The Coronavirus-and Pip (the bird)

Bc no one actually cares about being responsible here. Once I realized my admin was doing the 5 day testing to stay via 5 SCHOOL days instead of actual days, I gave up trying to be vigilant. It’s sad and depressing and weighs heavily when you are in charge of lil humans.

oh.

I can't imagine how rough that is. Do you have coworkers who feel the same as you?

2 of my coworkers who aren't even vaxxed had omicron and refused to come back until they tested negative multiple times, that should the standard... its mindboggoling that so many places have terrible norms and policies.

For those interested thejeremy is definitely on the mend. He got out of bed and ate today. He hasn't been sleeping all day/night and I've been able to stretch out the time in between medicines.

My drip/throat is a little better, I've only had one Theraflu tea today and I was able to do yoga. It was rough and my drip came back during it and my lungs are definitely weak, but I needed it so bad.

I think we'll be better Monday and if so we'll all be taking rapid tests to make sure we're not dumping viral loads still. Kyle was negative last time we checked, so that will be interesting.

Or you could go eat inside a New York restaurant while COVID positive like Sarah Palin. 

Only just catching up to the whirlwinds in this thread. I am very sorry you had this experience in the hospital emergency department. Unfortunately, it is a very common situation these days in EMS world.

For my wing specifically, around the very first peak in 2020 our medical director's office initiated a "Non-transport and Referral" protocol - if the patients met within certain ranges of vitals and symptoms, they could be left home - in the name of isolation! (Sorry your Sick - Stop the Spread!) We had a pamphlet with a bunch of home-care instructions, websites and phone numbers for contact resources.

This protocol basically became a rejection card for anyone who had COVID-like symptoms. Some of my coworkers use(d) it as a 'get-out-of-doing-work' pass - 'nah we're not taking you to the hospital. sign here.' All that to say, EMTs essentially became annoying troll gate-keepers for ERs, preventing them from being over-crowded and over-worked... which still happens anyway with walk-ins and transfers. And yeah, a lot of nurses are 'over' it - as is all of humanity. Healthcare workers became desensitized to this illness, especially relatively 'mild' symptoms, unless it was effecting their cardiology (myocarditis, new on-set atrial fibrillation), respiratory (ADRS/pulmonary fibrosis, new on-set hypoxia) or neurology (whoops you had a COVID-clot stroke!)

Primary care physician will almost always say "go to the ED because I can't say what you are feeling isn't an emergency over the phone due to liability purposes, and it will take days to actually meet for a full assessment appointment, which I wouldn't wanna do anyway to prevent exposure"...
but then when you get to the ED and they clear you of any 'emergencies' they will just say "call you doctor for a follow-up." and it becomes an unfulfilling cycle in this shitty medical system we have. They find out it wasn't related to his M.S.? Only COVID? yeah, they want to wash their hands of it. COVID is not an emergency in this world anymore. It truly does suck they did not prescribe better medications for him considering his condition. 

The long wait times have become unbelievable... When we take patients to emergency departments during spikes like we are having now, it has become downright embarrassing. Once we get to the ambulance entrance, the triage desk deems the patient 'non-critical' and sends them right to the lobby - where you find dozens of other people scattered everywhere - super-spreader style - all deemed non-critical as well. No Rooms for simple cough/congestion/chills/fever - not even Nausea/Vomiting/Diarrhea! - they go sit right next to 'my legs are swelling, I can't walk' or 'my back tweaked when I got out of bed.' or 'my hamster bit me, I'm afraid of infection'(I had this call 2 weeks ago)... Oh, also "I'm hearing voices." All sitting together waiting. Yeah, this ain't no joke. Burn-out and desensitization becomes real when it is happening every. single. day. for two years.

And still people aren't doing the simplest thing yet?? Wearing a mask. What the fuck. Anyone who still who asks me "why are you wearing that??" or has doubts about mask-wearing to my face - shove it. Over two years now, I still haven't gotten it. Up close and personal with the sickest of people, the hackiest of coughs, all the albuterol aerosol up in the air, I am right in the thick of it - still has not penetrated my perfectly sealed N-95. At this point I feel invincible with that thing on. So long, Meat Loaf.

But why bother right? Delaying the inevitable? This month we had training at a cadaver lab, instructed by our Medical Director's office, and one of them blatantly stated - 'at this point with Omicron, it is not a matter of IF you get it, but WHEN you get it.' The moment CDC downgraded the isolation to FIVE DAYS, our HR department sent out the fastest follow-up email ever, updating their COVID-positive employee isolation, including stern notice that you will receive NO financial compensation, and if you are out beyond those five days, you WILL receive an absent attendance point against your record (we get a total of 13 before being fired). They've pushed and pushed and pushed us to get vaccinated, and as far as I can tell, we are around the national level of 70% and they have virtually lost all sympathy for the hold-outs. You're in the god damned medical field. What the fuck is humanity???

And all this we wonder why so many are dropping out of the EMS profession, piled on top of the shitty wages for doing CPR and breathing for the dead?

Anyway I don't expect anyone to read all of that. Apologies for the exhausted ventilations of a mentally-drained madman. Who needs therapy again?

Rest in power

Same. And thank you. It's a lot and I'm so sorry you deal with that.

Today is bad. I've been up with thejeremy since 6a. He's is so much pain.

All MS related pain. I've given him so many drugs and nothing is working. We can only get in touch with his neurologist through the portal. Plus, his old doctor moved so we're not setup completely with this new dude.

I feel completely incompetent and like maybe I'm not good at this. I'm really freaking out.

We're not going to the ER again. They can't do anything for him. I'm just really hoping the medicines are starting to work. I drugged the fuck out of him.

We're back at the ER. Different hospital, same system. It's like night and day. They're taking care of him. Have him on fluids and pain meds. Scheduled an ultrasound, trying cultures and having him pee in a cup.

Apparently there's a side effect for just men with covid and we're dealing with that. Red, angry and swollen body parts are not cool and if I would have know that was going on, we would have been here at 5a.

Thank you. 💜

And we're officially home.

It was insane how much of a difference the hospitals were, and they are technically the same hospital system. We got pain med and antibiotics within the first hour and we got an ultrasound by the second hour. If the first hospital would have done their job instead of alienated us due to covid they would have found that this was the issue and it wouldn't have been so bad. They didn't even care that we had covid yesterday. No sign on the door, they did the math and were like oh you're a day before your 10 is over (technically Wednesday was our last mandatory quarantine day). 

His "issue" was one of those very uncommon 10-20% of men this happens to due to covid things. I am very glad we are on the road to mend but I am very angry that we had this experience and that it all could have been prevented if the first hospital did their fucking job.  

Sorry for the rant. Thank you and everyone else that has followed this rollercoaster and kept us in your thoughts. It means the world to me to have this kind of support system.