It took us 2 years; reflecting on my words and work
3.13.2022
Today is the two year anniversary of the shut down. I began posting about Covid before it had a name; before I had seen a case, before I could order a pcrtest. Of my just posted OLD words from 3-11-2020 –some are wrong but some still ring true. This last paragraph from that post had wisdom that I didn’t KNOW they way I do now. I included it at the end of this reflection.
Over the last week (and a blog post on urinary tract health, sepsis is almost done- look for that post titled “Beaver Damn” later this week for anyone who has kidneys and a bladder) I never had to put on my N-95 a single time. We still do have some Covid patients who are now no longer infectious, but dealing with consequences from their infections. But I didn’t have to put my N-95 on once for 6 work days in a row. I am not sure when that was my truth before– maybe the lull in the summer?
We lost our last (because we have had a bunch of them) young unvaccinated Covid patient about 10 days ago. These ones that everyone is rooting for and caring for, but we had to stop being emotionally attached to their outcome. I have only personally been involved with one who lived. In two years, all of these vented Covid patients— one miracle. Many of my colleagues from around the country offer the same story. We supported many but saved very few who became critically ill.
Instead of Covid I had the other random infections that go really really badly in a handful of patients. The things that we see in the previously healthy. Toxic Shock Syndrome, encephalitis from a usually completely benign upper respiratory virus. Urinary sepsis from an enlarged prostate. These things that have always happened and filled our work ID days but didn’t fill yours. Because we never had a new virus and an immune naive public in my life. So the random happened in small populations. It didn’t take out multiple family members.
And we the people? There is good in us. A lot of really good intentions and good souls. But we are out of control. We are entitled and we are angry. In these last two years I have been treated wonderfully and graciously. Thanked by dying people, cried with people who couldn’t be vaccinated and then with some who wouldn’t be vaccinated. I have patients who believed God would save them, that the devil made the vaccine, that God made the vaccine, that the vaccine would track them, that the swab to test for the virus could track them, that they were now magnetic, that the nurses had a remote control to make someone oxygen saturation numbers on his monitor read lower than they really were to make him think he needed oxygen. I have been yelled at by patients, their families and even members of my own family because they were so angered by politics- they were so out of touch with their own issues that they dumped them everywhere that they went. And on everyone.
And we have lost so many staff members. And all of the things that were one day going to come to a head– Western Pennsylvania health care practitioners that were nationally grossly underpaid– much because two systems dominate the employment market, a health care system built and profiting on illness and procedures and not prevention. A society that doesn’t talk about the end of life and a government that doesn’t view infectious diseases to be as threatening as the threat of terrorists. But I am very proud of the work that we did.
“I am still way more scared of the herd than the virus. I still assume that I will get it. I know there are those of you that might think that I am cold-hearted about people dying. Or in denial about this pandemic. THIS virus is not the one that worries me. But I am embracing the chance to see what we can do, to see if we might finally realize how fortunate we are to be gifted bodies that are vulnerable. In ID we see things that happen- things you couldn't recreate if you tried. The wrong bug (bacteria) at the wrong time in the wrong place (insert lung, leg, brain) in the infectious world kills daily. And then there is our health, the things we can control-- we don't take care of ourselves. We eat junk, we take pills, we worship nicotine, we don't sleep or exercise. We stress ourselves to death. So maybe it is going to be a virus, a mediocre virus - that helps us slow down? Look out for one another? Protect our vulnerable? Remember why vaccines and antibiotics were so celebrated when they were discovered? Get us to value funding more ID and fewer bombs? That would be worth it.” 3/11/2020.
I remain far more scared of the herd than the virus. But this virus deserves a very healthy respect. It killed a lot of people and far more healthy ones than I anticipated. And far more who identified as healthy but were overweight or had hypertension. I still believe we can be better. And I work every day to do what I can for that truth. To this date I have never gotten Covid. I cannot believe as I type it but it is true– and I don’t believe that I just didn’t know I was infected because I know almost no one my age who was asymptomatic. And I tested so often, especially when it went through my house twice. I do suspect that my yellow surgical Halyard mask and my almost daily exposure through it to unknowing positive Covid patients may have worked with my vaccines to protect me. (Not science, just an unvalidated musing). Everyone needs to talk about death more. But that last bit? Maybe it will take a mediocre virus to slow us down? I personally don’t really think we learned much as a species. And you know what that means.
We will repeat it.
