I was incredibly lucky that one of the nurses on duty saw my discomfort and did what she could to mitigate my pain.

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Recently, I had a medical misadventure. I ended up in the emergency room of the Civic campus of The Ottawa Hospital at 6:30 a.m. after a very painful weekend. I had been recovering from a surgery to address a longstanding stomach issue. Unknown to me at the time, another stomach issue was brewing that caused me significant pain and, it turned out, internal bleeding.

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I was initially attended to quite quickly. An intake interview happened, blood was taken and tests were scheduled. I was sent to wait in the Urgent Care hallway with other unfortunate folks. Some were groaning or crying. I was told that I could not eat or drink because of the possibility of another surgery. You are not supposed to have a relative or friend with you in this area, so I sent Kristen, my spouse, home and told her I would keep her posted.

I spent my day waiting, or making my way on my own to various departments for tests. I kept my backpack and winter coat with me because you don’t know where you are going to end up and there is no one to watch your stuff. Often you are dragging an IV pole.

Sometimes you are “lucky” enough to get sent back to the Urgent Care hallway as you wait for test results but sometimes, because of patient volume and lack of space, you end up back in the main ER waiting area. It is noisy, crowded and full of people who have been waiting hours to be........

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