The Ottawa Hospital: Civic Campus

In 2009, I went here in some sort of «mental» distress that involved extreme anxiety, and misinterpretation of stimuli. (I would hear a noise that was real, but misinterpret it as demons coming for me, or aliens)
I went to Civic ER.
They decided to test my blood sugar to see if I was diabetic.
Blood test showed I was hypoglycemic, but that my glucose «wasn’t low enough to kill me»
I was given a benzo and an SSRI and referred to a psychiatrist at the Civic who diagnosed me as bipolar and bulimic. I told the doctor that if I ate meat/​high protein during the day, I wouldn’t have these episodes. She said diet has nothing to do with mental disorders.
I spent 3 years on antipsychotics that have caused permanent damage on my body, such as my eye twitching and muscle spasms.
While on the drugs, I told a friend of mine who is in the medical field but not a doctor about these episodes, and how I don’t gt them when I eat meat, and how if I eat during an episode it goes away, and how I thought it was some sort of low protein causing my problems. She told me that sounded like low blood sugar.
I bought Dex-​4 from Shoppers, and took it during one of these episodes and it fixed it better than any other drug I’d had before.
When I feel an episode coming on now I eat a kiwi or an orange and it stops it from happening.
Anyway, Civic ruined 3 years of my life my treating my hypoglycemia as mental illness. And the worst part is that they checked my blood sugar and knew it was low.

They fixed my foot… kind of.
I was expecting a long wait time.
It was fine though.
Got the job done.
Hopefully I wont have to go back.

I’ll admit that it’s weird to say I’m a «fan» of a hospital, but we’re here so often we should probably start a fan club or something. It’s super easy to get here — there’s a stop for the 85 right in front of the emergency room.
The waiting times aren’t too ridiculous here (in comparison to the wait times in Ottawa), the emergency waiting room is pretty nice and it’s massive, so there’s always lots of room to sprawl. Most of the times that I’ve been here there have been medical students doing the preliminary evaluation, which is kind of nice because they’re really attentive and take the time to listen. The triage staff are always quite nice as well, especially considering the people and situations that they have to deal with.
One time when we were in a particular rush (we’d been waiting for several hours with a dog at home), we had to inquire about blood test results, and they were able to get them for us right away.
We’ve seen some really great doctors here — we even asked one if they had private a practice! Sadly, they just worked emergency.
In addition to emergency room visits, I’ve also had a sleep study done here, and the staff were seriously amazing. The nurse was very comforting and explained the procedure so I felt like I was in good hands.
Warning: it’s always freezing here, so wear a sweater or bring a blanket for long waits.
Props to all the hardworking staff, nurses and doctors that make this place go ’round.