[TW: Death.. Mild graphic details of near death, life support, ventilator… my writing, grammar, experiences and opinions]
We could be entering into another situation like March 2020, or even the end of 2020. Watch to the end!! I almost gave up half way through, but it gets more and more apparent this is a terrible situation. (Also I will tie this post to my own personal experiences by the end)
With numerous games and teams from the NFL, NHL, NCAA dealing with some having 20+ people testing positive. Canada is probably going to trigger a level that forces 50% capacities.
If you can’t speak about parts of the immune system, (Do you know the differences between Lymphocytes [T and B cells], neutrophils, etc) you probably aren’t equipped enough to counter the overwhelming consensus among the science and medical community. Also, if you can’t speak about viral loads, spike proteins, etc. you definitely can’t challenge science in any intellectual way. I know the immune system fairly well due to having to learn how my body works after my heart transplants, acute, very rare rejection and the means I went through to get my immune system fixed (some that even the general medical field aren’t that aware of) so i could live to get a replacement heart and not immediately reject it. Yet, I am far from knowing enough to question the experts. But I am versed enough to see the BS peddled by “doctors” seeing the lucrative grift that is the “Front Line Doctors” and other anti-consensus science crowd.
With all of that said, get vaxxed if you haven’t, boosted if that’s the step you still need to take. Pay attention to developments from the actual science community, not the ones making a profit or a name by opposing the scientific method. And mask if you are in public around groups of people. I do not understand if you are healthy, why a piece of cloth is such a big deal. I ran with an LVAD (heart pump), on a treadmill and outside, while being masked the whole time going back to 2015! I’ve lived with people who had colds, limited contact and wore masks. I was immunocompromised and never got sick.
I have had doctors talk to me about being immunocompromised during COVID. There seems to be an interesting discussion that with the drugs many of us are on, there is a good chance I would not know that I was even infected. Some studies show that the amount of transplant patients who have gotten symptomatic, and in the hospital, the death rate is somewhere around 65% rate. Honestly, the scariest part for me is getting sick, not knowing it and becoming a superspreader. The fact that I have been very unhealthy with my heart, going to be checked in, or to an appointment, I’ve had people say things like, “it must be nice to be so young and healthy”, or the small talk “you look to young and healthy to be in here, why would you be here?” I became very aware that we have no idea with what someone we see is dealing health wise. I don’t ever question when I see a person in their 20’s rolling around Walmart in the electric carts anymore. They could be playing, but they could have some sort of issue that isn’t visible to the eye. So between the fact I could become a superspreader, the comments, the fact I don’t know what most peoples health status is, I always wear a mask. If not for the number 1 reason of being a preventative for everyone with COVID, the close 2nd is that by walking by someone, you don’t know the justified anxiety you are giving someone that just went out for the first time in weeks to get some supplies to survive, because they have a worse risk that I have. I admit that I have even seen someone joyed with themselves disobeying the mask advice, and thought, “oh sh!t, is this the time I get sick and it changes everything?”. It is respectful to others who have very real l issues, they are going through a lot already,I don’t want to add to that, or even create anxiety which can hurt a weak person alone.
Be kind, be neighborly, be aware, be the real definition of a patriot (not a nationalist which often is confused for patriotism now). Protect yourself.
I was in the Saperstein (ICU) Tower at Cedars-Sinai during a massive COVID wave that hit LA hard. The first floor I was on had people coming for COVID alone. Eventually I was moved up to a true Transplant Floor, of people waiting on various levels of life support for a transplant, and some recovering from the transplant. Slowly I saw more young people coming up that was in need due to a COVID infection, some technically labeled “recovered” because they were no longer infected, just organ damage. One famous broadway actor patient was on my floor most of the time I was on the transplant floor. At first I saw him occasionally moving in a wheelchair, it got less and less. And eventually I found out he didn’t make it. He was young, in great shape, one that you never would’ve guessed would end up there. I’ve watched or laid through the night in ICU’s listening to people working for hours to try to save a patient from being their last hours. Countless times at this point I have been witness to too many peoples last fight. It is not a peaceful or “beautiful” thing. It is one of a few things that will haunt me out of nowhere.
Multiple times I’ve been in situations where I had 25% chance or less from surviving, I’ve laid hours/days in induced coma on multiple forms of life support, I’ve been revived by CPR twice hours apart. NONE of this was nothing less than torture and traumatizing to go through. It is not what it appears to be. Even when it appeared I was laying and resting “peacefully” I was experiencing the worst level of nightmarish delirium, not knowing what was real and what wasn’t. I vividly remember a recurring state where a very trippy version of Soul Coughing would play, a large round doctor would come into the room, spin the table various ways, while tearing body parts off of me, feeling everything. When I would wake up, I realized I was suffocating. I wasn’t, I was on a ventilator, it would take someone soothing me and reminding me to let the machine breathe for me. It feels as though you are underwater and only given a drinking straw to breathe through, but don’t think that you can try to breathe to get more air, it will set off alarms on the machine. The reason for telling this is to make you aware of how even living through a hospital stay for COVID, can be very traumatizing, life changing and that death is not pretty. Please listen to experts, please follow the recommendations of experts. The requirements set by the federal, state and local are the minimum, you can go above that. I’m not much for restraints on individual rights, but these recommendations are truly ones that are there to give you and the community the best chance.
