaine is a nurse. She just finished her shift and helped Nicole through triage. This solved the choice of emergency ward, the options being locally in Trois-Rivières or at our hospital in Quebec-City, with a 90 minutes drive trade-off between them.

I arranged for some food for Nicole (a falafel from El Taouk) and myself. Then we waited. Almost nine hours, before going home with half of a lesson learned: we will find out in the coming days that the emergency ward at the Trois-Rivières Regional Hospital Center Sainte-Marie is different than the emergency ward at the two Québec-City hospitals (Christ Roy and CHUL) we will be dealing with.

But for now, we did not know. All we knew was that we have wasted a full nine hours. It did not have any influence on the outcome, and next time we’ll know better how not to waste time. Tomorrow is another attempt to see a doctor.