A Field Trip to McMaster ER

After the fiasco on Friday night where no one in our local K/W ER knew what my PEG tube was and what to do, we were told to contact my Pediatrician Monday morning.

Mommy made the call, and Dr. Rosner had suggested to contact CCAC (which is the community care access center) and if they can't help us, unfortunately we would need to make the trip to the McMaster ER.

Mommy spent her entire lunch hour getting passed around to different people within the CCAC network since no one could answer her question "Do you fix PEG tubes? Is a nurse able to come out and fix?" Finally, after an hour of getting passed around the last person asked one of her colleages, to which the answer was "No, we don't do that, but if you need a nurse to come out on a regular basis to check on him, you can have your doctor submit a referral." Thanks CCAC even if you lied to me about not being able to fix PEG tubes, my confidence in you has decreased more that it already is! So McMaster it is. Mommy made the necessary plans to take me on Tuesday. Even better my Auntie Heather offered to come with us.

Tuesday rolled around and we left house at 8:30am, picked up Heather and went on something called a "road trip". Little did I know where we were actually going...
Mommy took forever to park the car in the parking garage, I didn't think we would ever get out of the car and stretch my legs.

We entered this building and as soon as I smelled the familiar smell of McMaster Hospital I knew I was in for something to remember with this "road trip". Mommy checked me in and we began the wait. I heard my name called from somewhere behind the wall, I took off, maybe this person is here to save me! But alas, he is not, he was another Triage man wanting to squeeze and prod me. Since I had already been through this may times before I knew what was coming and with that the check-in was complete.

Watching the Incredibles

We got called back into the ER where I was set up in my own room, with get this folks... a flat screen TV! No sound, but at least I could watch the colourful pictures roll by. By the second viewing of a soundless "The Incredibles", we were finally seen by a resident on the general surgery team. He took a look at my tube and him and Mommy tested it with a bit of water to find out where it was leaking. He left and brought us back a roll of waterproof tape. He said that they will patch the leak until they can get me an appointment with Dr. Fitzgerald. (He was the surgeon that put the tube in). He said that they run clinics on Thursdays so he will be back with an appointment card. Mommy asked if there is anything they can do today so we don't have to leave and come back, the resident said no I would have to have an appointment because this isn't an Emergency so all they can do is tape it up. He proceeded to do this and left to schedule me an appointment.

20 minutes later he returned with a lady in scrubs, she took a look at my tube and said that it comes apart and we can just replace the end. She told the resident to take the tape off and she showed us and the resident how to take the piece out, then put it back together to search to see if they had that piece in the OR. The resident returned with the part and 30 seconds later I had a new end and a fixed tube!

Mommy asked if they had an extra that we could take home and he said that they are really expensive so they can't give them out. However, Mommy knows what it looks like now and figures she knows where to get the piece from in town.

Oye, some adventure, at least it ended with me NOT in the Operating Room.