KV Healthcare

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patient

Bob Cory

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Bob Cory

The pain started in 2008, occasional at first, then increasingly relentless, robbing him of his ability to enjoy life. Hiking became agony, climbing stairs difficult.

By last year Yakima resident Bob Cory, a retired utility manager at the Yakima Training Center who loves the outdoors, knew he had to do something about it. Fortunately, Cory is a man smart enough to take his own good advice: He made an appointment with Dr. Gary Bos of KVH Orthopedics.

Already acquainted, they’d met in 2012 when Cory’s late brother-in-law, Albert Schelert of Toppenish, then 85, was referred to Bos for a hip replacement. At the time, Bos was practicing in Yakima. Cory went with him to his appointments. “It was like being with a group of old friends but getting good medical advice,” Cory, now 69, says. “There are some doctors who care and some doctors who are just good. This doctor is good – and he cares. Everything turned out wonderful.”

Not shy about spreading the word, in the spring of 2014 when his sister, 74-year-old Ellen Davis of Zillah, needed knee surgery, Cory recommended Bos, by then practicing in Ellensburg. Davis had surgery last June at KVH Hospital.

Six months later, Cory followed suit. “My right knee had been wearing out. I’d let it go and let it go until I was in constant pain,” Cory says. “I was miserable.”

Cory calls Bos first class. So, Cory and his wife Sharon agree, is KVH Hospital.

“The hospital itself – from the front desk to the volunteers to all the staff to the people in the business office – are unbelievably prompt, efficient and fun to work with,” Cory says. “I’ve been in a number of hospitals and I have yet to see a better hospital for patient care.”

KVH also gets high marks for family care, the couple says. Sharon recalls how someone in a lab coat poked her head into the room where Sharon and her daughter were waiting to ask if they needed anything. “It wasn’t really her area but she was taking time to check in,” Sharon says. “The other thing I saw was that if Bob called someone came quickly.” And pleasantly, Cory adds.

“Service was so impeccable at every level,” Cory says. “And when I said ‘thank you’ they thanked me. They were thanking me for the opportunity to help me. It was an awesome experience.”

Three days after his surgery, Cory was home. Ten weeks later he was pain-free, walking two miles a day and among the ranks of those whose quality of life has been improved by Bos. “The lady across the street had her knee replaced (by Bos) this year,” he says, nodding at his neighbor’s home.  “The lady next door is 72. After I had my knee done she called and wanted to know who did it. This past Wednesday she and her husband went to see Dr. Bos.”

Bos reviewed the woman’s x-rays, said he wanted to try Ibuprofen therapy and that he also wanted an MRI. Some places that might have meant another appointment, Cory says. Not at KVH Orthopedics.

“She told me he picked up the phone, made a call and got an MRI set up immediately,” Cory says. “She got the MRI, had lunch and went back to get the results.” Her reaction: “She’s saying, ‘I love this guy and the level of cooperation at KVH’.”

No surprise that, Cory adds. “He tries to make things as convenient as possible,” he tells those who ask, “and Ellensburg is just up the road.”

Muriel Douglass

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Muriel Douglass

They grew up in the Okanogan and were sweethearts in high school. But after graduation, Muriel and Larry Douglass went their separate ways.

She spent a year at Western Washington University, then moved to southern California where she found work, fell in love and married. He married someone else and forged a career with the Department of Natural Resources.

Then, Cupid got a second chance.

By 1981, Muriel’s marriage was over and she was preparing to come home to the Okanogan. By then, Larry was widowed. One day he ran into Muriel’s sister, inquired about her and asked if he could contact her.

His first letter arrived before she left California. She was touched. “He was a nice boy,” she says. “I always liked him.” Correspondence renewed their friendship; romance blossomed anew. Married in 1982, the couple made their home in Ellensburg.

Larry died a decade later. Not long after his death, Muriel began experiencing unexplained bouts of upset stomach. Suspecting Meniere’s Disease, an inner ear disorder that can cause vertigo and nausea, her primary care physician Dr. Don Solberg referred her to a specialist in Seattle.

“They strapped me into this special chair and turned me one way and then the other, trying to make me dizzy, but I didn’t get dizzy,” Muriel says. “The doctor said he thought I had Meniere’s but couldn’t be sure.”

Over time, symptoms worsened. Rolling over onto her left side in bed triggered vertigo so severe she had trouble focusing her eyes. The room would spin. The vertigo, which occurred only when she was sleeping, sometimes forced her to crawl to the bathroom, sick to her stomach but too dizzy to stand.

“They call it a vertigo episode,” she says. “It’s worse than that. They should call it an attack. When it happens I am so sick. I feel like I’ve been thrust into space.” The only thing that helped control the attack was focusing on something vertical like a door jam.

