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Covid deaths are UNDER REPORTED!
An admittedly emotion driven thread...
I fully understand that many people will disagree, some of whom I align with on other matters and greatly respect. But I believe that, many, if they walked in our shoes, would change their mind
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An admittedly emotion driven thread...
I fully understand that many people will disagree, some of whom I align with on other matters and greatly respect. But I believe that, many, if they walked in our shoes, would change their mind
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Unquestionably, it’s been a long and difficult six months for everyone. And while I certainly feel deep empathy and frustration (even anger) for those whose livelihoods and education have been derailed, I would like to concentrate on another group.
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Before I do, let me give you some background on our walk these last six months. At the very beginning of this entire fiasco, when we were “racist” for even discussing the origins of the Virus and the “no Mexican beer is going to kill me” jokes were still PC
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My Mother-In-Law came down with a respiratory ailment that she simply could not get over. She ended up in intensive care, was found to also be suffering from previously undiagnosed diabetes and some other unknown medical issues.
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To my knowledge, she was never tested for Covid-19 and it was only much later mentioned as a possibility. To this day, we do not know if she had it or not. But during that period, the world suddenly changed. Her husband was no longer allowed to be constantly by her side.
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The rest of the family was barred from visiting, not just her, but the hospital at all. She went, in a period of two months, from being a vibrant caregiver, and frankly a stubborn fighter for what she cared about, to a completely hopeless soul.
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When she was finally sent to a rehab facility, and was told that all visits were being “curtailed” due to the virus, her stubbornness reignited and within two hours she had checked herself out of the facility and was taken, by ambulance, home.
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Where she quickly and steadily deteriorated. Though in immense discomfort, she refused to go back to the hospital. She decided she would rather die at home than live in isolation in the hospital. And so four days later, that is exactly what happened.
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There was no memorial service, there was no “proper burial”, there was nothing. Grandma was just gone and everyone was left to deal with it as best we could individually and without fanfare. My Father-In-Law paced the floors of his now empty condominium, and to him, his life.
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Seeing his immediate and obvious distress, we immediately had him move in with us. It helped all of us deal with our loss and over the next few weeks, while sad, he slowly came back to the living. There were projects to do, a condo to prepare for sale, life to live.
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Then one night in June, I came home late from work and found him to be having a difficult time breathing. Despite his protestations, my wife drove him to the ER and he was promptly admitted to the hospital.
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She was just as promptly exercised from the hospital building. How could she be so selfish as to even request to stay by his side? There’s a pandemic you know! Now I am probably overstating their coldness of delivery, but that is exactly the message she received.
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He was immediately tested for Covid-19 and found to be negative. He was however found to be suffering from various and before completely unknown other medical issues. He was released 10 days later and sent home. A few days later the cycle repeated.
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Only this time his protestations were more urgent. Despite my wife having spent every ALLOWED moment with him during his last hospitalization, he didn’t want to go back and “be alone”. He has gone through enough surgeries and procedures for a lifetime since.
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I won’t detail the last six weeks, I am already pages further into this than I had envisioned, but roughly 10 hours ago, the man who I have considered the kindest, most patient person I have ever known called my wife from the hospital...
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And in what, for him anyway, can best be described as a diatribe, demanded that my wife, who again has been by his side every ALLOWED second of his stay, immediately come to the hospital and bring him home. He cannot take another night of being “alone”.
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Doing so would be a death sentence at this point, so the tears flowed. Completely undeserved guilt spilled onto her bed like a waterfall of pent up frustration and again, completely undeserved, self disgust.
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She has, too often from afar, been forced to watch her lifelong hero dissipate from an overtly loving and emotional rock of a man into a desperate, helpless, hopeless, and angry shell of his former self.
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She has sat through the highs of various specialists patting themselves on the back for the wonderful results of their procedures to the lows of generalists taking one look at him and asking what her hospice plans are.
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Through all of this though, God has been merciful. Tonight’s completely out of character phone call has allowed us both to process and accept that our desires are not at the forefront of this. If it is time for him to go, we only ask that it be done quickly and peacefully.
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And so we wait. Unable to sleep or think about anything other than a man we love so much being forced to feel so alone. It’s been hours ago, but I started this thread about the undiagnosed Covid related deaths.
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I firmly believe that we must immediately rethink and reshape the focus of our policies and procedures in hospitals and nursing homes, as well meaning as they may seem to them and the outside, unaffected world.
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Isolation in the even most vile of prisons is still considered a punishment. Is it really more cruel to add the risk of infection to a granted, vulnerable population, than to sit by and watch countless (and uncounted) thousands slowly and painfully die of a broken heart?
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