For years, Tara shared other people’s stories. Then, she became the patient.
For Tara Coote, SMGH Foundation’s Director of Philanthropy, the importance of care close to home became deeply personal.
For more than a decade, Tara Coote has helped raise funds for Strathroy Middlesex General Hospital. She has listened as patients and families shared some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives, and helped tell their stories so others could understand the difference community generosity makes.
She knew why equipment mattered. She understood the importance of having skilled care teams and the right tools close to home.
Then, one August morning, she found herself depending on them.
A hospital visit she thought would be brief
Three years ago, Tara had been experiencing symptoms that were easy to dismiss as normal postpartum changes. She knew she was not feeling well and had booked an appointment with her family physician, but it was still several weeks away.
When she woke that morning, she knew she could not wait.
Tara told her husband, Chad, that she was taking herself to the hospital while he stayed home with their 14-month-old son, Bauer. She expected to be back with them soon.
At SMGH’s Emergency Department, Tara sat with Lisa, the triage nurse, and struggled to explain what was wrong. She could not find the words to describe how she felt.
Lisa’s experience, together with the information on the vital-signs monitor, helped her recognize that Tara needed immediate care.
She took Tara’s hand.
“You’re going to come for a walk with me, sweetheart.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Tara had worked evenings and weekends in the Emergency Department alongside her daytime Foundation role. She had watched staff make that same walk with patients who needed urgent attention. She had seen the calm reassurance they offered during frightening moments.
Now, she was the patient whose hand they were holding.
The people and equipment she needed
Tara’s heart rate was dangerously high. The Emergency Department team worked quickly to stabilize her and bring her heart rhythm under control.
She remembers a crash cart being quietly wheeled to the end of her bed. When initial manoeuvres and medications did not resolve the problem, the team explained that they needed to administer adenosine, a medication intended to interrupt and reset her heart rhythm.
As she began to understand how serious the situation was, her thoughts returned to Bauer.
Dr. Verraich stood beside her with one hand on her shoulder and his eyes on the monitors. He spoke softly, asking about her son—what he was like and what he loved to do—as the medication was administered.
When the treatment did not work as hoped and her heart rate climbed again, the physicians and nurses remained calm and focused. They continued investigating what was happening and reassuring Tara that they would keep working to find answers.
The equipment helped them track her condition. Their compassion helped her face the uncertainty.
A longer journey toward answers
Tara spent several days on SMGH’s second floor under continuous heart monitoring.
Although the staff were busy, they took time to ask how she was feeling and whether she had received news about her son that day. Those conversations helped her feel cared for as a mother and a person, as well as a patient.
Once stable, Tara returned home with a diagnosis of thyrotoxic crisis. She had instructions to limit her activity, monitor her heart rate and take medication to slow her heart while awaiting the endocrinology appointment arranged through Dr. Verraich’s referral.
She was later diagnosed with severe Graves’ disease, an autoimmune condition that caused her thyroid to produce too much thyroid hormone, affecting her heart and other systems throughout her body.
The months that followed brought tests, specialist appointments and medications to manage her heart and thyroid.
Almost two years into that journey, once her thyroid levels were more stable, Tara underwent surgery at SMGH to remove her thyroid.
Shortly afterward, she learned that cancer had also been found.
Thankfully, it had been removed with clear margins and had not spread outside her thyroid.
What it means to depend on care
Today, Tara is healthy, feeling more like herself and returning to the people, activities and life she loves.
Her experience has given new meaning to the work she does every day.
“Before that day, I understood why patient-care equipment mattered,” Tara says. “Now, I know what it feels like to depend on it.”
Looking back, she can trace the role equipment played throughout her care.
The vital-signs monitor at triage helped Lisa recognize the urgency of her condition. Cardiac monitors tracked her heart during her hospital stay. Diagnostic equipment helped physicians investigate her symptoms and guide treatment. Surgical equipment and operating room technology supported her thyroid surgery. An ultrasound unit remains part of her annual cancer follow-up.
At every stage, equipment supported the knowledge, judgment and skill of the people caring for her.
And at every stage, there were people who understood that behind the patient was a family waiting for her to come home.
Your generosity helps equip the next moment of care
Every day, patients at SMGH depend on equipment to help their care teams diagnose illness, monitor changes, guide treatment and support recovery.
For many patients, the need is unexpected. They arrive hoping for reassurance or answers, sometimes unaware of how urgently they need help.
Tara’s story is a reminder of why our hospital must be ready.
Community generosity helps SMGH Foundation fund capital equipment and the redevelopment needed to put it into service, alongside innovative programs and education for physicians and staff. These investments support exceptional care beyond the hospital’s government-funded operations.
Whether a gift helps provide a monitor, laboratory equipment, surgical technology or diagnostic imaging, its purpose is deeply personal: helping care teams be ready for the next person who needs them.
For Tara, that person was a mother hoping to get home to her little boy.
For someone else, it will be a partner, a parent, a friend or a neighbour.
Your support helps ensure exceptional care is here for patients and families across our communities—when it matters most.
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