What we have to look forward to when our healthcare system becomes as Canada’s.

so sad, GOD bless this little girls family, my heart goes out to all loved ones ):

This is just enough news to scare people but not enough information to be of any use. It sounds to me like the poor girl really didn’t have a stomach flu but instead had a virus that was attacking her heart and the stomach was only showing some symptoms. It is a shame that we are to go to a doctor and trust they are educated and know medical stuff more than the normal person but it is really scary that too many times you see where there were misdiagnoses and times when the doctors have no idea what the problem is or what to do about it. Too often no one seems to know whether to treat something aggressivly or minimally. The patient and love ones suffer. Sometimes it is because of costs, sometimes because of lack of knowledge and sometimes because the doctors become so busy and overwhelmed that the miss important things and don’t have time to treat the patient with patience. It seems health care isn’t anything but a business. Many times when a person goes to the doctors office it seems like your on an assembly line, very impersonal. I’ve heard of people going to the Emergency room only to wait for hours for help. I also know that many people run to the doctor’s office and Emergency room for the sniffles. I think people should have more common sense but I also think the Health Care system needs to get back to really caring about the patient, not just the business part.

Sad this happened, but at least the medical care was FREE, right? Wow–maybe we can have this kind of CHANGE here in America.

My Brother had something similar called acute bacterial endocarditis at age 8. It attacked his heart and brain. He has an artificial valve and severe brain damage. He is now 33 and reads on a 2nd grade level.

To start with, this is what we have to look forward when the nuts we have in washington take over our healthcare system.

2) Unfortunaly, we put all our faith in Doctors thinking that they can help but in reality Doctors do not really know what to do about any disease; they can go in and cut off what ever they “think” i swrong, but they know very little about curing anything.

To the family of Karele
I am so sorry for your loss and will keep you in my thoughts and prayers. God Bless You

Hi Guys! Good article but…as a point of accuracy I must point out the following: the medical definition of the “Flu” or “Influenza” is a highly infectious “RESPIRATORY” disease. “Stomach Flu,” like “Tomaine Poisoning” is, for all practical purposes, non-existant. “Although ’stomach flu’ or ‘intestional flu’ is commonly blamed for stomach upsets and diarrhea, the influenza virus rarely causes gastrointestinal systoms. Such symptoms are most likely due to other organisms such as rotavirus, Salmonella, Shigella, or Escherichia coli.” -Medical Dictionary

For what it’s worth.

Our 17 year old daughter died of the very same conidtion 31 years ago…(* yes, 31 years)…it is so sad to think that no progress has been made in this area in all that time. They did not have heart transplants available then for this condition.
She died in her sleep at home after spending many weeks in the hosptial.
My heart simply breaks for Karlele’s family. I KNOW what they will be going thru in the weeks and months to come.
This child could have had MY heart had I known about it before it was too late.
I pray the parents have family and friends and a Church family to support them during this time.
Losing a child is something you NEVER get over. When losing a child you lose so very much of your future…it leaves such a huge hole in your life.

Rose

Rose

I had the same thing happen to me in 2003… I spent 4 days in the Intensive care unit and another week in the hospital after that… this virus can affect ANYONE! i was 24 and in the best shape of my life, having just finished my 4th year playing division I football… today i am fully recovered and have no adverse side affects. However, anytime i need to get a check up or dental work done they always make me take antibiotics and do bloodwork… really sad to hear about this little girl… it’s a very painful virus and masks the same horrible symptoms of a heart attack… I wouldn’t wish that on anyone

I am dealing with a similar thing right now. I had the stomach “bug” and developed pericarditis (membrane surrounding the heart becomes inflamed). My cardiologist said he had six other patients this winter who had the same bug(virus) and developed pericarditis. This is a long slow healing process as Henderson says.

This is not something you can prevent and being viral there is not a lot that medicine can do, this girls case of myocarditis was very severe as it affects the heart itself and can often be fatal.

It is sad to see someone so young taken so quickly. We all need to listen to our body, if you have any chest pain, go to an ER….it’s worth the visit, trust me.

Correct me if I’m wrong but, doesn’t Canada have SOCIALIZED medicine.? What is wrong with this picture……

But for the grace of God, my family could have experienced this same tragic loss 7 months ago. My daughter, 18, had the same symptons, went through the same treatment and 4 weeks later was lucky enough to receive a heart transplant. The disease is a rare occurence, but not rare enough. We were fortunate to have great medical care and top notch facilities for my daughter, but none of that would have mattered if a donor had not been found. Please fill out your donor cards, you can save a life.

THATS THE WONDERFUL SOCIALIZED MEDICINE IN CANADA FOR YOU….A SIMPLE VIRUS KILLS A TEEN..

IF THAT HAPPENED HERE..THE LAWYERS WOULD BE ALL OVER IT BY NOW!

