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The Corona pandemic is real20 апреля 2020 09:44. Разместил: Altyn |
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The Corona pandemic is real Ward Dossche - 2:292/854
There are now tens of thousands of Corona stories worldwide ... a bunch ended bad, others have ended good. This is mine, one of so many ...
How do you contract a Corona infection? I can't say, it just happened to me I think. It has been a very slow process. Somehow, just in the wrong place at the wrong time...
Mid March I felt a bit unusual, sometimes slightly flu-like. Temperature that fluctuated from 38C + to below 36C. For no apparent reason. So it is probably not all that bad you think.
At the doctor's front door there was a note saying there are no consultations, you can call for an interview to see if a screening can be arranged in a hospital, but it turned out to be a very tedious process, as if they did not want to treat you.
The common explanation was "Fever? Take some paracetamol and stay inside. It will improve.".
The only question is "how long" you can wait while your body starts to give more and more signals of "The minister of Health does not know what she is talking about"
It is starting to become a bit of the story of the Belgian TV program "This will never happen to me"... with the understanding that you are increasingly taking into account that it was exactly happening to you. You just don't look deathly ill and you can't get to a doctor.
I was able to reach my daughter Nele on 23/3 and her conclusion was razor sharp "It is with you guys who's sicker than the other" (my wife was also a cough machine in the meantime). The doctor was called and 2 days later (Wednesday 25/3) we were scheduled to be screened. Note "sick to death" but still wait 48 hours.
Then the next fate strikes... that night my daughter Anneleen miscarries at 15 weeks, presumably unrelated, and goes to the hospital at 4am. Suddenly my wife and I are reclassified from a possible Corona patient to a caring grandparent, against all advice, against all logic. The reality is a strange thing and the hospital visit cannot happen.
We can get a new appointment Monday 30/4... 5 more days to go... "stay inside" as the minister would call it... meanwhile you will continue to cough the lungs out of your chest, get a temperature, swallow Ibuprofen and / or Dafalgan... stay in your room.
It is Friday 27/3. With a bucket between my legs to catch the coughed up mucus, unstoppable. I signal to Anneleen "It is no longer possible, I can not keep this up" and ask to reach Nele. We get her at work in the hospital and I ask if she can go to the emergency / triage of a hospital with me. Somewhere. Anywhere... as long as it's a hospital ... Her superior understands the need and Nele is allowed to leave her service, take a shower and pick me up.
I get a mouth mask from her, and breathing through such a mask while you continue to function is incredibly difficult. We leave for the hospital, it becomes GZA St. Augustinus. Very well known in Antwerp.
When she arrived at the emergency / triage Nele got out and pushed a button there. Two electronic doors opened and she said, "Step inside now. You are there".
Suddenly you get a feeling of "I'm on my own, no one holding my hand, all alone". The doors closed. "Hello Nele. Will I ever see you again? " "Fiene and Steff, the grandchildren... are we ever going to be able to pull some more mischief that grandma will hate?" ... I didn't think so.
A voice: "Yes, what is it for?" as if that was not clear.
I looked down a dimly lit hall and only saw a black hole. A kind of dragon head during the Chinese New Year that danced around and was going to devour me. Hell. I was going to die, was convinced, and there was no shit I could do about it.
But the hospital staff didn't put me near the dirt bin... "Someone aged 69?" ... However, the feeling that I was going to die alone in a small green room on my own was very real...
Within 15 minutes I had an oxygen mask, an EKG was taken, rotated through a lung scanner, lung radiography... And with such a rod in my nose to detect Covid19 of which it was said "It is soooo unpleasant". Sorry, it was the best thing that was going to happen that day, they were dealing with me. I was not given up by the system. I was not expecting that.
The monster was swinging in the hallway, but I might be able to whack it on the head.
To a waiting room for the night, to get some sleep. The next day the verdict fell... double Covid19 pneumonia... that was the condition of which De Block said "Grab some Paracetamol and stay inside". Had I done that, I was already lying between four boards. Thank you Mrs. De Block, we will never know how much unnecessary deaths you have on your conscience because of that... and then we will keep silent about the reduction of hospital beds during the various savings rounds... we get the bill of the stupid savings policy "now". But at the end of the ride, the top politicians walk around like a proud peacock claiming someone else's merits
The treatments were started and the first days it is horrible. The number of liters of slime and snot was hard to imagine. Difficult nights because you go to the monitor every 2 hours, but we get it. I lie at the front of the wing and literally at 7:20 am you are kicked out of bed. But I understand that too; logistics are in order, making beds, mopping rooms, disinfecting rooms and then eating. Drawing blood, injecting penicyline in an IV, medication... you are being drilled.
Your day sometimes gets better, your night gets quieter.... Am I going to make it?
