Top Story
Teen lucky to be alive
By CAROLINE ZENTNER
Mar 27, 2008, 04:14

Twice sent home from the Chinook Regional Hospital emergency room with what doctors thought was flu, a Lethbridge teen was so sick with a ruptured appendix by the time the right diagnosis was made that doctors are calling her a miracle child.
Thirteen-year-old Alexis Bloos was well on her way to recovery Wednesday when she was discharged from hospital, anxious to get on the computer to check in with her friends and telling her mom, Angie, she wanted steak and Caesar salad for dinner.
“They said she’s lucky to be alive and she recovered so quickly and well because she was so healthy before,” Angie said. “They couldn’t understand why it wasn’t painful and basically why she is sitting here today.”
That’s a far cry from the Alexis that Angie and her husband, Robb, took to emergency more than a week ago because she wasn’t getting better.
“When we brought her in she was gray and green,” Angie said.
After X-rays, a CAT scan and bloodwork, Alexis was in the operating room a couple of hours later.
“I was actually quite shocked it was my appendix,” Alexis said.
Typically, appendicitis presents as a constant pain in the lower right part of the belly. If the appendix isn’t removed in a timely fashion, it can rupture and infection can spread throughout the belly. That’s what happened to Alexis.
“Dr. Trautman said it had been burst at least a week already,” Angie said. “He said it was the worst appendix case they had ever seen and how lucky she was to be alive.”
Unfortunately, Dr. Allen Trautman couldn’t be reached for further comment.
Alexis had first started feeling sick at the end of the first week in March.
“My stomach was sore. It was hard for me to bend certain ways. It felt like I had the flu,” she said. “The first day I threw up a lot. Nothing would stay down.”
She see-sawed back and forth, feeling better for a few days only to feel sick again. Angie wracked her brain, thinking perhaps Alexis had picked up a bug in Mexico when the family vacationed there in January.
“I was frustrated because she wasn’t getting better. They kept saying she had the flu,” Angie said. “I don’t want anybody to go through what we’ve been through. It’s traumatic. Parents should be persistent with doctors. If you think something’s wrong with your kid, something more than likely is.”
Alexis didn’t improve and she eventually developed a fever, started sleeping all the time and noticed her belly was swollen. Angie said she was told about a litre of pus was removed during surgery.
“It kind of grossed me out,” Alexis said.
Diane Shanks, Chinook Health’s program director of emergency and critical care, said she couldn’t comment on the Bloos case directly due to privacy laws and could only speak in general terms.
“Some diagnoses are very difficult to make and not clear,” she said.
When the diagnosis isn’t clear, patients are given instructions about what to do if symptoms worsen.
“Anytime anything unexpected happens, we definitely evaluate and review those situations,” Shanks said. “It’s part of our normal quality improvement processes.”
The Bloos case falls in that category and Shanks said it will be reviewed.
Shanks also stressed patients or their families can bring a complaint forward with a health-care provider or the Chinook Health corporate planning department.
“From our perspective, we really appreciate being made aware of concerns,” she said.
Meanwhile, Alexis will be able to return to school at the end of the March break, although it may only be half-days to start. She’ll have to give up hip-hop dancing for the rest of the year and gym class is out, too. But she can eat whatever she wants and, once again, put up with a younger brother who “likes to annoy me a lot.”

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