Greetings my dear Red Deerians. I’m writing this as I hear about the potential for our first snowfall of the new season. Are we ever ready for its inevitability? I hope you are as much as I am!
There’s a Tom Petty song that goes “The waiting is the hardest part.” I referenced that because I was pondering several different ideas for this month’s blog. I’m glad I waited until now because “waiting” is what this blog is about.
I received an invitation from my dear friend and Minister of Health, Adriana LaGrange, last week. She told me the wait had ended for the community and that finally a cardiac catheterization lab was going to be constructed a full five years ahead of schedule. I am unable to find the words for how I felt upon hearing that. A deep sense of relief, of joy, of bittersweet memory, of accomplishment, of gratitude. All of those and more were pouring over me. Off I drove to the hospital, and I began to reflect on my personal “wait” as well as the “wait” for so many others. For families, for cardiac patients, for the doctors and health care workers and for the community.
A flashback, if you’ll permit me, to October 2016, in fact October 24, 2016 almost exactly eight years ago. The front page headline of the Red Deer Advocate said “Local Doctors Want Life Saving Heart Treatment at the Hospital.” The story highlighted that mortality rates in Red Deer and the Central Zone were 50 to 75 percent higher than anywhere in the province due to the lack of cardiac catheter therapy.
Patients suffering a cardiac episode required ambulance or STARS transport to Calgary or Edmonton for the life saving treatment. While “waiting” for that transport, life hung in the balance and the condition of the heart deteriorated. Families and doctors also “waited” for the transport, knowing every minute counted. The “waiting” was indeed the hardest part. Upon reading the article, I thought, “this could be me.” I have family history, hypertension and not an active lifestyle. I met with then, Mayor Veer, and we soon mobilized Council to joining the effort of getting a cath lab. I soon discovered there were many physicians and other health care providers in that effort. I was happy and honoured to join their ranks.
But the real shock took place one month after that article. My dear wife, Isabelle, suffered a massive heart attack. She was airlifted to Calgary but not before we said our goodbyes at the helicopter pad. She was not expected to survive but she did. She came back by ambulance to Red Deer a week later and was admitted to the ICU. Just over three months later, after giving it everything she had, Isabelle died.
While in the ICU for those 102 days, I began to experience the effects of the waiting on not just me and the kids but on every family that had loved ones in the ICU. The ICU is a place of waiting. Waiting to see improvement or deterioration. Waiting for hope, for encouragement, often, sadly, waiting for the end. And when that waiting is a result of a medical service that didn’t exist here, the waiting is inexcusable, it’s maddening, it’s unbearable.
Back to the present now. I’m a little early for the press conference so I walk the short distance from the meditative garden to the ICU I know so well. I like to visit the staff there especially the nursing staff who remember Isabelle fondly and fought so hard beside her. I thank them once again and once again I see families waiting just as I did.
A sense of deep gratitude fills me as I walk back to the press conference. I am so grateful for the tireless efforts of so many doctors, so many volunteers, so many community voices who spoke out for the service. I am grateful to Time is Life, to Society for Healthcare Equity in Central Alberta (SHECA) and the Red Deer Regional Health Foundation, to the mayors of the surrounding communities, to our local MLAs but most especially to my friend, Minister Adriana LaGrange. She refused to take no for an answer and found a way to get the service done. The wait for the press conference is over now and I step to the microphone. I say: “My friends, this is an extraordinary day because the wait is over.”
Truly, the wait will be over for those of us who will need this service. Lives will be saved. The waiting will be reduced, and hope will instead replace it.
My dear Red Deerians, in whatever you are waiting for in the hard part of waiting, may you never give up hope. May you persevere with optimism, strength and courage. Let the Cardiac Catheter story be an example of what can happen when the community comes together in a righteous cause. May your wait be rewarded as ours was just a few days ago.
Until next time,
Mayor Ken Johnston