Items

• 
  2021-08-04

  Tips from the ER

  Steve is a retired ER tech who has combined comedy with medical advice. In this clip, he uses humor to break down why being vaccinated is better than avoiding the vaccine even though it is still possible to contract the covid virus.
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  2021-06-03

  A Pet Emergency During the Pandemic

  The story describes the difficulties of dealing with emergencies during the pandemic time and how social isolation negatively affects one's ability to weather these emergencies.
• 
  2020-07-12

  A Nurse at Tucson Medical Center

  Tucson Medical Center went from no Covid patients in January 2020 to approx 160 at the peak (actually our third) in January 2021. It was amazing to see how quickly beds were repurposed, negative flow rooms were engineered, elective surgeries were cancelled and all the staff rallied around the ever changing patient case loads. Paula Marshall, RN July 12, 2020 at TMC Bed Control Department I work at Bed Control. We accepted patients from mostly southern Arizona from our ER and from the surrounding rural hospital. The Covid Surg line would call distributing covid patients needing admission throughout the area. When I graduated from nursing school in 1974, I never guessed that our world would experience a pandemic in my lifetime. I never knew that my job would change the way my family viewed my job. I don’t work at the bedside but work in an office and contribute to bed utilization. My son’s family lives 6 miles from me but I was invited to visit 4 times during 2020. My granddaughter said, “you work in a hospital. You could have Covid and not know it.” Gee whiz
• 
  2021-01-17

  Bay Area firefighter paramedic deployed to SoCal hospital describes COVID-19 situation

  MARIN, Calif. (KGO) -- As COVID-19 cases surge, Bay Area firefighters are getting deployed to hospitals across the state. Bob Craft, a firefighter paramedic from the Central Marin Fire Department is working the nightshift. Two hours into his shift, he intubated a patient in the emergency department who arrived to the hospital with stroke like symptoms and prepped a COVID-19 patient for their flip onto their stomach for the rest of the night. "It's the gamut from really regular people coming to the emergency department to people on ventilators on the ICU who are on the COVID ward," said craft.
• 
  2021-03-28

  COVID story

  Hi! I'm writing in to tell my story as a college student who contracted COVID19. I currently attend Saint Anselm College in Manchester, NH, however, I've been participating in online classes since March of 2020. I tested positive for COVID19 on March 28th, 2021. The story begins on March 21st, 2021: My brother, James, contracted the virus at his place of work (a local bar, he was a host). He had a fever and light cough (he was sent home from work that same day); the next day, March 22nd, he tested positive. I had very minimal exposure with him. When I found out he was exhibiting symptoms, I was on a small road trip with two of my friends, Katherine and Kylei. We heard the news and immediately returned to Kylei's apartment to quarantine together until we received results. When my brother tested positive, we hunkered down in the apartment together, we ordered groceries togo from Walmart, set up our own little areas in her apartment. We also decided to set up COVID test appointments for each of us individually. On March 23rd, I began to exhibit symptoms myself, with a mild fever, headache, and body aches. I got a rapid covid test that morning, and within the hour the results came back negative. After I tested negative, I was unsure about the accuracy of the rapid, so I scheduled/got a lab test that same day. The next few days, I tried to attend my online classes like per usual, with the fever and other symptoms coming and going. The 26th of March came around and I was brought to the ER with a fever of 105.3 and vomiting. This was a turning point; at the hospital they tested me for COVID, which came back positive Sunday, the 28th. After I received my diagnosis, I still felt exceptionally terrible, so my mother had us call an ambulance for me to the ER. They, again, weren't able to do much. I returned to my home after this visit, as I wanted to be in my own bed for the duration of COVID. I had bad symptoms: vomiting, constant nausea and chills, drenched with sweat, trouble catching my breath, and all around feeling like trash and unable to keep anything down. My mom was scared for me; I became almost unresponsive at one point. My mom took me back to the ER (Wednesday, March 31), demanding they give me an IV for hydration; they did so, along with pain relief and anti nausea. This was another turning point; the next day I was able to sit up by myself, to go to the bathroom, and to take a shower. I slept for hours, healing. Friday, April 2nd was the first day I was able to stand up and keep some food down, without it coming back up. Finally, today, April 4th, 2021 (Easter Sunday), I'm able to focus back on some schoolwork and eat a full meal with my family. Both of my parents contracted the virus, and they are still recovering, like myself.
• 
  03/14/2021

