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Encouragement Thread - If you need support let’s help


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I was so moved, both to sadness and hope, by the statements in this video from a couple days ago of the heroic medical staff working at the El Centro Regional Medical Center, located in El Centro, California (population 44,000), the seat of Imperial County, that I transcribe their words here, so that we may better know the sacrifices being made on our behalf:

---Christina Santana, nurse:

"Hello. So today has been a rough day. It's kind of what we expect now: every day we come to work, just prepare for the worst, and brace yourself to what lies ahead during the day. It's just very sad and unfortunate, and I really never thought I'd see any of this in my lifetime, but our little town is getting ransacked and beat up by this horrible monster that is the coronavirus. Now it's beginning to infiltrate our community, well-known people: we're all such a small community that it's starting to hit home. And it's starting to wipe out families. And it's just a constant anxiety of realizing the people you take care are probably not going to make it, most of the time.

I'm starting to understand what PTSD looks like: it's like this. It's wartime, it's constant suffering and death and dying and going on to the next one and doing your best, doing everything that you went to school for, and sometimes everything you do is not enough, and every day things change. And we don't see an end: the numbers keep going up, the patients keep coming in, and it's just causing complete havoc in our little community. And just to see that they want to open everything back up and back to normal, and everyone saying, 'Oh, it's like the flu': this is not the flu. This is a monster, and it wreaks havoc on your entire body, not just your lungs: it's a whole systematic disease. And we're tired. We're tired, we're exhausted physically, mentally, everything. And I don't see how we continue, but we do, and we will take this on headfirst and do the best we can and help as many people as we can and just keep trucking every day, and we come in."

---Marsha Alarez, travel nurse:

"I primarily work the Covid tent. We can see up to 29 at a time out there between the tent and the car. There are multiple patients that start with us in triage and are not stable, so we have to rush them inside where they can get better care than we can provide in the tent. What I've learned is that sometimes this is the last time these families will ever see their patient again. Sometimes these patients are dead within three, four hours. We are so full and have so many critical patients that the state is helping us to find ICU beds all over California, and so we're constantly flying out patients, fixed wing and helicopter, as far away as Berkeley and Stanford. And because of the way Covid is, they are not allowed to see their family even if they are hospitalized, so it can be weeks before they see their family, or it can be the last time that they see their family."

---Nikki Freeman, respiratory therapist:

"So I get asked by my friends and family, 'How's work?' And I never really know how to answer. Working as a respiratory therapist during this time? it's been difficult. And I know one of the things that I've really been struggling with and processing is how quickly a lot of these patients deteriorate. How they go from walking and talking to being intubated to being pronounced dead within a matter of hours, and knowing that there's no family members around for them to say goodbye? It's rough. It's very rough."

---Judy Cruz, emergency room director:

"Today has been one of the worst days by far. All of our beds are full. There are twelve patients waiting for admission to ICU, which--we have no beds, so that means they are pending transfers. We have to look for beds in another hospital. This is very taxing and time consuming. Some of these patients have been here for two to three days waiting for beds. Half of them are intubated on ventilators. One of them required CPR for the first three hours of our shift. That means four nurses, a respiratory therapist, a physician in that room the entire three hours, and unfortunately he lost his battle to coronavirus.

When I walk out of this office, I'm going to go out there and tell the staff what an amazing job they're doing and have been doing and how proud I am of them, but just know that we're all praying that this comes to an end soon, and we just to go back to normal."

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1 hour ago, N.E. Brigand said:

I was so moved, both to sadness and hope, by the statements in this video from a couple days ago of the heroic medical staff working at the El Centro Regional Medical Center, located in El Centro, California (population 44,000), the seat of Imperial County, that I transcribe their words here, so that we may better know the sacrifices being made on our behalf:

---Christina Santana, nurse:

"Hello. So today has been a rough day. It's kind of what we expect now: every day we come to work, just prepare for the worst, and brace yourself to what lies ahead during the day. It's just very sad and unfortunate, and I really never thought I'd see any of this in my lifetime, but our little town is getting ransacked and beat up by this horrible monster that is the coronavirus. Now it's beginning to infiltrate our community, well-known people: we're all such a small community that it's starting to hit home. And it's starting to wipe out families. And it's just a constant anxiety of realizing the people you take care are probably not going to make it, most of the time.

