Jim’s Story

Jim Pearse went to bed at 10 PM on a warm summer evening not feeling very well. His stomach was in pain, and he took an anti-acid to see if he would feel better. A couple of hours later, he was up again – that pain had gotten worse. Jim thought it could be an ulcer, so he decided to drive himself from his home in Creemore to CGMH.

However, this car ride was very different than what he had anticipated. On his way from Creemore to Collingwood, Jim passed out at the wheel and had an accident. He was OK and no one else was injured. His car was totaled. As unlucky as this may have been, the rest of Jim’s story wasn’t. A couple of people happened to be driving by and saw the accident. They ran over to help Jim, laid him on the ground and were able to contact his wife, right after calling 911. And it so happened that the paramedics had transferred a patient to a retirement home in Creemore and were just around the corner.

When Jim arrived at CGMH, his blood pressure had dropped to almost half of what it normally is. He was put in an observation room in the Emergency Department and had a CT scan done soon after he arrived. That’s when the doctors diagnosed Jim with appendicitis and told him he had to undergo emergency surgery. He was very surprised to learn that surgery was happening that very evening, in an hour’s time.

“Dr. Lisi performed my surgery and the next day he came to see me. It was a Saturday morning, which means he stopped whatever he was doing to check on me. I was very surprised and impressed by that. Once we had a chat and he saw me, I was released to go home,” said Jim.

But it wasn’t just Dr. Lisi who impressed Jim. He was also very pleased by all the CGMH staff that helped him along the way. “The whole experience was great, starting with the paramedics, through the time I spent in the hospital until I left. Everyone knew what they were doing, and everyone was so pleasant the whole time,” added Jim.

This is an amazing example of how the healthcare team at CGMH can make a scary story become something else. As Jim remembers this evening, what could have been a terrible memory became a story he is happy to retell.