My first experience with Covid 19 patients

[SDANation]

On my first day back, my unit has 4 confirmed positive Covid 19 patients. I thought that I expected it but not that quickly. I can only attribute it to less conservative testing guidelines, but I worry that many cases have been missed due to the incompetence of our president.

I know it’s a small case size, but the patients were in the “highest mortality” range, 77+ with prior cardiac issues. ALL were doing extremely well, holding O2 saturation’s with no supplemental oxygen. One stated, “it felt like a severe flu” biggest complaint was fever, coughing and bad body aches, otherwise were in no noticeable distress.

Reassuring to see, even though it was a small sample size.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Best wishes to all of you.

[LAS14]

3. ditto

[at140]

2. did all 4 of them recover on their own?

[SDANation]

4. Recovering

[jrthin]

8. Thank you. Stay safe.

[magicarpet]

5. Thanks for the info/update - Be Well.

[Hoyt]

6. Thanks for real world report, and kudos to you. Stay in good health.

[cmb1729]

7. Thanks for all you do

[people]

9. First experience with . . .

Thank you for your work for people's health.

[tblue37]

10. Early treatment seems to be important for survival--another reason why not making

tests widely available was criminal.

[SunSeeker]

23. Yep. nt

[Leghorn21]

11. Oh thank you so much, SD - some very good news!! Please post whenever you can, we

need to hear what’s *really* going on, unfiltered

Please, could you tell us what town and state you’re in?

All best wishes

[Jarqui]

12. From what I have been reading, they can seem fine like that

... and then suddenly, take a turn for the worse.

I think some of that came from the story today of two 29 year old Chinese women doctors. The one who seemed to be doing better, took a sudden turn and died.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/13/world/asia/coronavirus-death-life.html

Dr. Xia, too, was severely ill, but appeared to be slowly fighting the infection. Her fever had subsided after a few days, and she began to breathe more easily after being attached to a ventilator. Her spirits lifted. On Jan. 25, she told her colleagues she was recovering.
...
There was reason to believe she was on the mend. After all, most coronavirus patients recover. Later, Dr. Xia tested negative twice for the coronavirus. She told her mother she expected to be discharged on Feb. 8.
...
Then came the call. Dr. Xia’s condition had suddenly deteriorated. In the early hours of Feb. 7, her husband rushed to the emergency room. Her heart had stopped.
...
Dr. Xia’s heart started beating again. But the infection in her lungs was too severe, and they failed. Her brain was starved of oxygen, causing irreversible damage. Soon, her kidneys shut down and doctors had to put her on round-the-clock dialysis. “The brain acts as the control center,” Dr. Peng said. “She couldn’t command her other organs, so those organs would fail. It was only a matter of time.” Dr. Xia slipped into a coma. She died on Feb. 23.

[hamsterjill]

15. That's a concern of mine as well.

I wonder how many days these patients had been ill.

And by the way, SDANation, thanks for your help in the front lines!

[Jarqui]

17. +1,000,000 on the thank you

People like SDANation are as brave as soldiers, putting themselves in harm's way, fighting for our collective well being against a frightening threat that we don't know as well as we'd like.

[at140]

19. wow, just wow how a 29 year old woman can die like that from this virus

[Jarqui]

22. A thing few are talking about which I've tried to warn my daughters about

is something the Italian doctors have been trying to tell us:

the survivors of severe cases can suffer severe damage to their lungs.

the death rate is roughly between 2 and 8%. Severe lung damage is probably between 2 and 8%. So it's bad news for very roughly between 4% and 16% who get it. For younger people, 18-49, it's very roughly .5% dying or lung damaged.

[wnylib]

28. Doctors who lack sufficient protective

equipment for themselves, as is the case in China, can get worse cases due to the amount of exposure, which gives them a higher dose of virus than most people are exposed to. Also, the ratio of doctor to patient was skewed because of the magnitude of the outbreak, increasing doctor exposure.

With smaller case loads and sufficient protective equipment, doctors and other health care workers are less likely to catch it or to get a severe case if they do.

Patients who don't pick up a high amount of the virus, but die anyway, are the vulnerable ones due to pre-existing heart or lung conditions or to having compromised immune systems. If the immune system is weak, the patient might initially appear ok until the virus has time to multiply in the body because the immube system got overwhelmed.

So that Chinese doctor example would probably not apply across the board to other patients.

[handmade34]

13. stay well

[UpInArms]

14. Thank you

Stay safe and well

[Azathoth]

16. Very encouraging to hear about people in that risk group doing well

nt

[MaryMagdaline]

18. Thank you for your work and care

[RhodeIslandOne]

20. Hopeful

My father and mother are both in their 80's. My father is in rough shape having borderline diabetes, a heart attack in the last five years, and mobility issues. My mother is in good shape with controlled blood pressure issues. She goes to the doctor more than my father does. I'm afraid I will catch it and pass it on.

[StarryNite]

21. Thank you for sharing this!

[Sucha NastyWoman]

24. Can you describe for us what protective equipment you are provided

As you take care of your patients? That is something I have been wondering about.

[SDANation]

33. Gown, gloves, N95, glasses.

Patient is in a negative pressure room that has an ante room attached.

[Sucha NastyWoman]

36. D you think that is as safe as it can be?

It is essential that health care workers be given top priority when it comes to supplies.

[pnwmom]

25. Thanks for the report from the front lines and all your hard work and please take care of yourself!

[Cetacea]

26. K&R

Thank you for sharing that!

[C Moon]

27. Thanks for your work!!!

[Meowmee]

29. Thanks for sharing this and for what you are doing

Are they being given antiviral drugs?

[Kacy]

30. Thank you

[calimary]

31. I hope everybody gets over this one - except trump.

[Ellipsis]

32. Thank you for humanizing this demon.

[DeminPennswoods]

34. Just curious, but

do the preventative pneumonia vaccines like prevnar-13 help, hurt or make no difference to potential recovery?

[CaptainTruth]

35. Thank you for the update!

[Karadeniz]

37. Keep us posted...do you have adequate protection for yourself? Take care!

[Warpy]

38. I think that will be how it is with most people

One big problem is that other than a correlation with age, we don't really have any way to predict who is going to develop a serious case of it.

Also, until there is a sufficient pool of survivors to say "oh, it was nasty but not that nasty," people are going to be freaked out about the unknowns--how sick they'll get, how long they'll be down with it, how big their debt will be when they get over it.

As this goes on, people who don't need oxygen will likely be told to go home and stay there until the fever is down for 48 hours, at least. Some people are going to get very ill with this and hospital beds need to be saved for them.

I'm too old and blind to be called back into the trenches. I'm glad some of us are still there.

[DonaldsRump]

39. Let's call it the "Trump Virus"...give credit where it's due. n/t