From Redditt, GRAPHIC--An open letter to my patient

[irisblue]

Source--https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/comments/pqm303/an_open_letter_to_my_patient/

Title-An open letter to my patient

more at source

(you do not have to be a member of reddit to read this)

snip--Mods, please delete if not allowed. edit to further strip any identifying info

I’m sitting here in my car this morning, too exhausted to even start driving. I can’t get your face out of my head. These community hospital shifts are brutal. I remember taking care of you 4 weeks ago. You had gone to urgent care the beginning of august. Just barely in your 50’s. A few years older than me. No medical or surgical history. No vaccine. Diagnosed with Covid, sent home with meds. 2 days later EMS brought you in, hypoxic, in horrible condition. We quickly intubated you. You looked so bad. You suffered through proning. Acute kidney injury. Dialysis. 4 weeks ago we were hopeful. You were going for a peg and trach. We couldn’t get you off sedation or you would panic and decompensate. I don’t remember now what problem you were having that was making it so hard to get the trach done, I just remember it kept getting cancelled. Fast forward 5 weeks later. I’m back at this hospital after my own bout of Covid. I’m back to work already. But I was vaccinated. you are my patient again. You are not doing well. They thought after the trach you would do better. You did for a couple of days. Then the first lung collapsed needing a chest tube. Then the second. Then more pneumonia. More dialysis. You are a DNR now. Your wife is exhausted. We were supposed to make you comfort care tomorrow. You have 3 daughters. The youngest is just 14. We are waiting for her to come in."

How can health care workers keep doing this work?
How will that family go on?

I wept reading this

[Docreed2003]

1. It's brutal...especially on the staff in the icus

In my specialty, we are often called to place the chest tubes for collapsed lungs in Covid patients. Sometimes we place more than one...and sometimes we have to place them on the same side multiple times. In my experience, the survival rate after requiring a chest tube with Covid is essentially zero. It's a brutal disease

[Botany]

2. Brutal

Another nurse tells me your wife is so upset because one of your daughters has still been refusing the vaccine.

[SWBTATTReg]

3. SMH...everyone of these medical people are the true heroes of this whole mess, and the true villians

in this Country are these nuts who follow djt and his other cretins of the dark, refuse to get vaccinated and take social distancing seriously, etc.

These animals are killing innocent victims too by their adamant refusals to get vaccinated, etc. to help protect their neighbors, friends, family.

But at least the innocent, the young, and others are the ones for the most part, vaccinated (or getting vaccinated). Unfortunately, those already with suppressed immune systems due to cancer, etc. are some of the innocent victims on the front lines. I have several friends that are fighting cancer and so I was so happy to see them get vaccinated from the very start...they already have a tough enough fight ahead of them, I did see one of them the day before yesterday, after I had heard that he wasn't doing too good, and when I saw him the day before, it was like a ray of sunshine that shone through the darkness, and it gave me a jolt of positive energy. I wish the best for all.

[LiberalLovinLug]

4. I remember this fake cover being circulated last year as being Time's person of the year

And I was thinking....YES! Perfect. Only to find out it was fake.

I think they chose Biden/Harris, because it is a tradition for the winner in Presidential election years I have read. But dammit, I think they dropped the ball. I truly think that Joe and Kamala would have understood. But I hope they do something like this this year.

[AllaN01Bear]

5. my hat goes off to them and yet the other side dosnt belive in covid .

[orleans]

6. this patient has 3 daughters and was so selfish (or anti-biden) that he couldn't get a vaccine

for his kids and his wife?

what an asshole

[Skittles]

9. imagine growing up without a dad

knowing he would still be here if he had just been vaccinated

and who knows HOW many people he spread the virus to

selfish fucking ASSHOLES

[orleans]

10. what you said, and, as a child, taking it a step further

and thinking "i wasn't important enough for him to get a vaccine"

(and--essentially--that would be true)

they *are* selfish fucking assholes

[Skittles]

12. I shamed a coworker into getting a colonoscopy

when I found out his brother had died young of colon cancer......I taunted him with, imagine how your daughters would feel, you not being at their weddings because you were afraid of a hose in the ass.......good thing I did, he had a bunch of polyps that got treated. Getting vaccinated is nothing! Crazy, selfish assholes indeed!

[Tiger8]

7. USA LEAST Vaxxed wealthy nation, thanks to R's, FOX & whacko pastors.

Clearly, 1st A needs a major overhaul.

The Framers never considered that citizens could be so stupid, or leaders so evil.

[calimary]

8. I wish I could have wept, reading this.

But the stone cold refusal to acknowledge and seek treatment for this damn virus by so many deniers has killed a lot of my ability to feel any compassion for them.

This fate is in the bed they made. Nobody held a gun to their heads and forced them to setup the roadblocks, and refuse well-documented and evidence-supported treatments. Nobody made you do that. There was, on the other hand - and still is - a TON of effort given over to coverage of the science, the medicine, the treatments, all the developments, and other aspects of the COVID nightmare, nationally, in the states and regions, and elsewhere around the world.

[Patton French]

11. So incredibly sad

Our front line workers are heroes