Short diary — so I can post this link. Trigger Warning: This is not easy to read — grim reality. Should be required reading for those who refuse to quarantine. Respiratory Therapist works in an ICU in a New Orleans hospital.
www.motherjones.com/…
“Reading about it in the news, I knew it was going to be bad, but we deal with the flu every year so I was thinking: Well, it’s probably not that much worse than the flu. But seeing patients with COVID-19 completely changed my perspective, and it’s a lot more frightening.”
“I have patients in their early 40s and, yeah, I was kind of shocked. I’m seeing people who look relatively healthy with a minimal health history, and they are completely wiped out, like they’ve been hit by a truck. This is knocking out what should be perfectly fit, healthy people. Patients will be on minimal support, on a little bit of oxygen, and then all of a sudden, they go into complete respiratory arrest, shut down and can’t breathe at all.”
We go and check vitals on patients every four hours, and some are on a continuous cardiac monitor, so we see that their heart rate has a sudden increase or decrease, or someone goes in and sees that the patient is struggling to breathe or is unresponsive. That seems to be what happens to a lot of these patients: They suddenly become unresponsive or go into respiratory failure.”
“It’s called acute respiratory distress syndrome, ARDS.
EDIT: What I posted is the least shocking, so as not to trigger anyone. The article is much, much worse in describing patients on ventilators, short staffing, and some horrible deaths.