California hospitals are fighting to get the resources they need. Be that masks, ventilators, new covid medications, HOSPITAL BEDS, and STAFF to keep up with the patients, they are loosing ground fast. It’s not just California, it is happening across the nation. Unfortunately if you look at the example of what’s happening at this California Hospital, they mention having all the medicine that the president got when he had covid-19. But they say many of the patients are still getting put on ventilators. Once they go on a ventilator, it’s hard to get them off. Many end up dieing.
The entire ICU was full. The entire waiting room was full of covid-19 patients, the entire outdoor tent was full, they had patients spilling out the doors. Sitting in wheelchairs in the halls with IV’s. They took pre-op and operating rooms and put curtains in them with er beds pretty much side by side and made it a make shift icu. These doctors are doing everything they can to try to help patients and it is like a hospital horror movie. They are begging people to wear masks and social distance. The head over this ICU said there will come a time when you bring your loved one to the hospital and we turn you away because we cannot take you. There will be no more resources.
Pushing to the limit:
When you are pushed to the limit you make mistakes. Unfortunately, in the line of business of the covid icu and er mistakes mean lost lives. As the disease ramps up this winter this will become so much more prevent. Many lives will be lost. The death toll has surpassed 300,000 people. Many think oh that’s not very many, etc. Those are not just numbers, they are people with lives.
Humanize it:
I know oftentimes it’s hard to humanize the numbers when you see a number like that. But those people had families that missed them, pasts, memories, some have had buisnesses, children, coworkers. In one swoop, it’s gone.
Think of it this way, I’ve read numerous stories of mothers who have passed. Moms of young children. A mom of 5. Think of a child, 2 or three years old screaming out, wondering the house, because they don’t know where their mother has gone. They don’t understand death, she went to the hospital and never returned. Now, this child is terrified of hospitals, or hates them because they took mommy away.
Maybe you don’t have a soft spot for kids, how about pets? Think of the elderly man who lives alone. He calls for an ambulance because he’s having trouble breathing and leaves his dog behind in the house alone. He spends two weeks in the hospital, his kids can’t see him so they don’t come in from out of state. His dog is left alone at the hose and the man is on a ventilator. He passes away. No one discovered the dog in the house until the kids come down to plan the funeral. By that time it’s been a little over two weeks and the dog is dead as well. From starvation.
How about the elderly couples? We have had two in our town but I have heard of many others. They have been married for over somewhere close to 50 years. Both end up getting covid. They both pass away just days appart. In separate hospitals, or even one in the hospital and one at home. They die alone without each other. They are on a ventilator so they don’t even know the other ones has passed or even know how they are doing. Maybe they are lucid enough in their minds to be thinking on it, but still kept sedated. Then their children have lost both parents within days. Their grandchildren have lost both grandparents within days. Imagine with me for a moment being the one that does last. A nurse comes in, you are sedated on a ventilator but they are still talking to you and you are this drugged state of awareness and pain. You can distantly understand her but it’s like your underwater and you cannot remember why. You can’t move, can’t respond. But as she is working with you one of your 2 daily checks, she tells you your husband has died. You cannot even express your grief. You simply lay motionless and medicated in it. Your consumed by the pain, the grief, the disorienting swamp, and soon your not even sure if that’s what she said. You think you imagined it. Then you are consumed by it again. Days later you die to.
Here are a few more stories for you to read:
- Erika dies of covid-19 before she get to hold her newborn.
- Mother of 5 dies of covid-19, devastating her family.
- 26 year old anti-masker lost her aunt, uncle, and grandpa to covid-19 days appart.
- Couple married for 47 years dies within the same minute from covid-19
- Linda, german shepherd mix, rescued from apartment and taken to shelter after owner dies of covid.
- The first dog in the us to test positive with covid died.
The target issue:
Have I humanized if for you yet? From the hospital and doctors perspective in the and the patients perspectives on the writing. Many people need a good dose of humanizing. The shocks and horrors that we are seeing and people still have the audacity to claim that covid isn’t real. Yes we have many of those such people, I saw one in photos at a rally holding up signs saying the media is the virus. And I know many from around our area who believe it is fake. Then, we have people doing public stunts in target and harassing those who wear masks and try to stay safe. Screaming and chanting (with children) that “their not going to take it anymore, and it’s all a lie” etc. You can see the clips here.
They weren’t thinking of the people who have died, and the people that will die this winter. It is not a mater of if people will die of covid-19, it is a mater of who’s next.
Think about it, and mask up! Have a safe Christmas!
Brie
