The end of April marked Nicole's 6th birthday (April 27th to be specific). This was her first birthday party with her school friends. What a gong show it was. 16 screaming little girls...yikes. The nice part about it was that kids at this age are not so clicky and everyone gets along. Don't imagine that is going to last long...so we enjoy it while we can. I think Nicole must have mentioned to all of her friends that she wanted "Barbie" stuff for her birthday...because she was inundated with every Barbie trinket known to man. Again...yikes. We survived that day and it was relatively painless. Most importantly I think Nicole had a great time.
Susan is going to physio two times a week now to help get her back to speed. Our big concern is that their may be some permanent injury and to what extent. The way the foot has been repaired surgically with screws etc. She will not have the flexibility or movement she had before, we are just wondering what the extent will be. Susan is back at work now, but it is a challenge as she still needs to use the crutches a bit and has to wear her boot to protect the foot. The one nice thing is that we are now driving to work together, which I have enjoyed. Not sure why we didn't do this before.
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| Susan's Foot! |
A few interesting developments have come out of Susan's accident and breaking her foot. She was treated by the Seven Oaks Emergency room after her car accident. We had some unfortunate incidents happen while being treated (or not being treated) there. A couple of weeks after the "incident." I thought it was important to send a letter to the hospital, and share our experiences and concerns we had about Susan's treatment. Apparently my e-mail made quite an impression. I was contacted by the Chief Medical Officer at Seven Oaks and given a very well thought out response from the hospital. I was asked if my letter could be forwarded to other staff members as they thought the feedback could be beneficial. I thought the matter would end there, but I was contacted again by the hospital about a month ago and was invited to participate in a process improvement project. I was being asked to specifically provide a patient perspective to assist in improving processes in the Seven Oaks Emergency Room. I spent an entire day with a group of about 12 Emergency Room Staff, and will be invited back again in June to participate again.
It is absolutely fascinating to get involved in health care management at this level. It was a huge education and eye-opener. In other ways it is extremely frustrating to see first-hand why health care fails on so many levels. It also frustrates me that the current debate on health care that takes place at the political level is mostly irrelevant and a waste of time. In my day at Seven Oaks I saw a frustrated staff that has to attempt to solve real issues in their department under a burden of political agendas from various parties including the media, management, unions, and government. These people just want to take care of people and send them home...safely. It is just that simple.
In my own experience and when I have talked to other families about how hospital staff have made a huge difference in their lives it always seems to come down to someone who cared enough to go above and beyond what is in their "job description" and just did the "right" thing. In other words...they cared enough to identify a problem and they took care of it. I really hope that the team at Seven Oaks is on the right path...Good Luck!
