Until recently Covid19 was something that was changing the lives of other people, but did not affect me personally.
Then I heard that someone I knew, Tim, the husband of a friend of my sister's. Had been taken into hospital with Covid19.
Tim should have known better, but had decided he was able to weather it and refused to let his wife call an ambulance. A paramedic, he has attended covid19 cases and judged he would be ok. His wife, a former nurse in the end called his base and got an ambulance out to him. His colleagues ripped him off a strip for not calling sooner. At the hospital they did the same knowing him.
Three days after being admitted he was intubated and put on a ventilator.
Three weeks later they had to take him off the ventilator due to an infection.
On Friday when I was getting my Covid19 jab, his wife was holding his hand as he passed away.
I can't go to the funeral, too far to travel in lockdown. So all I can do is be their in thought on the day.
So everyone, if you get the symptoms, call who they tell you to in your neck of the woods. Don't wait thinking you can manage, or it maybe too late.
Comments
Thanks and condolences
Sorry to hear about his death, and thanks for the reminder.
- io
I am so sorry for your loss
My niece's Dad passed away on the 20th of January. He leaves her and her step-mom and two younger adult stepsisters. They had a 'walk through' memorial service but plan something later this year. I hope you can make a face to face connection soon with the family.
Love, Andrea Lena
What a Waste
Historians are going to look back at this period of history and wonder.
Several years ago, I invested about a million dollars into an internet scheme. On paper, it sounded marvelous. I attracted several investors and could have had many more. Along the road to losing a lot of money, I learned about clickbait.
Basically, you say something, or do something that attracts "clicks" and sell ads on your site.
There is a general theory that Q is a person who has been peddling child pornography on the internet for years and used his massive conspiracy theories as clickbait to generate revenue flow, in a more mainstream arena.
To be "interesting" whatever is said or done has to be out of the ordinary.
So - stories about well-known figures being pedophiles, jews starting fires in California with lasers from space, Dems drinking babies' blood, massive voter fraud, etc. abound.
On the one hand, it would seem simple to have laws that prevent dis-information. But we have that First Amendment thing that is essential to what we call the US of A.
Thoe people who are running around telling people that vacinnations cause more covid than what they prevent are obviously not in our national interest. People who say we need to have businesses open at all costs and then lie their asses off about how severe covid is, are not doing anyone any favors.
Those people who are still talking about how 74 million voters can't be wrong - while $81 million were misled or fictitious, are tearing away the roots of our democracy.
We need to have a new set of laws. We already have libel and slander . . . that run directly against free speech. I've sued a number of people for libel and slander. I've won some nice settlements. The truth matters. We need a new set of laws for "Bullshit for money." Then people like the My Pillow guy -- who obviously was spreading crap for fun and profit -- would meet truth face-to-face.
We could call this new tort "Gaslighting."
Of course, it would never become law because the champion "Gaslighters" are the lawmakers.
So . . . all we can do is shake our heads and offer condolences.
I'm getting too damned good at offering condolences.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Aren’t we all........
Getting too good at offering condolences.
One can only hope that we as a people learn from this horrible debacle.
Based on the clip of Ted Cruz I just saw on MSNBC, I don’t have much faith in that though. I am disgusted at the way the vast majority of my fellow Republicans have been acting over the past four or five years - hell, probably much longer than that for may of them. How the party of Lincoln ever became the party of Trump is beyond me.
Wake up people - this shit is real. If half a million dead Americans don’t make that obvious, then we deserve what we get.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Not surprising
It all started with Reagan.
I was okay with Republicans pre-Reagan as they at least gaved reasoned restraint to the free spending aspects of government.
Post Reagan meant that a lot of fringe people entered the party and now it is all about abortion, guns and religious conservatism and now 'proud boys'
It creates a host of people who love their echo chambers. Do you know there are even t-shirts out there thlat say I would rather be Russian than be a Democrat?
Point is there are a lot of fringe people who want to astroturf and normalize their insanity as being legitimate thus you have platforms like Parler who are just for doing that. If this no longer becomes fringe I am seriously going to move out of the country once my partner dies.
The Republicans will probably have to split else the more traditional, rational ones will no longer have a voice.
Sad News
Several of my friends have had it or had friends or relatives affected. My father died last summer. One friend is still badly affected. It obviously damaged his heart. He can barely get up the stairs to his apartment.
520,000 Americans dead, as of this afternoon. Please stay safe out there.
The Numbers
It's been numbing watching the numbers. It's been hard not to let the scale of this tragedy numb me to the real impact that this pandemic has caused. Each and every one of those tick, tick, ticks is another personal tragedy just like this one. Another tragedy, another family devastated. Loved ones, friends and communities forever changed.
Of course what I say has been said thousands of times before. Maybe more than 500 thousand in this country alone.
One of my deepest dreams is that we might learn to think of everyone on the planet like a brother, like a sister, like a family member. That each one of these deaths. Each one of these tragedies. That for each one of them we feel and act as if it was my brother, My sister, My mother, my friend who had suffered and died. Would I still dehumanize the suffering? Could I stand it? What would we do if each of the thousand people who will die today was, in that most real sense, my brother, my sister, my friend.
I might have gone into one of my rants about how we in this country have chosen to have plutocrats and oligarchs rather than healthcare and welfare. How we have all the means necessary to end poverty, provide healthcare and prevent starvation. But somehow we let people die, suffer and starve. Not only the COVID tragedy, but electricity in Texas, children in cages, vilification of people who are just looking for a better life for themselves and their families. Othering of those who don't share the same skin tone as me. who worship differently, who are less able to meet their needs regardless of who's fault someone claims that it is.
We know that this can be solved. We know we have the means to do it. We have proof that it works. It has been demonstrated over and over again that we all do better when we all do better.
I won't go into more of that here. Rather I'll just stop and ask: Is there anything I could have done had Tim been my brother?
I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm so sorry for our loss.
Your friend
Crash
All death is a loss ...
... what can be said, really ...
Especially when it's a needless of senseless death ...
Nothing to offer, but a few words and a "virtual hug" ..
Take care - >all of us<.