@Lali1 wrote:
@Lipstickdiva wrote:
@Lali1 wrote:
They are doing something different because less people are dying in Texas compared to other states.
What does this video show that is different?
I didn't watch the video. We already know what is going on in hospitals. People are sick because of a horrible virus. I know about intubation I've seen it happen and I've had it happen.
______________________________________________________
@Lali1 It is one thing if you aren't interested in watching the video. But I think it is highly improbable that you know what is going on in the hospital even though you have seen an intubation and been intubated. I have taken care of hundreds of intubated patients over decades and there is no way I can compare what is going on with covid today with what I saw during my years of nursing experience.
Over and over again, nurses and doctors working on covid units are saying they have never seen anything like this. So highly doubtful that most lay people know what is going on in the hospital currently. Totally understand not wanting to watch a video, but don't understand trying to discount what is really happening out there in a hospital setting.
For those that are interested, here is a post from a hospitalist in Arizona. It is a recent post which you can tell if you do read it. This is only a part of the post:
In a couple of weeks we have gone from a few hundred cases per day to around 3,500 cases per day. A few weeks ago, I was working at the COVID-free hospital designated to be the primary elective surgery campus within the network. The past few days, our recently reopened COVID Unit has been near or completely full. I shared the patient's on the unit with one other hospitalist.
Before I went on service this week, I read anything and everything I could to prepare myself to be the COVID doc. I was up to date on all of the latest recommendations. I was a little nervous, but felt like I was armed with the information that would allow me to help my patients.
I quickly learned that there is no possible way to prepare for how to treat a COVID patient. There is no rhyme, reason, or pattern. There is no possible way to predict what will happen with your patient.
In my sign out to the doc taking over for me today, I prefaced the individual patient sign outs with, "one slightly improving, one with less oxygen requirements but possible new liver failure developing, everyone else getting worse."
I have never seen anything like this. None of us have. We have no idea what we are doing. We are sharing evidence from small studies that could help and utilizing treatments that we think and hope are helpful. Of course, we also thought hydroxychloroquine was helpful a couple of months ago. So, we're hopefully helping people, maybe hurting them, and trying our best. We are flipping people on their stomachs while wide awake on a machine pushing oxygen into their lungs to try and help; this is called the prone position, and it works, but you're stuck in that position for as long as we can keep you there. The longer the better. Anyone on supplemental oxygen is receiving dexamethasone based on the European study that came out last week. We were using Remdesivir, but a patient I admitted two days ago is the last one that will receive it from our current stockpile. Convalescent plasma from patients that had COVID, recovered, and donated plasma is being administered, but studies suggest that antibody concentration diminishes by up to 90% within 2-3 months, so who knows if that's even doing anything.
I realized in the past two days that oxygen saturation numbers that you see on the machines are completely worthless in many COVID patients. So, the one thing we thought we knew, that COVID causes profound hypoxia, was true, but it's actually much worse than we thought. In order to figure out if you are hypoxic (low blood oxygen levels), a needle is stuck into an artery in your wrist as often as is needed. It hurts. A lot. I will have a needle stuck into your artery as often as I need to. I'm sorry, I know it hurts, but it's for your own good.
In any other time, most of my patients would already be intubated on a ventilator. We are managing so many critically ill patients on regular hospital floors. If we sent everyone to the ICU that would normally be there based on their current status and put them all on ventilators, all resources would be depleted in a day.
The patients I cared for the past few days were the most miserable, uncomfortable, terrified patients I have seen in the past four years. I sat with them while they cried because they are scared that they will get worse and get intubated and die without ever seeing their loved ones again. I can't comfort them by saying they'll get better soon, because I don't know that they will. All I can tell them is that we're doing everything we can and I really hope they improve. I held a patients hand while she cried and screamed, "oh my god, I'm going to die, aren't I? I'm dying" when I told her we couldn't give her more oxygen without intubating her and putting her on life support. I then tried to comfort her children over the phone after I informed them they were not allowed to come in to the hospital to be with her. They asked if someone could be there to comfort her if she is going to die.
Many of my patients were young. Many have no underlying conditions that predispose them to a bad outcome, yet are one bad blood oxygen reading away from needing to be intubated.
COVID does not care who you are.
I am scared and you should be, too.
______________________________________________________
As one who followed blogs from docs and nurses in New York and New Orleans, sad to say this one months later has much the same content with a few different changes in treatments they are trying we didn't have then. "I have never seen anything like this" was in each and every one of them.
Thanks @Mindy D for posting the video for those that are interested in getting a real world perspective from this hospital in Houston.
* Freedom has a taste the protected will never know *
Blogs & Forums
