Gary
When you plan a cruise with family and friends, you try to be prepared for everything. Flights, reservations, hurricanes, maybe even who you want to sit next to or avoid at dinner. Then out of the blue, something happens that you could never foresee. So says Gary.
“I landed here in the emergency room at St. Joseph’s Hospital on the eve before I was supposed to take my wife on a cruise,” he recalls. What he thought was the stomach flu had grown progressively worse until he was suffering from severe lower back and abdominal pain. “We decided to get it checked out so I wouldn’t be having problems on the ship or in Mexico.”
Gary spent the night in the emergency room as the physicians and nurses ran several tests and a CT scan. When he awoke the next morning, Dr. Kelly Favre was there at his side. She explained that he had pancreatitis due to gall stones, which meant his gall bladder had to be removed immediately.
Two days later he underwent surgery. “I had excellent care. Not only was the staff very professional in meeting my needs, they were also very, very friendly and wanting to make sure that all my needs were taken care of and that I was as comfortable as I could possibly be.”
Although the committed doctors and staff did everything possible to heal Gary as quickly as possible, they couldn’t keep the cruise ship in port. “Several of my wife’s relatives were also on the cruise and showed me pictures of everything I missed and held my name up on paper plates in the group shots,” Gary says.
But the last laugh might be his. As a retired teacher, Gary explains, “I’m on vacation all the time.”