Drowning in air

Last week I wrote about my experience of working in the COVID-19 unit. My experience is nothing compared to the experience of my patients.

One described the disease to me in simple terms – “It’s like drowning in air.”

I shopped at Costco today. Only one person in the store was unmasked but an appalling number wore their masks fashionably below the nose. Come on folks! I know you can breathe more easily with your nose free. Why do you think you’re supposed to cover your nose? (Hint: it’s not for your benefit.)

I stayed with another patient while she ate orange slices. (The anonymous pronouns for today are she and hers). Even through an N95 mask and face shield I could smell that orange. She savored each thin slice as though it would be her last. I wanted an orange so badly. She followed the orange with coffee and aspirated (choked on) the coffee. A minute (that seemed like hours) of coughing ensued. She cleared her lungs but it took minutes before she was breathing freely again, with acceptable oxygen saturation. By the way, those orange slices were her last. Three days later, she was dead.

The emergency field hospital in Milwaukee is now taking patients. It was not long ago that Wisconsin crossed the threshold of 1000 new patients per day and we thought that was outrageous. The daily new case average has now passed 4000. PS: It’s not just because we test more. For those with the IQ of the president (or those to whom he speaks) nobody gets the disease from testing. Testing is not a pain in the ass. It is how we identify the Typhoid Marys of our time – the people who are not sick but spread the disease.

Our new COVID-19 ICU opened today. It has been under construction for a couple of years, slated to open as an expansion to the neuro unit. As I reported last week, I expected that plan to be changed at the last minute, despite assurances even then that the plan remained in place to open next month as a neuro unit. Yesterday it was announced that it would be a COVID-19 unit and today it was announced that it would open as an ICU this afternoon. The first patients have been admitted. The old ICU is full.

The university’s new star quarterback, who had a breakout game last weekend and was named Big 10 Player of the Week, is now sidelined for 3 weeks after testing positive. Will people now take this seriously? I mean, come on, it has now affected football. While football is not worshiped quite as seriously here as in Texas, this could make a difference (though sadly, probably only if he gets really sick – otherwise it will be seen as overkill as well as sacrilege).

We lost another great musician this month. Jerry Jeff Walker is dead at 78. I haven’t worn cowboy boots since I was about ten, but when I first heard this song I wanted to hitchhike to Austin to buy a pair. If there is an afterlife, Jerry Jeff is still wearing his Charlie Dunn boots.

We also lost Spencer Davis this month – for those too young to remember, he’s the bandleader who brought us a teenage Steve (then Stevie) Winwood.

Winwood on piano and vocals, his brother Muff on bass, Spencer Davis on guitar, Pete York on drums.

September saw the death of Toots Hibbert, leader of Toots and the Maytals. While they had an album out four years earlier, they were introduced to the US in Jimmy Cliff’s 1972 film “The Harder They Come.” Toots died from COVID-19.

Also lost to us in September was Diana Rigg, The Avengers’ Emma Peel (no, not the Marvel comic book, but the British TV show). As Emma Peel, she was witty, tough, and drove a Lotus Elan. What was not to like? Later she was the host of PBS’ “Mystery”, with this intro drawn by Edward Gorey.

Sorry for all this death in one entry. I started a post about Toots and Diana in September. I realized others had more to say about them (and more eloquently) than I, so it sat in my “drafts” folder. Losing two more icons of my youth was more than I could take.