By last summer, Muriel was sick and tired of being sick and dizzy.

She’d heard of a non-surgical procedure, called the Epley Maneuver, that helps some patients and contacted Dr. Solberg who referred her to KVH Physical Therapy.

What came next was life-changing.

Four years ago, staff at KVH Physical Therapy received specialized training in recognizing and treating vertigo-related conditions. “It’s still not a routine or ordinary part of most physical therapy training,” Dr. Solberg says.

Physical therapist Anne Merrill-Steskal advised Muriel that the technique only works on patients with Benign Proxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV), a condition, like Meniere’s, that causes vertigo. BPPV occurs when a tiny crystal forms in the movement-sensing part of the brain and breaks loose. As it moves around, it stimulates tiny nerves in the inner ear, tricking the brain into thinking the person is moving when they’re not.

The Epley Maneuver, popularized in the last ten to fifteen years, repositions the crystal. “I already knew there was a solution,” Muriel says. “It amazed me there was someone in Ellensburg who could do it.”

Merrill-Steskal “put me on the table, held my head and moved it in a certain direction,” Muriel says. “She taught me how to position my head the same way so I could do it myself if an attack occurred at home. It took me four days before I didn’t worry that I was going to get sick if I rolled over in bed.”

Muriel calls learning how to manage those attacks “the greatest thing since sliced bread.” As for Merrill-Steskal, “she’s fabulous,” Muriel says. “I love her to pieces.” 

Debi Hofferber

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Debi Hofferber

Nobody plans a trip to the emergency room.

But when the need arises, everyone wants an emergency room that delivers top quality treatment with attentive care in timely fashion.

At KVH Hospital, seeing is believing. Just ask Cle Elum’s Debi Hofferber.

The 57-year-old Hofferber lived in Canada until she and her husband Rick met online, clicked over a “coffee date” in Bellingham, and fell in love. She’s no stranger to hospital emergency rooms and years of dealing with the Canadian health care system left her jaded. Emergency rooms were crowded. Wait times were often long. When Hofferber’s then 14-year-old daughter Shawna was hit by a car, breaking both legs, she waited more than seven and a half hours for surgery.  “I’d never had a good experience in an emergency room,” Hoffeber says.

Until now.

Flash back to Oct. 12, 2013. Hofferber, recently returned from a visit to Virginia Beach, woke up with what she thought might be stomach flu. Time passed. Her discomfort didn’t.

That evening, her husband Rick, a retired Boeing business manager, convinced her to go the KVH Urgent Care clinic in Cle Elum. A provider, suspecting appendicitis, ran tests. Results were negative. Her temperature was normal.

He sent her home with pills to ease her symptoms – but her pain mounted.

Soon, Hofferber knew she was in trouble. 

Rick offered to drive her to the west side. She demurred. “As bad as I feel,” she said, “take me to Ellensburg. It’s closer.”

They arrived at the Emergency Department just before midnight. A registration clerk quickly assessed the situation, arranged for Rick to fill out paperwork and had Hofferber immediately escorted to an exam room. Nurse Doreen Mohn examined her and hooked up an IV. Dr. Matthew Seaman, an ER physician, examined her, told her he believed she had appendicitis and ordered pain medication. A CT scan confirmed his diagnosis. 

Dr. Frank Smith, a general surgeon, arrived.  “He’s upbeat and funny and just a wonderful man who puts you at ease,” Hofferber says. “He explained everything perfectly.” Four days after her appendectomy, she was home – and sharing her experience.

“I was shocked to find that kind of care in this little hospital in this little town,” she says. “I couldn’t believe it. Boom! I got in right away. The hospital is so modern. Everybody was so nice.  The nurse was always with me. I’ve been in Canadian hospitals. We’re talking night and day here.”

On a scale of one-to-ten, her experience was “definitely a ten,” she says. “I don’t ever want to have to go back to a hospital again. But if I do, I want to go to this one.”

Dean Tonseth

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Dean Tonseth

When you develop a life-threatening medical condition that you don’t suspect you have, it pays to have a diligent physician.

Dean Tonseth knows a little providence doesn’t hurt either.

At 67, Tonseth is tall and fit-looking with an active lifestyle, formidable faith and an irrepressibly optimistic outlook on life. Raised on the west side, he was fresh out of the Army and just back from Vietnam when he arrived in Ellensburg in August 1969 to attend Central Washington University. That month, he met an attractive coed named Danielle. The timing was lousy, he warned her. He was going through a divorce – and trying to get his head together.

