Tag: covid19

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pandemic

In Canada, doctors do nursing

“And starting this weekend, at least one Toronto-area hospital will begin training physician volunteers so they can help critical care nurses in the ICU, as a way to immediately add more staff to keep up with a flood of severely ill COVID-19 patients.”

I had to laugh about this one. The medical residents, aka “baby doctors,” barely know how to do anything. I’ve had to teach doctors how to place an IV line, how to reduce a prolapsed rectum, how to talk to patients about death. And there’s no way they’ve ever considered giving IV antibiotics or other medications. Talk about chaos in the ICU.

I couldn’t find the original news article. See video report on Global News

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pandemic

A Collection of Covid Links

I have been lax in writing lately. Maybe my posts about mental health have given you a small clue about why? Not so subtle hint… In the background, I’m still reading some news and research, but most of the links I find interesting just end up in a notes file loosely titled “pandemic.” Today, I decided that I could at least go back and share the stories I’ve found interesting enough to save over the last month. Some might be a little out of date, but I know you’ll excuse me.

Double Masking

Most recently, the CDC annouced some shocking news (to me!) about masking. According to this NPR article, “Double Masking Offers More Protection,” with the most common combo being a cloth mask over a disposable (paper) surgical mask. This apparently helps the masks fit tightly and seal any holes that might exist to keep out any stray aerosols. When both people in an “exposure” during research wore their mask according to newly recommended CDC standards, transmissions of covid was reduced by 95%. This is AS EFFECTIVE AS THE VACCINE.

New CDC mask fitting guidelines issued as of Wednesday, February 10, 2021.

So, wear a mask, or even better TWO MASKS!

A Covid Cure?

Monday, January 25, a group of scientists from UCSF announced promising research into the cancer drug Aplidin, currently only approved in Australian to treat multiple myeloma, but currently on limited trial in Spain for covid19. The anti-viral drug is 30 times more potent that the current standard treatment remdesivir. Aplidin, generic name plitidepsin, was discovered in a sea squirt called Aplidium albicans off the coast of Ibiza, Spain but is not commercially available in most of the world.

Read more about the research at “The UCSF-led team racing to find a COVID cure may have found a promising candidate“

Will Covid End Homelessness?

This is the question Emma Gray Ellis asks for Wired Magazine in the article “The Lasting Impact of Covid-19 on Homelessness in the US.” She explores programs like California’s Project Roomkey, which utilized unused hotel rooms to house homeless people to curb the spread of covid among the homeless population by simply getting them off the street. And then the how the plan has transitioned to Project Homekey, which is attempting to turn these places into permanent housing for the homeless. Will attempts across the country to prevent widespread covid in the homeless population actually result in long-lasting change and housing? I really hope so, and some signs point to yes.

January in Santa Clara County ICUs

Its only February and yet January seems years away. It was a horrible post-holiday surge, and in the Bay Area, Santa Clara County was one of the hardest hit–as it was at the very beginning of the pandemic as well. This article about what it’s like inside the ICUs during the surge is fascinating reading, if you’re into that kind of thing.

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Quick Notes

2 observations from the week from hell, maybe 3 ok???

  1. Covid. Still everywhere & people are dying. It is going to take MONTHS, maybe the entire YEAR of 2021 to roll out the vaccines. Keep wearing your masks, stay home & stay distant.
  2. There are some heart attacks that should kill you, in my opinion. Maybe I’m just traumatized by my job, but when your heart is so damaged that you need A NEW ONE, it seems like life just wasn’t meant to be.
  3. People always talk about nurses not being able to pee for their whole shift. But when you extend that metaphor, having a job where you can’t sneak away to take a poop is also horrible. Gas pains hurt really bad!
Categories
pandemic

The Struggle for N95s

Think about the N95 mask. Our lifeline in the fight against covid. At once something so simple and so complicated. Would you ever imagine that the inventor of this absolutely invaluable mask is a man of only 68, who just retired two years ago? That the N95 was only invented in 1995. Invented. In 1995. Holy moly.