  Michael Levesque Oral History, 2021/03/14

  Michael Levesque was a paramedic working on an ambulance at the start of the pandemic. He had a pregnant wife at home and was in the process of switching his career into nursing. He recalls the memories of working on the ambulance and taking care of Covid patients, as well as how Covid impacted the EMS services overall. He also discusses how it felt to be starting his career as an Emergency Room nurse during a global pandemic. In both cases, his job put him directly on the front lines of medicine. He discusses the early problems of lack of knowledge and equipment to properly handle this pandemic. He also explains the mindset of an expecting father, working in a high risk environment, and then coming home to his pregnant wife. Michael’s unique life circumstances and career path gives his interview a perspective that few people experienced.
• 
  2020-12-25

  Jesus will understand if you stay home during a pandemic

  One of the first things my parents did when they retired and moved to Arizona was find a church. I was very vocal about wanting them to wait to return to large group gatherings but for some strange reason, they seemed to think that they couldn't get covid in church. My mom thought that after all the hardships brought on by the pandemic she needed to be back in church. A month later my dad got sick. We all naively thought it was the flu until I saw the shortness of breath. I told him to get sick and sure enough, he tested positive. Two weeks later my mom contracted Covid. I was hoping it wouldn't hit them too bad but my mom is a diabetic and they are older (late 50's and mid 60's) so I was a bit worried. As the days went by neither of them was getting better. My parents were sick through the holidays, I made Christmas dinner and we ate "together". I dropped off food at their front door then went to their back window where my kids and I ate picnic style. After three visits to the ER for my dad and four for my mom we finally started seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I have lost many people to Covid, but it never hit me as hard as when I thought I was going to lose my parents. Thankfully, it was a massive lesson learned for my parents that covid spreads even in the church.
• 
  2020-10-15

  The Consequences of Skipping Doctor Appointments

  There are two hospitals in Duluth, Minnesota. Both are being overwhelmed with patients, but not covid patients. People who were ill, have avoided going to the doctor because they fear they will contract Covid-19. As a result, their conditions have worsened and they must now be hospitalized. One hospital is full to capacity, and the other is not far behind.
• 2020-07-18

  A Trip to a Silent Hospital

  On July 18th 2020 in the late afternoon, I started experiencing some concerning not Covid-related symptoms and I made the decision to go to the Emergency Room. I’ve had chronic health issues all my life, so this wasn’t an unfamiliar experience. However, I’d been isolating since March and I was terrified of having to potentially go into a situation that was unknown in the middle of the pandemic. The things I remember most about the visit are how utterly desolate the places in the hospital felt, and how silent it was. I’m used to packed waiting rooms and constant noise. This visit was very different. After a brief screening in a large, mostly empty lobby with large barriers and protective measures in place, they assessed that I was not a potential COVID patient and sent me to a waiting room that I was alone in for most of my visit. There was no real chatter, mostly just silence, broken by the TV. The silence continued even back into the ER, where it seemed that the staff was spread thin. The most notable sounds were occasional low conversations and the sounds of medical equipment being moved around and the beeps and pulses. Even when evaluating me, while warm, the conversations sounded more terse and to the point. Everything moved more quickly. In some ways, it felt like being in an abandoned building. Everything was dark, silent, and empty in the areas where I was.
• 2020-04-10