The number of cases that the young girls tragedy outed is alarming. What do we know about the source of this virus or disease, malady, whatever? Is it common in the third world? How does it find its host?

Lets get some answers and fast. Now I don’t have experience in Canada’s Healthcare system, I do know first hand that many Canadian doctors and sergeons are entirely first rate. It’s the time to access the system that causes the Canadian Doctor to look bad–when he/she is not.
So sorry, such a tragedy for the girl and her family. My god bless her and keep her.

I know of a similar situation where a 15 year old boy from Worcester MA was diagnosed with the flu which also resulted in myocarditis. He was admitted to Childrens Hospital in Boston and to this date has survived. I know of so many families who do not take the flu seriously and do not make sure that their children have the flu shot. I hope it does not take a flu pandemic like the one in 1918 for people to realize that we are vulnerable.

My kids just had “hand, foot, and mouth” virus, and I got sick as well. It’s caused by the coxsackie virus, which is an enterovirus, which can cause flu-like symptoms in adults. Well, I felt like I had the stomach flu, so I looked up the symptoms of “hand-foot-mouth in adults” and found out about the cause of my extreme stomach pains. It inflames the intestines. AND in RARE CASES it can cause MYOCARDITIS, and can be fatal in up to 20% of cases in young adults. Well, I was really scared because I’d also been having dizziness and shortness of breath.

This is very serious, and I don’t think many people know about it, as is obviously the case where this little girl is concerned.

Hand, foot, and mouth (or Fifth’s Disease) is extremely contagious, and both of my kids got it at daycare. Almost their whole class was affected. It normally doesn’t even affect adults, but it can. I definitely had the enterovirus symptoms this time, and headache. If your kids come down with hand,foot, and mouth, just be aware this can happen.

I am intimately familiar with this condition as my 18 year old daughter contracted the same disease last September. I can probably clear up some misconceptions found in other comments.

The condition is known as fulminant myocarditis and is caused by a virus that rapidly attacks the heart. The symptoms are consistent with those of the stomach flu. This happens only to about 100 people a year in North America (of 350 million people), most of which are males over 40 years old. It is extremely rare in young females, and almost never diagnosed correctly and / or in time — there are so many more likely causes for the misleading symptoms, and it attacks so aggressively. My daughter was a fortunate exception, and was correctly diagnosed only after treatment for the original diagnosis (dehydration) resulted in symptoms that caused her Doctor (in a small rural hospital) to consider the extremely unlikely possibility of myocarditis. My daughter was transported by helicoptor to a major hospital just twenty miles away, where her heart function was only 5% upon arrival — and this was a very fast diagnosis.

My daughter’s treatment began the same as Karele’s, being put on the heart lung bypass machine (ECMO), and this was also accompanied by open heart surgery to try and help the heart recover. When the heart did not heal, and ECMO could not be continued, she was put on a VAD (ventricular assist device - artificial heart) until a donor heart became available. We understand that some patients simply are not good candidates / are unlikely to survive the VAD surgery. We are eternally grateful to her caregivers and the donor.

I know from experience the difficulty of the roller coast ride Karele’s family experienced during those first three weeks. Having had a rare and successful outcome with our own daughter, I can’t imagine their pain. My family’s thoughts and prayers are with them. Please oh please, if you’re not already, please become an organ donor.