I'm starting to understand what PTSD looks like: it's like this. It's wartime, it's constant suffering and death and dying and going on to the next one and doing your best, doing everything that you went to school for, and sometimes everything you do is not enough, and every day things change. And we don't see an end: the numbers keep going up, the patients keep coming in, and it's just causing complete havoc in our little community. And just to see that they want to open everything back up and back to normal, and everyone saying, 'Oh, it's like the flu': this is not the flu. This is a monster, and it wreaks havoc on your entire body, not just your lungs: it's a whole systematic disease. And we're tired. We're tired, we're exhausted physically, mentally, everything. And I don't see how we continue, but we do, and we will take this on headfirst and do the best we can and help as many people as we can and just keep trucking every day, and we come in."

---Marsha Alarez, travel nurse:

"I primarily work the Covid tent. We can see up to 29 at a time out there between the tent and the car. There are multiple patients that start with us in triage and are not stable, so we have to rush them inside where they can get better care than we can provide in the tent. What I've learned is that sometimes this is the last time these families will ever see their patient again. Sometimes these patients are dead within three, four hours. We are so full and have so many critical patients that the state is helping us to find ICU beds all over California, and so we're constantly flying out patients, fixed wing and helicopter, as far away as Berkeley and Stanford. And because of the way Covid is, they are not allowed to see their family even if they are hospitalized, so it can be weeks before they see their family, or it can be the last time that they see their family."

---Nikki Freeman, respiratory therapist:

"So I get asked by my friends and family, 'How's work?' And I never really know how to answer. Working as a respiratory therapist during this time? it's been difficult. And I know one of the things that I've really been struggling with and processing is how quickly a lot of these patients deteriorate. How they go from walking and talking to being intubated to being pronounced dead within a matter of hours, and knowing that there's no family members around for them to say goodbye? It's rough. It's very rough."

---Judy Cruz, emergency room director:

"Today has been one of the worst days by far. All of our beds are full. There are twelve patients waiting for admission to ICU, which--we have no beds, so that means they are pending transfers. We have to look for beds in another hospital. This is very taxing and time consuming. Some of these patients have been here for two to three days waiting for beds. Half of them are intubated on ventilators. One of them required CPR for the first three hours of our shift. That means four nurses, a respiratory therapist, a physician in that room the entire three hours, and unfortunately he lost his battle to coronavirus.

When I walk out of this office, I'm going to go out there and tell the staff what an amazing job they're doing and have been doing and how proud I am of them, but just know that we're all praying that this comes to an end soon, and we just to go back to normal."

I saw this video as well. It is very reminiscent of the videos I saw in April from my local hospital, Beaumont, the largest health care system in Michigan. My step-father spent the last two weeks of his life there. They made the national news for several times back then. These videos are heartbreaking and serve to remind me to take precautionary measures when I am out in public. Their overriding message is take this thing seriously. 

Edited by Jurassic Lancer
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2 hours ago, N.E. Brigand said:

I was so moved, both to sadness and hope, by the statements in this video from a couple days ago of the heroic medical staff working at the El Centro Regional Medical Center, located in El Centro, California (population 44,000), the seat of Imperial County, that I transcribe their words here, so that we may better know the sacrifices being made on our behalf:

---Christina Santana, nurse:

"Hello. So today has been a rough day. It's kind of what we expect now: every day we come to work, just prepare for the worst, and brace yourself to what lies ahead during the day. It's just very sad and unfortunate, and I really never thought I'd see any of this in my lifetime, but our little town is getting ransacked and beat up by this horrible monster that is the coronavirus. Now it's beginning to infiltrate our community, well-known people: we're all such a small community that it's starting to hit home. And it's starting to wipe out families. And it's just a constant anxiety of realizing the people you take care are probably not going to make it, most of the time.

I'm starting to understand what PTSD looks like: it's like this. It's wartime, it's constant suffering and death and dying and going on to the next one and doing your best, doing everything that you went to school for, and sometimes everything you do is not enough, and every day things change. And we don't see an end: the numbers keep going up, the patients keep coming in, and it's just causing complete havoc in our little community. And just to see that they want to open everything back up and back to normal, and everyone saying, 'Oh, it's like the flu': this is not the flu. This is a monster, and it wreaks havoc on your entire body, not just your lungs: it's a whole systematic disease. And we're tired. We're tired, we're exhausted physically, mentally, everything. And I don't see how we continue, but we do, and we will take this on headfirst and do the best we can and help as many people as we can and just keep trucking every day, and we come in."