  Grateful For An Injury

  In early April of this year, I had driven to the oceanfront for a few hours of morning surfing. The weather the previous day created ideal swells. Growing up in and around the ocean, surfing has always been a way of life for me. After several sets and a few hours, I proceeded in to the beach and stepped on an embedded oyster shell. At first, it felt like a bad bruise, but it was a horrible gash on the bottom of my right foot. I knew after looking that I needed stitches. I wrapped my foot in a towel, limped off with my board, secured things as best I could, and drove myself to the nearest ER. I was checked in, placed in a room, etc. Since the wound was not bleeding profusely, my foot was placed in a basin of antibacterial solution. After the preliminaries of great care, I waited for the doctor. The door to my room was slightly cracked open, at least enough to hear much activity in the main ER area. And I waited. Over the next several hours, the ER became a flurry of chaos. But it was not what what I could see, but could hear with the door nearly closed. Multiple patients were brought in by ambulances with breathing difficulty. The rooms filled up and some stretchers started lining the halls. A nurse poked her masked face in every so often to ask how I was doing. As i waited, i learned that I was a low priority, and rightfully so. I was not dying, nor gasping for breath. I kept hearing "God! I can't breathe!" These were the sounds of the early pandemic in April. Male and female voices, struggling through broken sentences, vitally needing air under the acute distress of COVID infection. With nothing to read, and no phone (my beach excursions do not entail smartphones because of sand), I became increasingly aware of audible sensations and the suffering of others trying to breathe. Over the next few hours, I was overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude; not because of my injury, but because I could breathe. I knew my foot would be fine with some stitches and maybe a tetanus shot, and I was, wth some crutches later upon discharge. Yes, incomplete sentences imply breathing problems, but gasping and cursing, just the struggle to live for oxygen, is what the early pandemic taught me in the ER—to be grateful for just a foot injury and excellent medical care. I was not dying, but other patients were fighting acute lung infections. The news, especially during the early pandemic, gave us video of hospitals overwhelmed with critical patients and ventilators. But for me, it was the audible sensations from the door slightly open that conveyed a profound sense of the quiet insidiousness of COVID. Some infections only bring a fever. Some folks are infected and never know it due to lack of symptoms. Yet, it is the critical ones, those that cannot breathe, that can impart a perspective of gratitude to someone like me with a routine foot laceration. Retrospectively, I look back on this experience, my ER day, and recall those voices. I never saw those people struggling, but I did not have to see them to come away with gratitude for a simple surfing accident. Some of those patients were undoubtedly placed on a ventilator in the ICU, and perhaps their outcome was even worse. I ended up discharged to home.
• 
  08/01/2020

  Carrie Brown Oral History, 2020/08/01

  Carrie Brown is currently a flight nurse employed with Mercy One- North Iowa in Mason City, Iowa. Carrie has worked a Mercy One- North Iowa since getting her degree in nursing (then called Mercy Medical Center- North Iowa) and has worked as a flight nurse since 2012. Carrie’s day to day life is currently outside the normal as she is living with her husband, Don, and their dog in a camper for the summer while they build a new house. In this interview, Carrie reflects on her interactions with friends and family and how her routines at her job have changed since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Carrie offers a unique insight as to the current state of the pandemic by providing firsthand knowledge and perspective as a medical care provider. Carrie also addresses her personal stance on the pandemic as seen through the eyes of a medical professional and through conversations with other medical professionals.
• 
  2020-05-29

  Not So Emergency Rooms

  Doctors are seeing an increase in death and severe complications from otherwise treatable diseases as people are waiting until it is too late before seeking treatment, out of fear from catching COVID-19.
• 
  2020-04-07

  Vacant Waiting Rooms

  Waiting rooms across the country, like this Emergency Room at West Virginia's Veterans Affairs hospital, are a common sight amid the COVID-19 pandemic as people opt to not seek treatment for fear of contracting COVID-19.
• 
  2020-03-30

  ER Doctor Roland Waguespack Shares Local Perspective with NBC, Metairie, LA

  East Jefferson Hospital thanks Emergency Room Doctor Roland Waguespack for his continued work at the hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic and shares his interview with NBC Nightly News during which he discussed shortages of medical supplies in Louisiana hospitals.
• 
  2020-04-10

  My CoVid19 Illness

  Description of someone who experienced having the COVID-19 illness.
• 
  03/22/2020

  Photo of Kelly from Oklahoma sewing face masks for an ER nurse in FT Worth, TX that was working without a mask during the COVID-19 medical supply shortages

  During the morning of March 22, 2020 Kelly and Clinton of Blanchard, OK received a phone call that Clinton’s cousin was working without protective medical masks at a FT Worth, TX hospital ER. Through the day Kelly rushed through sewing & fabrication of medical masks from their spare bed sheets. Kelly intends to have approximately five ready the same day and will mail them the following morning. *Photo and description by Clinton P. Roberts, MA graduate student, Arizona State University, March 22, 2020. *March 22, 2020 - during COVID-19 pandemic *Clinton P. Roberts, MA graduate student, Arizona State University,