In a recently reported story about the deadly horrors taking place in our Canadian hospitals it was revealed that some 12,000 (twelve thousand) patient/victims are killed in Canada due to “hygiene problems” in Canadian hospitals. This “poor hospital hygiene” results in such deadly bacteria, viruses and “super bugs” as flesh-eating disease, c-difficile, staph and streptococci infections. These deadly hospital “super bugs” can kill patient/victims, hospital visitors and hospital staff. None of this should surprise us as it is known for example that approx. 30% of our medical professionals in our hospitals do not wash their hands as often as they should (or some maybe not at all). Apparently there are no consequences for this type of unsafe, dangerous in fact, work practices. I sure hope there are hospital “rules” about proper staff hygiene practices,like hand washing, but are there any “consequences” (some disciplinary measures, up to and including firing) for non-compliance ?, I doubt it, as I have never heard of any medical professionals being fired simply for spreading deadly germs and/or bacteria all over their hospital workplace. Another recent medical horror story in our local ( LONDON, ONTARIO, CANADA ) media reported that my city, LONDON, has the dubious distinction of being the SECOND MOST DEADLY , to patients, in our province of Ontario. This fact should not surprise anyone as it is statistically known that LONDON and AREA HOSPITALS KILL approx. 35-40 patient/victims every month ( by medical errors, misdiagnosis, negligence, poor hospital hygiene, “super bugs” etc. ). A recent statement by Mr. Michael Barrett ( South West Local Health Integration Network ) that ” All of our hospitals are safe ” is patent nonsense. In fact, THERE IS NOT A SINGLE HOSPITAL IN CANADA THAT IS ” SAFE “. After all, it is those very hospitals that kill 36,000 ( thirty six thousand ) patient/victims every year by a myriad of medical wrongdoings. These numbers mean that Canadian hospitals kill approx. 100 ( one hundred ) patient/victims every day. That is an atrocious and horrifingly high number ( for a country of only thirty three million people ) and is much higher, per capita, than is the case in many other wealthy, industrialized countries. Studies have shown that most of those deaths are preventable. However, these deaths will continue at the same atrocious rate as long as we allow our medical institutions/medical professionals to continue to assume their ” holier than thou ” and ” business as usual ” attitudes. Another silly statement made recently by Dr. Ian Herrick ( chief of staff at the London Health Sciences Centre ) was ” Is there something we are missing here…, ‘ Holy smokes we need to fix this because it’s not safe ? ‘ We are not finding that “. Mr. Michael Barrett and Dr. Ian Herrick, in their respective positions, certainly know or should know exactly why our Canadian patients/victims are being sickened, hurt, injured, maimed or killed in our hospitals. ( Medical errors, misdiagnosis, negligence, deadly hospital “super bugs” etc. ). People of their stature ( being highly educated and highly paid we may assume ) making such disingenuos statements just proves once again that they hold their vulnerable patient populations and the general Canadian public in utter contempt. Signed, Mark Mager, of London, Ontario, Canada. markmager@rogers.com,

I am amazed at the comments being posted. My family lives in the GOOD OLE UNITED STATES and HAS HEALTHCARE. My healthy 19 yr old sister, Becky, passed away 22 yrs ago with acute viral myocarditis. At that time, she came home on a Friday night from work with “flu-like symptoms”. On Sunday, my parents took her to the emergency room of a very prominent hospital in West Virginia at her request because she still didn’t feel well. My parents were not negligient, and my sister appeared to be in perfect health prior to this. That evening she was diagnosed and we were told she would not live through the night. After a pacemaker was in place and experimental drugs were given (she was too far gone for a heart transplant which was nearly non-existent at the time), she passed away 2 days later. I feel the need to repeat - We live in the good ole US with the best healthcare in the world - and folks, it happens. Not because a doctor thought he was God, or the hospital wasn’t good enough, or my parents were negligient IN ANY WAY. My beautiful and very young sister passed away through no fault of her own. Take the time to search the WEB for info about this. I’m so happy that some people survive it. But not all do.

OK, she came into the ER dehydrated?? OK, can anyone tell me why something was not done sooner??
Either her parents did not help her keep fluids in her or she could not take fluids. In which case she should have been taken sooner. Very sad.

I’m sorry to hear about your lost I Know how you are feeling I have lost a child at the age of 18 if you need someone to take to please keep me in mind I pray that God will take care of you. Please email me some time I need to hear from someone who has gone through the same thing that I have
Take care of yourself.

Vanessa Johnson

I like the people blaming Canada’s health care system, even though they have absolutely no idea how it works and also don’t know a thing about this disease. If this was in America, and the family is low-income they wouldn’t be able to get ANY medical care like this girl got.

This same condition, a virus that began somewhere in his body and attacked his heart (congestive myocarditis) killed one of my sons 5 years ago. He lived for 11 months with continuing diminishment
of his heart’s pumping ability, while waiting for a transplant. He had just turned 29 when he died.

An illegal alien, who came to the US just for that purpose, got a heart that would have saved his life. The horrible irony is that the heart that the girl got (the one that would have saved my son) was the wrong type, and by the time she was given a second transplant of the right type, it was too late.

This is what happened to our 24 year old daughter. The virus went to the heart and she had a heart attack. She would have been 29 today.

Her Dad

This has nothing to do with socialized medicine. It happens to the young all of the time. This is a killer that attack silently as it did my daughter. We had the best of health care but we did not know that this was ocuring in her body.

Hi, I am Shannon. I am 18 and 8 months ago I had the same condition. A virus attackied my heart overnight. I also thought it was the stomach flu. But my chest hurt very badly. The next day I checked myself into the ER for chest pain and dehydration. They put an IV in my arm, but because my heart’s Ejection Fraction was less than 10%, my kidneys were failing. That was the last thing I remember until I woke up in Carolina’s Medical Center in Charlotte on an LVAD machine. I was on the same bypass machine as the girl was. I was diagnosed with fulminant myocarditis. 7 months ago I got a new heart. Not to scare anyone but, the night before I got sick, I had played at my golf practice and gone for a team run. I had never been in better shape. I believe that my good health saved my life. There is only a 1 in 1000 chance that the condition will be diagnosed in time to help, I was fortunate enough to have a doctor that recognized it. But do not think that it was just because Canada has free health care.

