'Oops, we made an error,' patient told after given gluten-laced meal - Ottawa Citizen

[Scott Adams]

Open Original Shared Link Ottawa Citizen Don MacMillan, a patient at The Ottawa Hospital who is recovering from having a tumour removed from his small intestine, has celiac disease, ... Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

[luvs2eat]

This is my nightmare... that I'll be in the hospital and not "with it" enough to make sure I'm being served food that's completely gluten free.

Or worse... old and living in a nursing home and served a gluten-laced meal and the staff getting MAD at me for having continued uncontrollable diarrhea!!

I can only hope that gluten free eating will become more commonplace... but then we're STILL at the mercy of the kitchen staff.

AARRGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Maybe wearing a Medic-Alert bracelet is a good idea??

[kareng]

It's not just gluten-free food hospitals have a hard time with. My 82 yr old mom had a hip replacement. Her blood sugar was going nuts - up & down. They started giving her insulin which she doesn't take at home. They let her order anything she wanted except dessert. This is what they thought was safe - hamburger with bun, baked potato, applesauce, milk. Seems a bit heavy on the carbs to me for someone with blood sugar issues. I asked the nurse about this and she shook her head and said, "it's fine. We will give her insulin when she needs it!"

I'm not sure a med alert bracelet would help. They aren't going to put food down your mouth if you aren't awake. Maybe with dementia or heavy narcotics you might not be able to speak. However, I think I'll have a little talk with Hub and the boys about making sure everyone they see at the hospital knows I need gluten-free. My boys are teens and the older one would certainly be listened to as an adult.

[mushroom]

Don't get me started on hospital food service! A gluten-free breakfast of scrambled egg with two pieces of french toast on top What they called cranberry juice, whose #2 ingredient after water was high frructose corn syrup They wouldn't give me the sherbet because it contained whey When I asked for pepper they gave me Mrs. Dash; when I asked for butter they gave me soy spread which they knew I could not eat. Thank goodness I was compus mentis and had my husband standing by and we were 2 miles from Whole Foods

[chasbari]

I think they miss some very key points in the telling of this. Yes, the big D but.. is he having a tumor removed as a result of a lifetime of celiac disease? If so, the very food that causes the potential problem is much more than a trigger for D. How about the fact that it would put him into a cycle of autoimmune response that might take weeks or months to recover from on top of recuperation from surgery. And it might put him at risk for the development of more tumors over time. Merely stating the D issue trivializes it in the minds of many uninitiated readers who might read this as whining. We see the D as a red flag for all the above mentioned problems.. we understand what it means.. but, the general populace does not.. and may be prone to laugh it off. I think we need to fight for a redefining of public perception of the seriousness of celiac and we need to see it through the eyes of the cynical public to make sure we educate... All, of course, IMHO.