My mother had been in pain for sometime in her abdomen and in her back. Eventually, the pain became so bad that I took her to St Mary’s emergency room. The helpful ER nurses and doctors took my mother’s pain seriously and she got her first pain relief in several months. She was referred to a doctor who did some additional exploratory tests and discovered my mother had intestinal cancer. Unfortunately, it had already metastasized to her bones.

If we had not had an emergency room to go to where we received great care, my mother would not have gotten the pain relief, nor the critical diagnosis or treatment, she needed. St Mary’s is full of heroes.