I guess I’m showing my age, but that doesn’t seem long enough ago for a mask that protects so many people from so many things… before covid, it was (and still is) used for those who care for patients with tuberculosis, novel flu strains such as H1N1 back in 2009, hemorrhagic viruses such as Ebola, and construction workers use it to filter airborne particles many of which can cause permanent lung damage as well.

A world without N95s seems like a very dangerous place.

So, the shortage that occurred during our covid surges throughout America and the world are a major failure. The lack of ability for even healthcare providers to have adequate personal protective equipment (ppe) is a sign of how broken our healthcare system and our government really is.

The continued dedication of healthcare professionals however–those who go to work anyways, even if they have to reuse masks for way too long or wear homemade masks and gowns–is a testament to the goodness of people, to the bravery that can be found even in the face of mortality.

I have been going to work knowing that if I get covid, I could die. But I go anyways. And I always would.

That is why I so appreciate the story if Dr. Peter Tsai, the inventor of the N95. He has come out of retirement to help companies change manufacturing plants in order to meet the needs of our healthcare system. And he does this for nothing. He feels it is his calling… read more about him in this feature in the Washington Post.

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pandemic

T minus 2 days

That’s when I’ll be vaccinated. I am very very excited to experience what will likely be the first in a long line of revolutionary new treatments pioneered with mRNA. I’m not quite as excited to likely be experiencing vaccine side effects over Christmas but oh well… I have a few days off so I might as well take some extra antihistamines and NSAIDs and sleep it off. I hope all of you are lucky enough to be getting vaccinated this holiday season as well!!!

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Quick Notes

A Doctor Antimasker Gets Suspended & I Get Exposed to Covid Twice

As if the world isn’t shitty enough right now, patients of Dr. Steven LaTulippe can’t even trust that they’ll get good advice from their doctor. Or that he won’t give them covid.

It’s been reported that LaTulippe misinforms patients about masks repeatedly, and if they persist in asking questions–drops them entirely. ((See link at end of post)

Suspending his medical license was the right thing to do.how can he be a doctor if he clearly doesn’t believe in science???

This reminds me of how I feel about healthcare workers refusing the flu shot. I personally think it should be a mandatory condition of employment, unless you have a medical contraindication. There is absolutely no reason to not protect yourself but also your patients and fellow healthcare works from the flu as much as each years flu shot allows.

I don’t want to get sick because you’re an anti-vaxxer. Besides, if you don’t believe in science, should you really work in healthcare???

Speaking of keeping your fellow healthcare workers from getting sick, I received a disheartening call this Friday. My hospital’s covid tracking team was alerting me that I had been exposed to a fellow healthcare worker who was found to have covid. This exposure happened during the week of Thanksgiving.

The funny thing is, I had just heard through the rumor mill, as the saying goes, that I worked with someone who was now covid posit. Literally from one night to the next.

I feel like in that timeframe, this person definitely knew they had been exposed (or had just traveled for thanksgiving g.d.it) and probably had already taken a test–they were probably just waiting for results.

So, I’ve been exposed twice. And it’s not from taking care of patients. It’s from other f*cling healthcare providers. And I’m pretty pissed off. Do you know what I did for thanksgiving? I cancelled all my plans. I worked instead. I did not eat turkey or see my family. I won’t see them for Christmas either.

I’m toeing the line, doing my part not to get sick, not to get other people sick. This is especially important for nurses and other healthcare providers because we put our trust and our health in each other’s hands every single shift.

I should have my results by tomorrow. But then I’ll get tested again later this week. Should I go to work? Well, if the first result is negative, I feel like I could work but that I should definitely wear an N95 all shift. At least until I have a second test to cover the timeframe for the second exposure as well.

Stay healthy. Protect yourself and others by wearing a mask.

A Doctor Who Boasted That He And His Staff Don’t Wear Masks Has Had His Medical License Suspended
— Read on www.google.com/amp/s/www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/salvadorhernandez/doctor-masks-covid19-conspiracies-oregon-license-suspended

Categories
nightshiftlife

Notes from an Extra shift

There is nothing better than showing up to work extra and finding a brown sugar boba from Yi Fang waiting for you.

