Without a doubt it's the nuttiest thing I've ever seen, and maybe soon the scariest: This COVID-19 coronavirus has been in the news for weeks, and the headlines
keep getting worse.
It reminds me of
stories I heard from my grandmother about the 1918 flu epidemic. Schools are
closing, big-time basketball, hockey, and baseball have been idled, and our
local film festival has been cancelled.
If Steph was here for this, I know she'd share my disgust at people who are dismissing the science, telling each other that the new disease is just "a bad flu." She'd be especially furious that the President of the United States is among the science deniers, telling Americans that it's nothing.
Millions of people listen to the President, and believe him, even though this President never stops lying. His lies are going to kill some of those people. If anyone's reading this, I'll just say listen to the scientists, not the President, and take care of yourself.
So I wonder what Steph and I would do, if she was still here amidst this medical mess. In our early years together, Steph would have assessed the situation, and we'd stop going to restaurants (we couldn't afford restaurants anyway) and avoid the movie theaters and trains and buses.
In our later years together, though, it would've been terrifying. You think this an epidemic scary if you're healthy, just imagine how scary it is if you're not healthy. See, one of the major side effects of kidney failure is a seriously compromised immune system, so Stephanie would have been very much at risk in this epidemic.
If Steph was here for this, I know she'd share my disgust at people who are dismissing the science, telling each other that the new disease is just "a bad flu." She'd be especially furious that the President of the United States is among the science deniers, telling Americans that it's nothing.
Millions of people listen to the President, and believe him, even though this President never stops lying. His lies are going to kill some of those people. If anyone's reading this, I'll just say listen to the scientists, not the President, and take care of yourself.
So I wonder what Steph and I would do, if she was still here amidst this medical mess. In our early years together, Steph would have assessed the situation, and we'd stop going to restaurants (we couldn't afford restaurants anyway) and avoid the movie theaters and trains and buses.
In our later years together, though, it would've been terrifying. You think this an epidemic scary if you're healthy, just imagine how scary it is if you're not healthy. See, one of the major side effects of kidney failure is a seriously compromised immune system, so Stephanie would have been very much at risk in this epidemic.
I absolutely would not be going
to work every morning — can't be in the office all day and then bringing this
deadly virus home to my wife. Nope, I'd have been on leave of absence since perhaps
the end of February, two weeks ago. Earlier, if Steph had been more worried
than me, but two weeks ago was when the nature and looming threat of COVID-19
became clear to this gray-haired fat guy.
So if Steph was still alive, we'd both be sheltering in place here at home, with me occasionally venturing out for groceries in the middle of the night, when the stores are emptiest.
So if Steph was still alive, we'd both be sheltering in place here at home, with me occasionally venturing out for groceries in the middle of the night, when the stores are emptiest.
But the vulnerability in that plan
would be Stephanie's dialysis. When she was receiving in-clinic dialysis, it
was three times weekly, four hours each time in a crowded room filled with
other people receiving dialysis. No way around it. And the chairs at the kidney clinic are close together, sometimes separated
by a flimsy curtain, but more commonly not separated at all.
And all the patients in that crowded room have the same disease, with weakened immune systems, thus extra susceptible to a contagion like this COVAD-19. Going in for hemodialysis would mean spending four hours in a breeding ground for the disease.
And all the patients in that crowded room have the same disease, with weakened immune systems, thus extra susceptible to a contagion like this COVAD-19. Going in for hemodialysis would mean spending four hours in a breeding ground for the disease.
For a couple of years, Stephanie received a
different kind of dialysis at home, where she'd set up the machinery and tubes herself.
No other patients, no staff, so she'd be much safer from this or other viruses — but she'd still be in danger because sheltering at home isn't really feasible
on dialysis. Even with at-home peritoneal dialysis, Steph was still required
to go to the clinic at least twice monthly, first for the blood tests and
safety lecture, and then a few weeks later to be told the results of the blood
test and hear another safety lecture. And some months, she was required to go
into the clinic a third or even fourth time, if the staff didn't like the
results of that month's blood test.