God Bless.

Well how di they get this info any how!!! What… did they interview someone? If so then they should tell us!

My prayers to the family. A huge % of low-income families in America are illegal immigrants, why shoul I pay for their medical care? Let the corrupt/thieves/killer politicians and abusive business sectors in their countries pay for their own citizens health care. Do they care? yeah, right!!! Do you guys have an indea how the rich in the third world countries live like? Its an insult to the human race. US is a humane country providing even basic health care to everybody inside its borders, but specialty care for illegals translates to into a burden on decent, barely making it in life citizens, increases taxes, and sinks us even lower into poverty. Forget about quality medical care for citizens. We should all pay taxes.

I am 47 years old and I recently dealt with this condition. I came down with what I thought was a virus similar to a stomach flu. The flu like symptoms lasted only two days and then it appeared to clear up. About a week after the first signs, I began having chest pain, shortness of breath, light headed, and then tingling in my left arm down to the thumb and index finger. I went to the ER and they treated me immediatley for a heart attack. Of course, we explained to the doctor about the flu like symptoms (diarrhea) that had preceeded this trip to the hospital. A blood test showed I had elevated cardiac enzymes. All things were pointing to a heart attack at this point.

I spent the next three days in the cardiac care unit of the hospital. They completed an Electrocardiogram, a chest x-ray, an Echocardiogram, and finally a Heart Catheterization. All test showed nothing wrong with my heart function. I was put on medication and sent home. Two days after returning home, I redeveloped the diarrhea. I immediately went to my primary care doctor who quickly ordered up a stool sample. The test results confirmed a parasite called Girardia. This parasite is often associated with feces tainted water and/or can be passed from an infected food server. My doctor prescribed Flagyl (500 mg), which I took three times a day for two weeks. Two days into the Flagyl, my diarrhea disappeared and I began to feel better. It took about a month to get to a point where I felt good enough to return to work. I am now on heart meds for the next three months. I will see my cardiologist at that time for re-evaluation.

My cardiologist diagnosis was Myocarditis. http://www.mayoclinic.com describes Myocarditis as an inflammation of the myocardium, the middle layer of the heart wall. This condition can cause a variety of signs and symptoms, including chest pain and abnormal heart rhythms. Myocarditis can be caused by Viruses, Bacteria, and Parasites. Take a look at their website for more information.

If you come down with flu like symptoms that do not subside after a couple days, then seek immediate care. I guess I’m lucky the Parasite did not do more damage.

Three years ago, while I was living in Sweden, my 17 year old son, Dan, living in NJ with his mom and siblings came down with fulminant myocarditis. He was a varsity wrestler in the peak of condition, when he got attacked by ‘flu’ like symptoms, but worse.

I used to berate my wife for dragging our 3 kids to the doctors for even the most ridiculous and tiniest of reasons, but never will again. Thank God for her presence of mind to race him to the hospital, even though she had no idea just how dangerous his illness was.

Fortunately, the doctors properly diagnosed the fulminant myocarditis fast enough upon admission that they didn’t even have to operate on my son, (i.e., open him up) although they told my wife upon diagnosis that it was likely that would.

I’m not one for ambulance chasers, or even lawyers in general, but Mr. and Mrs. Galaise-Séguin should contact a good ‘negligence’ lawyer. I’m willing to bet Karèle’s initial misdiagnosis, and the time that then elapsed before a correct diagnosis, were the difference between life and death for this poor young girl.

@Jim: We don’t really have the concept of ambulance chasers in Canada. Probably because large, 8-9 figure settlements, which seem to be frequent in the US, are unheard of in Canada. Plus we don’t have that mentality of suing a deep pocket for everything and anything. I’d be very surprised if this results in a lawsuit.

We have to eliminate some silly myths, that our neighbours to the south have been fed for years, about Canada’s health care system. First of all it is not “free” and it does not ensure “equal access”, as many of you in the U.S. have been led to believe. The seriously flawed docu-comedy “Sicko”, by your famous comedian Michael Moore, conveniently overlooks/ignores the uglier side of our health care system in Canada. Canadians pay approx. $55 billion dollars every year for “health care” that is rationed and that provides limited access to our vulnerable patient/victim population. Canadian health care is “equal” to all, only in that most Canadians are “equally” deprived of timely “access” and “care” . The wait times for various tests, like CT, MRI etc., are much longer than in the U.S, and our American neighbours have 4 times as many, per capita, of those life saving machines than we in our Canadian medical “Mecca”. But of course, just like in the U.S., wealthier Canadians get quicker access and care and have the option of getting “immediate” care in the U.S. Signed, Mark Mager, of London (our medical “Mecca”), Ontario, Canada. markmager@rogers.com