Tumbler Ridge mom urges parents to push for healthcare for children after son experiences health emergency

TUMBLER RIDGE, B.C. — A Tumbler Ridge mother is urging parents to push for healthcare for their children after a nurse said her son had a stomach bug when it turned out to be appendicitis. 

On October 25th, Jennifer Strang took her seven-year-old son, John, to the emergency room in Tumbler Ridge after he had been “violently throwing up” for a few days with a low-grade fever and didn’t seem like himself. 

Strang says the nurse on shift at the ER said it was likely a stomach bug. 

“I said, ‘But this is day four, he’s got nothing else to throw up,’” said Strang. 

She told the nurse her son had been complaining about pain on the lower, righthand side of his stomach, where the appendix is located. 

“She said she didn’t feel [his appendix], and it didn’t look like his stomach is distended and didn’t feel a hard lump in there,” said Strang. 

“She said, ‘I talked to the doctor on the phone, and I am not going to tell them to come in because this is just a stomach bug. You can go home.’”

Strang says the next morning, she and her mother went back to the emergency room, where her mother demanded John be seen by a doctor and have bloodwork done. 

“As soon as they did the bloodwork, they saw his white blood cell count was through the roof,” said Strang. 

“There was a nurse there that told me to get him out of there immediately, or he would die.”

Strang’s mother took John to the ER at the Fort St. John Hospital, where a doctor performed an ultrasound and said John appeared to have appendicitis.  

“I mentioned to that ER doctor the nurse from the previous night pressed on John’s stomach and didn’t feel anything, and the doctor told me she didn’t feel anything because his appendix had already ruptured at that point,” said Strang. 

After the ultrasound, Strang was told she needed to get her son to Dawson Creek Hospital right away to see a surgeon, as there was no surgeon on-call available in Fort St. John. 

John was transported by ambulance to Dawson Creek, where he underwent surgery quickly after his arrival. 

“I really appreciate the doctors and nurses here at Dawson [Creek Hospital],” said Strang. 

“We got here at 8:20 p.m., and they had him on the table and operating at 10:30 p.m. He was out just before midnight. The doctor told me if it had been an hour later, he wouldn’t have made it.”

According to Strang, while operating, doctors found John had a ruptured bowel and appendix and was being poisoned by pus and fecal matter leaking into his stomach.

Two days after his surgery, John began feeling sick and in pain again. Strang took him back to Dawson Creek Hospital, where a CT scan revealed a large abscess in his stomach.

“The plan was to have him operated on here, but the doctor said it would be futile because it’s so bad,” said Strang. 

Strang says they are now awaiting an airlift to Vancouver Children’s Hospital. 

“There’s a radiologist down there that has done this operation before, where they will use ultrasound to see exactly where the abscess is to insert a tube into it for drainage. Apparently, they don’t do this [operation] very often with children, but it has to be done. If that [abcess] ruptures, he’ll be poisoned.”

Strang believes the whole situation could have been avoided if her son had received the medical attention he needed during his initial visit to the ER.

“They could have found out just by doing a simple blood test the first night we went,” said Strang.

In order to bring awareness to her experience, Strang published a Facebook post detailing what she and her son have gone through over the last week. 

“Don’t let anyone downplay what you know in your gut,” said Strang. 

“He [John] wasn’t himself, and I knew it, but you go to a medical professional who downplays it, and you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m an idiot.’ You think you need to listen to them because they’re a doctor, but you know your kid better than anybody else.”

Strang hopes her Facebook post also brings awareness to appendicitis. 

“If your kid says they’ve got pain in the lower stomach, just go get it checked out. If it’s nothing, it’s nothing, but don’t ever let it pass.”

According to Strang, since she posted on Facebook, complete strangers have reached out and said they experienced the same thing. 

“Some of them were appendix-related, some of them were diabetes, some of them were other things,” said Strang.

“Others went to emergency and just had a prescription thrown at them without testing or anything. It [emergency healthcare] needs to be more important. We’re in 2023, it shouldn’t be downgraded, we should be moving forward and advancing.”