Every visit to the clinic meant at
least ten minutes, more likely half an hour or longer in the waiting room, which was always crowded with other kidney patients. Then we'd go in
to see a nurse and then a doctor, and a dietician, and a social worker, all of whom
work all day with people who have compromised immune systems.
The public safety instructions for
dealing with this disease are to wash your hands a lot, stay home if you're
feeling sick, and avoid crowds, but those last two ideas are moot,
if dialysis is what's keeping you alive. People who aren't on dialysis can be
smart and choose not to go to a crowded place during an epidemic. People on
dialysis have no choice.
I've been clicking around the
internet, to see how this is being addressed at kidney clinics, and near as I
can tell there's no solution. Here are two comments (edited for spelling and
grammar) from the Dialysis room on Reddit, an open-microphone website:
First comment: This is my nightmare, since I am on
in-center hemo. The other patients have people come with them and most spend
the four hours in the waiting room. The other day I was watching 15-plus people
sitting there waiting during shift change, and thinking that if one person
beings it in, everyone will get it.
Second comment: I asked my clinic what the plan is
and they told me they won't let anyone in with a temperature over 100.4°. I
asked how those people are supposed to get dialysis and their answer was
basically ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Pray if you get sick it's early in the curve, and there's still hospital beds
and dialysis machines, I guess.
That's terrifying. And there's more. Stephanie was hospitalized numerous times during the last years of her life, and she spent several months in a nursing home, for rehabilitation after the complications following her leg amputation.
Every night in those hospitals and at that nursing home, I was there. Stephanie wanted me there, and I didn't want to be anywhere else. I spent the night every night, in a chair beside her bed. I spent the day there, too, most days.
But now, I'm reading that hospitals and nursing homes are barring visitors, to prevent the spread of COVID-19. And that makes good sense, medically, but that scares the bejeeberes out of me, and Stephanie would hate it, too.
Doctors and nurses make occasional mistakes, and especially at the nursing home, some of the nurses simply didn't give a damn — stories I'll tell in a future post here. Stephanie needed me there, both for simple companionship and for defense. But now, if Steph was with us and in a hospital, in a nursing home, or at a dialysis clinic, I couldn't be there with her.
Tell me I'm nuts and I won't disagree, but even though Stephanie has been gone for a year and a half, I'm worried about how we could have kept her safe through this coronavirus crisis.
Without Steph, though, just me in a pandemic? Meh. I will take what comes. The only value of worry is if it leads to a better strategy, so I've read about this virus, and decided my strategy: I'm washing my hands a lot more often, taking multivitamins, and avoiding crowds. After that, there's no point to worrying, except about your loved ones.
That's terrifying. And there's more. Stephanie was hospitalized numerous times during the last years of her life, and she spent several months in a nursing home, for rehabilitation after the complications following her leg amputation.
Every night in those hospitals and at that nursing home, I was there. Stephanie wanted me there, and I didn't want to be anywhere else. I spent the night every night, in a chair beside her bed. I spent the day there, too, most days.
But now, I'm reading that hospitals and nursing homes are barring visitors, to prevent the spread of COVID-19. And that makes good sense, medically, but that scares the bejeeberes out of me, and Stephanie would hate it, too.
Doctors and nurses make occasional mistakes, and especially at the nursing home, some of the nurses simply didn't give a damn — stories I'll tell in a future post here. Stephanie needed me there, both for simple companionship and for defense. But now, if Steph was with us and in a hospital, in a nursing home, or at a dialysis clinic, I couldn't be there with her.
Tell me I'm nuts and I won't disagree, but even though Stephanie has been gone for a year and a half, I'm worried about how we could have kept her safe through this coronavirus crisis.
Without Steph, though, just me in a pandemic? Meh. I will take what comes. The only value of worry is if it leads to a better strategy, so I've read about this virus, and decided my strategy: I'm washing my hands a lot more often, taking multivitamins, and avoiding crowds. After that, there's no point to worrying, except about your loved ones.
And whether you're worried about COVID-19 or pretending it's
nothing, remember what I can't forget, that folks with other medical issues have even more reason to be frightened.