FossilFndr
RIP Steve
A good friend of mine has heart issues and has become a regular at a Johnson City hospital ER. Without giving any personal information he sent me this last night describing yesterdays experience in the ER:
My highlighting
"The stories I could tell.........."
I don't want to bore you all with too many details, but suffice it to say that it was craziness there. A guy *wailing* (and I mean WAILING) in pain in a wheelchair. And I mean nearly constantly, with a few breaks (to catch his breath?). They didn't even get him into triage for 45 minutes. Every other person in there (like 40-50 most of the time) were concerned, but obviously could do nothing. Either the most, or second most pain I think I've ever seen anybody display. I suppose hell is worse than that, but if that's the case it's beyond imagining. And he was coughing every once in a while. Like about 10-12 others there. Most therein wore their masks properly, but about 7-8-10 did not - and they had that semi-stare like they were saying "yes, I'm a rebel; so what". Except one woman, in a wheelchair, with a DOG ON HER LAP, called out one of them close to her: "Get him away from me! I don't want him near me!" Etc. The wailing guy was about 20 feet away from me for about half of that first 45 minutes., but then his wife(?) moved him to WITHIN ABOUT 8 FEET OF ME. I was lucky to find the seat(s) I did - two unoccupied together - but had to sit almost directly under one of the TWO constantly-playing TVs. This one was non-stop HGTV, and over 4 hours I bet I heard the word "demo" 43 times. But I couldn't move without putting myself in even greater COVID danger. And it *mite* even have been worse had I been seated where I had to listen to *both* tvs at the same time. The other one seems to have a mixture of old cowboy movies and cartoons. So I stayed put and took it. For 4 hours. I normally have VERY strong capabilities to handle that kind of thing in a zen-like state, but this pushed me to the limit. And of course...........for local color, there were the arriving ambulances, the arriving prisoner in cuffs, the yay-hoo across from me, talking loudly on his fone a lot, without his mask, of course. (One of about 4-5.) There were not beds out in the waiting room (don't think they'd do that), but they had chairs lined up down the long hallway past the waiting room - about 1/3 of the way down that hall. They were repeatedly running out of wheelchairs and were having to go elsewhere to retrieve some. You can imagine how the patients' patience was frayed. I'm leaving such details as the woman who came in panicky-screaming that her husband was outside "bleeding profusely!", and when someone went out to help him in, he refused treatment, and they left. No kidding.
Those are the hi-lites, leaving out the 'minor' stuff (LOL). I'm quite sure I was exposed, and likely heavily exposed, as there were 118 NEW cases of COVID in Washington County just today. I can imagine a goodly percentage of them were sharing that room with me. It was like a journey to the underbelly of JC 'civilization'.
I've always admired the folks who do that kind of work, but I couldn't have taken a full shift of that. And those people do it day after day after day. Truly amazing.
I left after those 4 hrs, after going up to the reception desk and asking if a) they could give me an approx. time for being fully treated (they said it would still likely be a long time); and b) if there was any chance I could be quickly re-evaluated and possibly be let go, since my crisis has long passed. And after about 20 more minutes, the second thing did mercifully happen. I was truly close to leaving anyway, which may have resulted in me owing a few thousand $$ for leaving "against medical advice" - thus insurance not paying. Too big a gamble there, so fortunately my strategy worked, but I didn't get as much 'advice' as I would otherwise have, likely. I went outside and sat on a bench for about 45 minutes, just decompressing. I felt traumatized. And still do, actually. I know that's nothing compared to what some/many people have suffered/endured, but it *really* took an emotional toll on me.
That place, in the current situation, is NO PLACE for anybody to be who isn't in truly dire need.
... Wow, this guy is not one to exaggerate so ....
My highlighting
"The stories I could tell.........."
I don't want to bore you all with too many details, but suffice it to say that it was craziness there. A guy *wailing* (and I mean WAILING) in pain in a wheelchair. And I mean nearly constantly, with a few breaks (to catch his breath?). They didn't even get him into triage for 45 minutes. Every other person in there (like 40-50 most of the time) were concerned, but obviously could do nothing. Either the most, or second most pain I think I've ever seen anybody display. I suppose hell is worse than that, but if that's the case it's beyond imagining. And he was coughing every once in a while. Like about 10-12 others there. Most therein wore their masks properly, but about 7-8-10 did not - and they had that semi-stare like they were saying "yes, I'm a rebel; so what". Except one woman, in a wheelchair, with a DOG ON HER LAP, called out one of them close to her: "Get him away from me! I don't want him near me!" Etc. The wailing guy was about 20 feet away from me for about half of that first 45 minutes., but then his wife(?) moved him to WITHIN ABOUT 8 FEET OF ME. I was lucky to find the seat(s) I did - two unoccupied together - but had to sit almost directly under one of the TWO constantly-playing TVs. This one was non-stop HGTV, and over 4 hours I bet I heard the word "demo" 43 times. But I couldn't move without putting myself in even greater COVID danger. And it *mite* even have been worse had I been seated where I had to listen to *both* tvs at the same time. The other one seems to have a mixture of old cowboy movies and cartoons. So I stayed put and took it. For 4 hours. I normally have VERY strong capabilities to handle that kind of thing in a zen-like state, but this pushed me to the limit. And of course...........for local color, there were the arriving ambulances, the arriving prisoner in cuffs, the yay-hoo across from me, talking loudly on his fone a lot, without his mask, of course. (One of about 4-5.) There were not beds out in the waiting room (don't think they'd do that), but they had chairs lined up down the long hallway past the waiting room - about 1/3 of the way down that hall. They were repeatedly running out of wheelchairs and were having to go elsewhere to retrieve some. You can imagine how the patients' patience was frayed. I'm leaving such details as the woman who came in panicky-screaming that her husband was outside "bleeding profusely!", and when someone went out to help him in, he refused treatment, and they left. No kidding.
Those are the hi-lites, leaving out the 'minor' stuff (LOL). I'm quite sure I was exposed, and likely heavily exposed, as there were 118 NEW cases of COVID in Washington County just today. I can imagine a goodly percentage of them were sharing that room with me. It was like a journey to the underbelly of JC 'civilization'.
I've always admired the folks who do that kind of work, but I couldn't have taken a full shift of that. And those people do it day after day after day. Truly amazing.
I left after those 4 hrs, after going up to the reception desk and asking if a) they could give me an approx. time for being fully treated (they said it would still likely be a long time); and b) if there was any chance I could be quickly re-evaluated and possibly be let go, since my crisis has long passed. And after about 20 more minutes, the second thing did mercifully happen. I was truly close to leaving anyway, which may have resulted in me owing a few thousand $$ for leaving "against medical advice" - thus insurance not paying. Too big a gamble there, so fortunately my strategy worked, but I didn't get as much 'advice' as I would otherwise have, likely. I went outside and sat on a bench for about 45 minutes, just decompressing. I felt traumatized. And still do, actually. I know that's nothing compared to what some/many people have suffered/endured, but it *really* took an emotional toll on me.
That place, in the current situation, is NO PLACE for anybody to be who isn't in truly dire need.
... Wow, this guy is not one to exaggerate so ....
