They Saved My Life:’ Patient Reflects on Life-Saving Surgery During Patient Experience Week

ience to exp When Missy Kidwell woke up with stomach pain one December day in 2017, she never expected she’d be wheeled off into emergency surgery less than 24 hours later. “That’s not a scar that’s going to fade or I’m ever going to forget,” said Kidwell. While it started as a manageable stomach ache, the pain grew progressively worse, fast. In just a few hours, Kidwell called an ambulance to come pick her up at her Mount Gilead home.

By the time she got to Morrow County Hospital, now OhioHealth Morrow County Hospital, things went from bad to unbearable. “They were starting me out with medication and it just, it wasn’t doing anything,” said Kidwell. “And I was like, screaming, screaming and yelling in the ER for more pain meds.”

Kidwell spent hours writhing in pain, hoping for the medication to kick in. Then, all of a sudden, the pain stopped. There was no explanation for Kidwell’s immediate improvement, so the ER doctor asked her to stay overnight for observation.

The next morning, Kidwell woke up feeling bloated. Her doctor ordered her a CT scan. Ironically, the nurse who helped her prepare for her scan was a personal friend. Not long after, Kidwell says a surgeon and nurses rushed into her room. “They’re like, ‘wipe down,’” said Kidwell. “‘We’re going to take you in for surgery. We need to find out what’s going on. This bloating is concerning.’”

Kidwell says the trip into the operating room was especially frightening, given the fact that she couldn’t see. She didn’t have her contacts in or her glasses on, so all she could do was listen. “I literally can’t see anything, but I can hear people talking to me,” said Kidwell. “So again, small town, grew up here my whole life, Lindsay Levering [Kidwell’s friend] is one of my nurses. So she’s talking to me. ‘Hey, Missy, it’s Lindsay. We’re going to take care of you. I’m going to be with you the whole time.’ And then I get actually into the surgery room, and I hear a voice from across the room. Again, small town hospital, grew up here my whole life, and it’s Mike Beck, who is a dear family friend. I just hear him go, ‘So you’re the reason why they called me in, huh?’”

Kidwell says she immediately got emotional after realizing she was with people she not only knew, but cared for. Her last memory before surgery is of her friend, Mike, comforting her.

“I Could Have Died”

When Kidwell woke up, she had a drain tube down her throat. Her nurses explained she had to have an emergency bowel re-section surgery after a blood clot killed off a portion of her small intestine. She spent the next week at the hospital.

“Everyone was just so attentive,” said Kidwell. “I think because it was a big, major surgery, but also because I was one of the few patients and they would just come in and be with me, because I was scared and nervous.”

Over the next week, Kidwell was visited by nurses, coworkers, and family. Because she was in her home town, her ex-husband was able to bring her sons every day to visit her. “There was something very safe and peaceful about that, that I could get the care that I was receiving while being able to be close to the people that I love the most.”

While Kidwell didn’t know many of her nurses, she became close with all of them. In fact, some of them checked on her well after she was released. She learned one of her night nurses lived in the house next to her office building. Months later, he showed up to her work, asking her how she was feeling. Kidwell says she ran into another nurse of hers years later at the movie theater. “We just kind of started chatting, and I kind of reminded her of my situation,” said Kidwell. “She goes, ‘Oh my gosh, I think about you all the time.’”

Kidwell left the hospital on Christmas Eve. She says if she hadn’t stayed overnight in Morrow County Hospital’s emergency room for observation, she would have died. “100% they saved my life,” said Kidwell. “And you know, I really kind of accredited that to the fact that it was a small town. Anywhere else, had I been in some big hospital that’s having lots of people come in and lots of things that they may have deemed worse than me, I could have died.”

While Kidwell’s major surgery happened nearly a decade ago, she still thinks about it to this day. During National Patient Experience Week, she wanted to share her story so others in Mount Gilead know the type of exper ect out of Morrow County Hospital.

“You can get quality care right here,” said Kidwell. “And we’re so lucky. We’re so lucky to be a small town with a hospital where you can see surgeons. Surgeons are on call for the hospital that are doing colon cancer surgery.”

Kidwell says with the exception of one vascular specialist, every physician she saw for her care was in Mount Gilead. She wants others to know Morrow County Hospital has the same top-quality providers as larger hospitals, while having the small-town feel that brought her comfort.

“Sure, you can get wonderful care anywhere, but the chances of running into your nurses years later or having your nurse that worked at night shift when you were there pop into your place of work and check on you, that isn’t going to happen anywhere else,” said Kidwell.

She’s thankful for the surgeon and physicians who saved her life, and for the nurses and other medical staff who treated her more like a loved one than a patient.