Medical emergencies often arise unexpectedly, and individuals may not immediately recognize the severity of their condition. I got very close to hitting that line – and more than once.

I thought I had a minor bicycling accident just five days before I went to the Swedish Wood Association conference in Karlstad Sweden as a presenter in mid-November. Despite there being no symptoms-  suggesting that it could only be minor – it was a serious accident, but there was no real way to know.

I knew something was wrong on my second last day in Sweden as my breathing became laboured. I flew home as scheduled and went directly into Vancouver’s General Hospital where I was assessed with some serious injuries. I had fractured five ribs, lacerated my spleen and had internal bleeding in my thorax.  All of this would have started ten days earlier meaning that I was dealing with serious internal injuries.

The Vancouver doctors had to suction out all the dried blood out of my thorax to prevent infection and/or worse. This was a challenge and two attempts were tried. One with minor surgery and the second with full on surgery. At the same time my blood counts were going all over the place and often in the wrong direction, so the doctors had to aggressively balance out my blood levels and then keeping everything else as close to normal as possible. Eventually I had to be intubated and ventilated in the ICU so that infections and pneumonia could be dealt with through a breathing machine. After almost five days in the ICU, my kidneys started to fail, twice. I immediately underwent dialysis while the doctors continued to juggle with my body chemistry. There was probably a point where I was only hours away from where I needed to get my body chemistry to a more basic balance. If not, I might not have made it through.

This might sound somewhat sensational, but it was  a big team of doctors and specialists that were so puzzled by my situation that they really bore down hard to get me stabilized. I was essentially in various stages of critical condition over about 3-1/2 weeks until I achieved basic stabilization. Later, I had to deal with kidney stones as well as testing positive for RSV and COVID. Over and above all this, I have a strong and nurturing family, good friends and colleagues and that made a huge difference.

A very real message I have is that all this high-level medical care did not cost me anything. My estimate is that the hospital cost would have been between CAD $500,000 and $1,000,000 over 39 days of hospital care If I had to pay for it personally. However, all Canadians are eligible for universal health care and when they need it, excellent health care is there for all.

I feel for millions of Americans without health insurance that may have to face paying these kinds of medical costs just to escape with their lives, but where they get the money to pay for it is obviously a huge challenge.

This is why Canada can never accept any American invitation to join the US because of our universal healthcare cover is “golden for all Canadians”.

I went into the hospital on November 23rd and went home on December 31st.

Wishing all good health and seasons greetings. And don’t forget to check in with your doctor on mystery ailments!

Russ Taylor