Empty Beds
I made nursing home rounds today.
I am working through unpacking “long covid”, and also unpacking the reports of folks who did not sail through vaccine administration as smoothly as I did, but the absence of people for whom I was as familiar a face as their own families hit me unexpectedly hard, and I don’t have the words today.
This is not a post about COVID vaccines, and it is a post about COVID vaccines.
I am thinking about my friend spending twelve and fourteen hours at a time in a moon suit, striving desperately to save people I can no longer manage as outpatients, whose tired eyes reveal the truth when she tells me “I’m fine.”
I am thinking about calling families to ask them if they want to come say their last goodbyes, or if they want me to keep fighting, knowing that if they choose to keep fighting then their goodbyes may have to be said by video chat, a long way from home.
I am thinking about my office staff calling people every day at home. “How is your fever? Are you short of breath? Can you check your oxygen level?” and about the way sometimes we are the only contact people have in isolation.
I am thinking about video chats from my living room late in the evening to decide whether a baby is sick enough to need admission, because life doesn’t happen during office hours, and about drive-by lung examinations the next day, just so we will both sleep better.
I am thinking about life, and death, and about the glimmer of hope this vaccine represents to so many of my patients, who have lived their lives in isolation since the first thaws of spring this year.
They are counting on me. On us. On science. On the infinite ingenuity of humanity.
There are too many empty beds already. And all we can do is all we can do.