R

ay Griffis had a chunk of his colon cut out recently. He's just finishing chemotherapy. How's it going? He is an old artillery sergeant major. They don't come any tougher. That's a good thing, because this is a hard story.

We met the other day at North York General. He is 81 years old.

Over a cup of coffee he said, "They cut off about six inches of colon, near the appendix, and took the tumour away. The chemo – if something got into my lymph glands, this is supposed to clean it out."

The chemo is not the problem. Nor is this: "The doctors here are fabulous. My surgeon did an excellent job. The way he sewed me up you'd think he was a seamstress. I was treated like a king."

Here's the problem:

There was a complication soon after he started the chemo. He was hit with diarrhea, and what felt like the flu.

His daughter, a palliative care nurse, hustled him over to emergency at North York General.

It took three rough hours before he was admitted, and then he was put on a gurney in an isolation room in emergency and was left to fend for himself.

From a letter he recently sent to the premier: "I was in an awful state, sore throat, throbbing head ... so weak I could hardly move." He felt a bowel movement coming on. He had to get to a washroom.

"I tried to get the attention of the nurse." She was sitting on the other side of a glass door, in his line of sight.

"It became obvious she didn't want to help me when she turned away on her chair and acted like I didn't exist."

He couldn't help it. He let go. "I had feces all over me and my clothing ... after several bowel movements I felt completely robbed of my dignity ... when the nurse finally noticed what had happened, this was her response: `You've had an accident and you better clean yourself up.' ... She returned about 15 minutes later and threw a couple of diapers on the bed and left me to clean up the mess."

And as we went over the details, Ray shook his head and took a sip from his cup, as doctors and nurses came down to the coffee shop and went back to work, unmindful of us.

Ray said, "If you're not in good hands in emergency, you wonder what you'll be up against elsewhere ... you get scared." You ought not to be scared.

Again, from his letter to the premier:

"The following day I was admitted to the ward ... I started to get my trust back in the system." He had another accident around 10:30 p.m. He cleaned himself up – I repeat, he cleaned himself up – and he asked for a new mattress cover, but a guy in the room pulled over a potty chair and spilled crap all over the floor, and a nurse looked in and left in a hurry.

From the letter: "The room smelled like a cesspool ... I was so sick I could hardly breathe." It was hours before the room was cleaned. "I cried myself to sleep from sheer exhaustion and humiliation."

Old artillery men do not cry easily.

The next night, another accident; again, no help; again, he cleaned himself up. This time, to avoid the smell, he went to the lounge to read the paper. When he returned a couple of hours later, the room had still not been cleaned. Ray smiled. "That's when I decided to go AWOL."



Joe Fiorito usually appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: jfiorito@thestar.ca