You never see the care-givers. Always completely wrapped up, mouth masks, headgear, splash shield for the eyes ... I don't know a single name. The jokes about nurses start pouring in, but you really have no use for that, and over time you start to recognize the voices. A mythical bond grows, your struggle also becomes their struggle.
First you are an old man, then they see you working on a laptop and the respect grows, mutual respect.
You get serious medication that is linked to malaria, antibiotics in pills but also intravenous, an IV with more stuff, an oxygen mask ... and I do not have to go to the intensive care.
Plus it has to be said, hospital meals of the highest quality. Lunch was the time of day to look forward to.
Every day all bed linen replaced, the room completely mopped with some product, toilet sink bed window sill table chair ... everything is disinfected at least once a day. And over time, Corona also starts to have his / her (is it a boy or a girl?) scent ... the scent of Dettol and other products have been linked to Corona for me forever.
Eventually you will be pricked from all sides with needles, but I can handle that well. Syringes against flebites in the abdomen.
And then the medication is reduced, suddenly no more Plaquenil, no antibiotics in pill form, only intravenous and you start to get it ... we are winning this battle. "We" that is the hospital staff and myself.
In the end, everything stops and you just hang on to the oxygen hose ... and then it gets disconnected as well and it turns out that your oxygen level in the blood remains stable ...
"You can go home tomorrow"... Almost disappointment because I am going to miss these wonderful people. Can I continue without them?
At home we were able to shield an apartment to be completely quarantined. Not that it is really imposed, but we have the opportunity and we can do it. So why not.
And then the moment of the dismissal arrives, I have the papers and they come to pick me up. "Can you walk by yourself to the exit?" ... I almost answer with "Of course, I'm not sick" But I see the entire staff of my Covid19 ward standing there and they start applauding when I pass. It is getting too much for me and I have to cry while addressing the girls and some of the gentlemen... "I came in here 11 days ago thinking I was done. You have judged it differently and have given me a second chance at life. Someone who did not experience it does not understand this, I will never forget you. I can still see my grandchildren grow up, an unlikely gift "... the push of a button and the electronic doors opened again. No Chinese monster this time, just a yellow line to the elevators and to the exit... I had knocked the monster flat on its face.
And there Wouter (my son) was waiting to take me home to the next phase of my life.
Is this the end? Is it done now?
Certainly not.
You have a lot of time to think and consider life practically. Society before Corona is no longer there, switching to "business as usual" would be a serious mistake. Everything changes.
Whoever believes that there will be Olympic Games in Japan in 2021 is probably a citizen of Disneyland, fairytales are common there. Corona is and remains there. Professional sports are going to be hit hard, event supply companies are going through a difficult time, will Rock Werchter ever continue? Tomorrow Land? Business as usual will be a totally wrong approach.
There are also "special" sides to the Corona pandemic. We get our daily dose of entertainment from Donald Trump, if now only my American friends would care to see what a dangerous and irresponsible madman this is.
We should not be annoyed with Eurosong, it is canceled.
The European Football Championship? Possibly something like the OS that it cannot be organized.
Maybe we should start deliberating on mega events. Can humanity still handle it?
The Olympics may have to return to the starting concept where not everything will be spread out in 10-12 days but only a few disciplines took place at a time. Disciplines such as shooting live pigeons (OS 1920 Antwerp) do not have to return... Belgium won the gold by the way.
The European Football Championship with a final round of 4 teams as in 1972 when Belgium finished 3rd. Away from the megalomaniac approach.
Everything is going to be different, and what ever was won't come back.
What I found annoying during the time in the hospital was that there was very little entertainment on TV for people who were hospitalized. Dozens of home video programs but it all had to remain "LOL".
Only the TV news remained with numbers of deaths, hospitalized people and endless bullshit about statistics and journalists who are constantly trying to make news by putting words in their guests mouths. High days also for politicians who have ample opportunity to find their best angle to get on TV.
You lie there sick and it is of no use to you. You want to know "how does this work for me" and "do I survive this?" Those answers don't come.
A second annoying thing is / was that when you try to find information that is of use to you in an electronic newspaper, a number of publications do not hesitate to offer you the bill first and let you pay from your sick bed ... Was it really impossible to make the electronic newspaper non-paying for a while?
What I would like to draw extra attention to is the staff in the hospitals. You can applaud as much as you like at 8pm, but there is little point. These people have been doing a gigantic and undermanned job for 40-50 years. Only that is now at risk for one's own life.... It has become my family. Those people know things about me that nobody knows.
For them, I hope that the recognition continues when this is behind us, that their profession is finally recognized as "heavy" and that the recognition is not stopped because of interests in another sector.
5 more days of quarantine when I write this ...
Special thanks to my children who organized a phenomenal return. You are the best ... I love you more than you will ever know =============================================================================
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