Yi Fang— home of the best boba

Among the other fantastic treats I received: a homemade pumpkin chocolate chip muffin and pizza from one of our patients who just left the hospital after his heart transplant.

After being off for 5 days, however, I was pretty terrified that I would find a hospital overrun with covid and bursting at the seams with patients. And we do have a pretty full house… but amazingly, our covid numbers haven’t skyrocketed. House-wide we have only 29 total, 6 of whom are “cured,” and 2 are waiting for results. There are NO cases in the ICU currently.

This is definitely better than I had hoped for and expected, given the terrible news I’ve been hearing lately. Perhaps the hard work of London Breed, mayor of San Francisco, and Gavin Newsom, governor of California, is paying off in reducing covid infections and hospitalizations!

Also, one last thing to be so happy about this extra shift.

Labeling iStat cartridges with 2021 because next year is ALMOST HERE which means 2020 is done. GOOD RIDDANCE!

Bring on 2021!

Categories
pandemic

A nasal spray for covid

Hidden away in the news this past week was an announcement about a nasal spray that had been developed from already-existing ingredients that can help aid in reducing your chances of getting sick from covid! Holy shit!

Researchers say regular application of the spray could significantly reduce disease transmission, and believe it could be particularly useful in areas where crowding is less avoidable, such as on flights or in classrooms.

–SkyNews

The article has a few other details, but mainly just drops the little factoid that this simple spray could help prevent transmission for up to 48 hours. This seems like a terrific thing, especially considering that the vaccines will likely not really be available until springtime.

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pandemic

I’m covid negative, so now what?

On Thursday evening, while watching tv and learning to draw, practice session #4 this week, I decided I needed to get tested for covid before my parents arrived to visit for thanksgiving next week.

Just to be clear: I’ve been working with covid patients since early March including during the chaos when the entire country was running out of masks. But we have been lucky in the Bay Area, our surges have been smaller and more manageable. We’ve even had periods recently where no covid patients needed ICU-level care.

There was a time when my work mates and I were 100% sure that we’d already had covid—because how could we not?!?! Protocols were in flux, the federal government who was guiding our policies couldn’t decide what type of isolation precautions and PPE we needed. Not that the PPE (personal protective equipment) was even readily available then.

We probably had 20 pairs of goggles in our whole hospital… and reusable face shields? Oh hell no. Luckily our administration ramped up quickly, and many of our doctors with friends in tech hit donations of things like 3D printed face shields. We did have some crazy gowns mixed in there as our normal supply (made in China I’m sure) got depleted, but we got through the initial surge.

And while we were doing that, we also made our overflow hospital, overflow ICU, and organized anything else we needed. And then we did a trial run to make sure everything was do-able just to make sure.

As time went on, I actually became confident in all my colleagues’ abilities to deal with the covid patients. The isolation gear and protocols became second nature. I’m not worried that someone is going to expose us all.

So how does it feel to be tested for the first time this it a far in to the pandemic and be negative? I’m proud of my work crew. We’ve been keeping each other safe for 9 months now.

We just need to keep it up.

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pandemic

An ICU nurse in Michigan gives her perspective

On NPR, you can listen to this 4 minute interview from an ICU nurse on the frontlines as she discusses patient regrets, masks, and surviving the pandemic with Audie Cornish on All Things Considered.

Mobley describes this very common experience:

“A lot of times before they’re intubated — which means put on a ventilator because they can’t breathe on their own — when they’re still struggling to breathe, and they’re saying, ‘Well, I didn’t know COVID was real, and I wish I’d worn a mask.’ And then it’s already too late,” she tells NPR’s All Things Considered. “You can see the regret, as they’re struggling to breathe and it’s finally hitting them that this is real. It makes me very sad.”

Hear more at ‘You Can See The Regret’: ICU Nurse On Patients Who Failed To Take COVID Precautions