Niagara Health sites offer com passionate care during COVID
Having a child suddenly become ill and require emergency hospitalization and surgery is a nightmare situation for any parent. But navigating through this during a pandemic can escalate those feelings of anxiety and loss of control. That was how Lindsay was feeling back in July when she realized she had to take her daughter Ella, 9, to the Niagara Health’s St. Catharines Site after more than a day of vomiting and abdominal pain. As uncomfortable as Lindsay was about taking her daughter to the hospital during COVID-19, her fears quickly dissipated once they arrived. “The emergency room was taking every precaution with lots of safety measures in place. Patients were carefully screened and those with any COVID-19 symptoms were kept separate,” she says. “Only one parent was allowed to stay with Ella, to keep the numbers of people down.”
The doctors were quickly able to determine that Ella needed surgery for appendicitis. “The doctors and nurses were awesome, keeping us calm while they quickly prepped her for surgery,” says Lindsay.
The routine surgery went well, but the night after the surgery Ella started to experience vomiting every 10 minutes. Naturally, for Lindsay, this was alarming, especially since she was at Ella’s bedside without her husband or family for support (only one family member could stay with Ella because of COVID restrictions). “Ella’s nurse, Cassie, was our savior,” says Lindsay. “She was calm and caring, which helped us through a very difficult night.”
The next morning, they were told Ella’s bowels had shut down due to her appendicitis, which caused a severe internal infection that stopped her body from digesting fluids. Everything had to be pumped from her stomach by a tube that was inserted through her nose down her throat to her stomach.
“I felt very scared, because I didn’t know what was going to happen next,” says Ella. “But everyone was nice and they told me everything would be okay, and I trusted that.” Over the next few days, things slowly improved. “It was mentally exhausting, dealing with the challenges of her condition and no one allowed in but me,” says Lindsay. “The nurses were so very reassuring and so good about keeping things calm and upbeat, even helping me out by keeping an eye on Ella when I stepped out for a coffee. And the doctors were awesome. Her surgeon saw her every single day while we were there.”
In total, Ella was in the hospital for nine days. “Throughout the nine days in the hospital, I felt very confident that Ella was well taken care of, that we were very safe during COVID-19, and she got what she needed in a timely way. Plus the support we got from the nurses after surgery was important for emotional support.” Some of this state-of-theart, life-saving equipment isn’t funded by the government; it’s only made possible through donations.
On reflection, Lindsay says how grateful she is to have such good healthcare at her doorstep. “We’re lucky enough to have a hospital and other health facilities in our community,” she says, “with all the equipment necessary so we didn’t have to travel for care.”
Donor support is vital to the care of children like Ella and others in the community. This holiday season, give to Niagara Health Foundation’s Celebration of Lights campaign, to provide hospital care teams with the tools they need to diagnose, treat and care for your loved ones when they need it most. To make a donation, please visit LightsForHealth.com