I just got a call from Nurse Dawn at Woodland Terrace. She was calling to let me know that mom was now back there for the night. She said that mom had been taken to Halifax Hospital, but was “turned away because of overcrowding,” and was “diverted” to Fish Memorial.
Unfortunately she called while I was standing in the middle of a restroom — I didn’t think it was appropriate to explain the whole story about how upset April was that they were telling people that while I was in a bathroom — so I asked her if I could call her right back. She said okay.
I called about two minutes later and Rachel answered the phone. I asked her if I could speak to Nurse Dawn and she told me she would page her for me.
A few seconds later a man answered the phone and said, “West wing.” I said, “Hi. I’m trying to reach Dawn.”
There was a moment of confusion because the man thought I was asking for someone named Don. When he realized that I was looking for Nurse Dawn, he said that she was unable to come to the phone because she was in the middle of a procedure with a patient. I told him I thought she was probably in the room with my mother, Kathie Gagne, since she had just called me less than three minutes earlier, but he said she was not in mom’s room but was down the hall and had put on sterile gloves for a procedure and couldn’t come to the phone.
He asked for my name and number and said he would have Dawn call me as soon as she could. I told him that I was David and Dawn definitely already had my number, since she had just called me.
He said, “Okay. And what’s your last name?”
I replied, “Gagne,” and he said, “G – A – G – N – E – Y.”
I said, “No Y,” and he said, “Oh, okay. No Y. And what’s your number?”
Rather than argue, I just gave him my number and he said he’d have Dawn call me as soon as she was done.