@covid19 – Nelsonia

April 10, 2021April 11, 2021

Full Circle

A year ago, on Friday, April 10th, 2020, I came off the ventilator in Covid ICU. Last night, one of our patients came off the ventilator in Covid ICU.

I lived. She died. And I don’t know what to make of that.

I was her chaplain. I had just finished praying the rosary for her when I learned she was going on comfort care. Life support would be stopped. Pain and anxiety relief would stay. Very soon, the order came through.

The nurse, the nurse assistant, the respiratory therapist and myself were with her when the breathing tube was removed. The nurse assistant and I held her hands while the respiratory therapist tended to the necessary tasks of extubation. The nurse stroked the patient’s hair.

She had no chance of survival. She couldn’t breathe on her own. I watched as the light faded from her face. I told her, “You’re going to heaven now.” I said a prayer of commendation as the life left her eyes.

Covid patients don’t die alone. They die with us, their healthcare workers. We were her family in the final hours and minutes of life. That was a blessing—of a kind. And yet the language of blessing fails in this pandemic time.

I am blessed to be alive. Or am I merely fortunate? After all, I lived and she died. I don’t know what to make of that, and doubt I ever will.

— Nelsonia

December 24, 2020December 24, 2020

Side effects. The price of protection.

I’ve just “recovered” from the first dose of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine. You are probably curious about that. So here’s a report.

I was vaccinated Monday at 9 am. Shortly after the needle jab, I felt lightheaded in a pleasant sort of way. I sat down, and in 20 minutes I was fine.

After lunch I noticed my arm was sore, and I started to feel cold. I put on my quilted flannel shirt and resumed meeting with patients. By mid afternoon I was tired, achy and feverish. But I felt well enough to finish the workday.

When I got home I took a two hour nap. I had a headache and chills and felt like I had a mild flu. I took my temperature. It was 99.1 F.

I went to bed again. I tossed and turned and woke up in the middle of the night thirsty. On the way to the kitchen I took my temperature, which was up a tenth of a degree. I washed down 400 mg of ibuprofen with a big glass of water and returned to bed.

The next morning I felt sluggish but fever free. The headache was gone and my arm was no longer sore. At work I had some “brain fog”. Everything took longer, and I made more mistakes than I usually do. But by evening I felt back to normal.

I tell you my side effects to encourage you to get the vaccine as soon as you can. The shot might keep you from everyday activities for two days. But Covid-19 will take you out for two weeks— if you’re lucky enough to have a “mild” case. If you have a severe case, count on being gone six weeks, and prepare to deal with very uncomfortable and debilitating symptoms like high fevers that last weeks, body aches like you’ve never had before, extreme weakness and fatigue, complete loss of appetite, losing your sense of taste and smell, and difficulty breathing. Or death.

The vaccine didn’t keep me from working, while Covid-19 put me on short term disability.

I’d rather bet on side effects than symptoms. The one is an unruly cat scratching at my legs. The other is a jaguar waiting to pounce on my back.

I’d rather bet on what will protect me from the jaguar, even if that costs me some discomfort. I hope you’ll make the same choice.

— Nelsonia

July 19, 2020July 20, 2020

When public health agencies disappoint

Some of you may have noticed the inconsistency of advice coming from official agencies regarding the coronavirus. (We don’t need to mask, we do need to mask. There aren’t many asymptomatic transmissions, there are lots of asymptomatic transmissions. The death rate is 5%, now 1%, finally 0.5%.)

This might make us think that these organizations are incompetent. Some would even say dishonest. Perhaps they are reporting inaccurate information to gain advantage for themselves or other people they are beholden to. This is how conspiracy theories start. As soon as we lose trust in information sources, we want to know why, and generally we find an explanation however unlikely.

I’d like to offer another explanation for changing advice and statistics about the virus. It’s in the nature of science that findings change. There are more mask studies, and so we discover the usefulness of masks in tamping down the epidemic. We discover lots of asymptomatic infections, and this drives down the overall death rate. This is normal science. Yet this cycle of change can feel deeply unsatisfying. Can’t we just have some reliable information on how to keep safe from this deadly virus?

We all want absolutes, especially in matters of health. If a recommended treatment for our illness changes, we can feel that we’ve wasted time, energy and money on something worthless. This feeling is understandable. But science doesn’t offer us absolute truths, only provisional ones. And for those truths to be of any use, they have to be applied promptly. With heart attacks or pandemics, doctors and policy makers don’t have the luxury of waiting for perfect knowledge. They have to act with the information at hand.

In the war against Covid-19, provisional truth is the only intelligence we have. The sooner we accept this the less upset we will be with new policies, changing treatments, and updated statistics. Better knowledge leads to better interventions. The virus is suppressed. Fewer people die. And society is enabled to safely reopen — an outcome we all want.

Know and remember this: Science is provisional. If we want absolutes we should turn to our faith traditions which provide revealed rather than experimental truth. Religion — or faith, spirituality, use the word that works for you — gives us the unchanging security we long for. It doesn’t hurt to pray for a miraculous end to the COVID-19 pandemic. God knows, we need one. And if we are people of faith let’s believe in a good and hopeful future. But let’s not expect of public health agencies what they can’t give. Their information and advice will always be changing. For the unchanging turn toward the Sacred and Divine. We’ll all be a lot less disappointed.