“Before I went to Vietnam I married my high school sweetheart,” he says. “I came home and got dumped.” In retrospect, “it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

He and Danielle dated off and on. Cupid persevered.

One day, out with friends in Ellensburg, Dean popped the question. “I said, ‘I need you to keep me in line’,” he says. “She was everything I wanted – a good, moral, beautiful young lady.”

The Tonseths married in June 1972. By then Danielle had landed a teaching job in Kittitas, and Dean was a program coordinator working with developmentally disabled adults and children. Along the way, he found his passion and returned to college to get a degree in special education. He spent three years working in the Cle Elum Roslyn School District, then six years as a stay-at-home dad raising their two young sons.

Nearly forty years later, Danielle is retired after 30 years in teaching; Dean, retired as administrator of a state-run residential program in Yakima after a career with the Department of Developmental Disabilities.

Last July, Dean went for his annual physical with Dr. Jamin Feng of KVH Internal Medicine. Lab results seemed fine, except for what appeared to be a low platelet count. A second test got the same results. Puzzled, Feng ordered an ultrasound and a CT scan.

“I had no pain, no symptoms but the test results showed a suspicious spot, probably no bigger than my thumbnail on my pancreas,” says Dean, who was referred to Virginia Mason Medical Center where more tests confirmed the tumor. “You have pancreatic cancer,” his oncologist said. “My goal for you is a permanent cure.”

It turns out the blood test results weren’t related to any medical issue, and his cancer diagnosis was “a fluke,” according to Dean. Feng later told them there was no rational explanation to why the cancer was discovered so early, saying that it was “the providence of God” that led to the diagnosis.

“He is just an amazing man. Basically, he saved my life,” Dean says. Feng’s caring went beyond the diagnosis. One evening, Dean’s phone rang. It was Feng, saying he was going to Canada for a visit but that Dean should call “at any time” if he had questions. “And he said, ‘I will pray for you.'”

For Dean, that means a lot.

Now undergoing chemotherapy to reduce the tumor in preparation for surgery to remove it, Dean told his oncologist, “I have a lot of people praying for me.”

The oncologist’s reply? “‘Well, that makes my job easier,'” Dean recalls – and beams.

Sydney Skistad

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Sydney Skistad

She’s only 6 years old but Sydney Skistad already knows that you don’t have to get sick to visit the doctor. Sometimes you go to get shots so you won’t get sick. Sometimes you go just to make sure you’re really as well as you’re feeling.

That’s why Sydney, a bright-eyed heartbreaker in the making, visited Dr. Bruce Herman’s office at KVH Family Medicine – Ellensburg for a check up this fall. “It was good,” she says.”He checked my heart. He checked my ears. He checked down my throat – it tickled. He checked everything to make sure it was good. Everything was good!”

And then?

“Then I got a sticker,” Sydney says, flashing a smile as her 3-year-old sister Charlotte – decked out as Rapunzel – dances through the living room of the Skistad home.

Dr. Herman and his staff, as it happens, are no strangers to stickers. Debra Perry, who has spent 27 of her 37 years as a registered nurse at KVH Family Medicine – Ellensburg, has handed out plenty of them. “In our practice alone we use about 1,200 stickers per year, one sticker per shot and a sticker for each child after visits,” she says.

Kids get the exams and the stickers. Perry gets the joy of working with the kids and their families. “Kids teach me something new every time I interact with them and with the people they love,” she says. “I love their honesty. Because I’ve been at the clinic as long as I have it’s been an incredible ride watching them grow up.”

Dr. Herman says well child care begins in the hospital with a newborn exam, hearing screening, screening for genetic diseases and immunization planning. Regular office visits soon follow, the first just a few days after birth, the next a week or so later. Then come exams at two, four, six and sometimes nine months followed by exams at fifteen and twenty-four months. Barring problems, visits are annual after that.

Sydney Skistad

The aim is to follow the infant’s growth and development, catching significant problems as early as possible. Regular well child exams can reveal a wide range of conditions from delays in growth or development to undescended testicles, hernias and hip dislocations or other problems. Along the way, Herman and his staff provide support and guidance for new parents on issues ranging from immunizations to preventing illness.

Denee Skistad, Sydney and Charlotte’s mother, as adept at wielding a thermometer or tackling an upset tummy or earache as any mom, understands why parents sometimes find it difficult to make a well child checkup a priority. But even when a child isn’t sick there’s a certain assurance that comes from a well child checkup, she says.

“It’s tempting not to go because there’s no immediate problem,” Skistad says. “But it’s an opportunity for the doctor to check a child’s health for things that aren’t always obvious. “It’s knowing that there’s not something there that you’re missing or you can’t see. It really is about peace of mind.”