LETTER: Yip offers thanks to life-saving health-care professionals
Published 2:30 pm Thursday, November 13, 2025
Life is precious, but it is also be fragile and unpredictable. One minute you could be smelling the roses and the next you could be knocking on the Pearly Gates. I know, because I was there.
On Aug. 21, an ulcer I didn’t know I had started to leak, but because I was on blood thinner, the leak became a river. After vomiting several loads of thick, brown, chocolate tasting fluid and expelling more from the bottom end, I finally realized I was bleeding out and got my wife to call 911. The paramedics arrived in good time, installed an IV, then headed for NRGH on a Code 3. At the ER all I could remember was being placed in the middle of a blue field with two sentries dressed in white at the far end.
When my wife arrived at the ER, she was immediately pulled aside by one of the ER doctors. He explained that they had transfused seven units of blood and three units of plasma and set me up on life support, but because of my weakened condition and age, it was unlikely that I would recover.
The message was repeated in the ICU where doctor told my wife that I was not expected to survive the night. The doctors and nurses had done all they could. The rest was up to me.
In the ICU, the specially trained nurses never left me for a second as they monitored and managed the complex array of IVs, tubes and sensors responsible for keeping me alive. Ten hours later my body responded and started function on its own. When my eyes finally opened I was ecstatic to see my wife and the ICU nurse. The nurse said it was a miracle that I was alive.
After two days of specialized care in the ICU and 10 days of proficient and compassionate care in Floor 5 recovery, I was able to walk out of the hospital.
Some miracles are inexplicable, but mine was authored by the expertise and competence of our health-care professionals. It was the collective action of the paramedics and the doctors, nurses and workers in the ER, ICU and Floor 5 that saved my life.
There can never be enough thanks for our health-care workers. They are heroes who save lives every day. As I have just celebrated another birthday and enjoyed another Thanksgiving dinner, I THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for saving my life. I will be forever grateful.
Mike Yip
Nanoose Bay
(Mike Yip is a well-known photographer and contributor to the PQB News)