Justine’s Story

Site created on March 28, 2019

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Journal entry by Alana Janvier

Our outpatient nurse phoned right at 8AM. I was almost in tears talking to her, because the night was so so rough. Justine had hardly been up to use the washroom because she was terrified that the pain would intensify. She told me she would phone me right back.

I just sat there, watching my baby daze in and out of sleep because she was soooo tired.

Finally, the nurse phoned me back and asked that we come in ASAP. She also told me to pack a bag because we would most likely be admitted.

I ran around the house like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get together the MUST HAVE things. I called my neighbor and asked her if she could help me get Justine into the car - it was almost impossible moving her due to pain.

I drove as slow as possible, because the movement was too much for Justine. We got to the hospital and they took Justine into an exam room almost right away and gave her Dilaudid. I told our nurse and oncologist that the ER doctor had given me results. They explained to me that that was NOT right, and what he was reading was just a pre-limanary report. It could change for the final report. (So technically, she has still not been diagnosed. Way to scare me ER doctor).

They let us know that they had no beds available at the moment, but if we went for lunch and came back in about an hour they should have one.

We were downstairs in the cafeteria for about 15 minutes when the pain started to come back. The dilaudid had only worked for 15-20 minutes. So I decided to bring her back upstairs to the oncology unit, it hopes that they had something else they could give her.

They told me they didn't but a bed should be available SOON, so maybe she could lay down and relax.

Another 30+ minutes went by and someone whisked her into a bed at the back as quickly as possible (I think it was mainly due to the fact that she was literally SCREAMING out in pain in the middle of the hallway). We later found out that this person is a Child Life Specialist (God bless those people <3).

Once laying in the bed, the pain got NO better. The child life specialist advocated for Justine to have more pain meds, when she realized that the pain meds were doing nothing for her - she advocated for ativan and some pet therapy. Justine had the ativan and a puppy came to visit her. She immediately calmed down. She was in and out of sleep, but her pain was much better.

About an hour after all of this - they finally had a permanent room for her to be in. We were moved and that's where we tried to figure out how to manage her pain.

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