---Marsha Alarez, travel nurse:

"I primarily work the Covid tent. We can see up to 29 at a time out there between the tent and the car. There are multiple patients that start with us in triage and are not stable, so we have to rush them inside where they can get better care than we can provide in the tent. What I've learned is that sometimes this is the last time these families will ever see their patient again. Sometimes these patients are dead within three, four hours. We are so full and have so many critical patients that the state is helping us to find ICU beds all over California, and so we're constantly flying out patients, fixed wing and helicopter, as far away as Berkeley and Stanford. And because of the way Covid is, they are not allowed to see their family even if they are hospitalized, so it can be weeks before they see their family, or it can be the last time that they see their family."

---Nikki Freeman, respiratory therapist:

"So I get asked by my friends and family, 'How's work?' And I never really know how to answer. Working as a respiratory therapist during this time? it's been difficult. And I know one of the things that I've really been struggling with and processing is how quickly a lot of these patients deteriorate. How they go from walking and talking to being intubated to being pronounced dead within a matter of hours, and knowing that there's no family members around for them to say goodbye? It's rough. It's very rough."

---Judy Cruz, emergency room director:

"Today has been one of the worst days by far. All of our beds are full. There are twelve patients waiting for admission to ICU, which--we have no beds, so that means they are pending transfers. We have to look for beds in another hospital. This is very taxing and time consuming. Some of these patients have been here for two to three days waiting for beds. Half of them are intubated on ventilators. One of them required CPR for the first three hours of our shift. That means four nurses, a respiratory therapist, a physician in that room the entire three hours, and unfortunately he lost his battle to coronavirus.

When I walk out of this office, I'm going to go out there and tell the staff what an amazing job they're doing and have been doing and how proud I am of them, but just know that we're all praying that this comes to an end soon, and we just to go back to normal."

Two things come to mind about El Centro.  One it’s right on the border (not far from a large city in Mexico) and Two it’s hot as hell there (currently 107 degrees at 6 pm). 

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16 minutes ago, skevinp said:

Two things come to mind about El Centro.  One it’s right on the border (not far from a large city in Mexico) and Two it’s hot as hell there (currently 107 degrees at 6 pm). 

It's also the largest American city that's entirely below sea level, according to Wikipedia.

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4 hours ago, JimF-LowBari said:

KHOU 11 has info on their website. 

The percentage of covid's is what? 

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4 hours ago, N.E. Brigand said:

Yes, representatives of the Texas Medical Center itself said on Wednesday that they expected to max out their regular ICU capacity by Thursday, and on Thursday they said that had indeed happened, but they indicated that they had "sustainable surge" ICU capacity that, based on current trends, would suffice for roughly another two weeks. Obviously the hope is that "current trends" don't continue. Today, TMC leadership said that they now expect to be able to manage the surge. I gather that one reason is that Texas has temporarily banned elective surgeries, which should free up some resources and staff. (As a reminder: "elective" surgeries include many serious, necessary procedures. It's just that they're not critically urgent and can be postponed.)

As for TMC's size, various media reports I saw described TMC, which I'd never even heard of before, as the largest medical complex in the country or in the world.

My understanding is that many hospitals normally have about 70% of their ICU beds filled. (Anecdotally, having spent about two weeks visiting my mother in an ICU ten years ago, that sounds about right to me.) So I've not been too concerned with the many, many news reports I've seen over the past few months about this or that hospital being at 80% or higher capacity. But when they start indicating they're nearing or have surpassed 100% capacity, that seems noteworthy.

the fact that the message board allows you to be a hack is not my problem , you suggest something in the numbers and yet the actual numbers are around 28% covid in the ICU. and the actual hospitalization for the area is not what you suggest. 

You just wanted to media hype the numbers. Its clear. and the message board will allow you to do so and probably ban me. You guys are not serious about anything. 

 

Edited by E3D
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32 minutes ago, E3D said:

The percentage of covid's is what? 

I don’t know the percentage, but there were 43,122 cases of COVID recorded today alone.

Edited by Jurassic Lancer
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8 minutes ago, E3D said:

You just wanted to media hype the numbers. Its clear. and the message board will allow you to do so and probably ban me. You guys are not serious about anything. 

 

You really think we want to hype the numbers? I would love to hype 0 as a number. And do you think I am not serious about anything? I buried a family member. You have no clue how serious I am. 

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2 minutes ago, Jurassic Lancer said:

You really think we want to hype the numbers? I would love to hype 0 as a number. And do you think I am not serious about anything? I buried a family member. You have no clue how serious I am. 

Pretty sure he was talking to someone else about something else.  

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2 minutes ago, skevinp said:

Pretty sure he was talking to someone else about something else.  

He did say “you guys.”

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