How is everyone doing?

[ssfc72]

Hi everyone!  I hope everybody is doing well.
I think I will try and pick an evening, this week, to have a Plug mug Jitsi video get together. With Covid and the Flu on the rampage, again, I don't think it would be wise to meetup at a Tim Hortons.
I am doing well. I need to wait for 3 months, since I tested positive for Covid, before I get the bi-valent Covid shot. So that puts me into December, before I will be getting the shot.

[cod3poet]

Morning!

I have fully recovered from Scandinavian Covid that I got from either Norway or Iceland that was a blast... I am 100% up for a PLUG Mug, it's been a hot minute since I have been able to attend. Maybe I can answer some of the floating questions about remote work.

[ssfc72]

Hi Brian, good to hear from you.  Ok, I will try and send out an email from the Proton mail service, to the Group, for a Jitsi video meetup this Wed., Nov. 9 for 7 pm.

[Jason]

I have fully recovered from Scandinavian Covid that I got from either Norway or Iceland that was a blast... I am 100% up for a PLUG Mug, it's been a hot minute since I have been able to attend. Maybe I can answer some of the floating questions about remote work.

I remember you mentioned early in 2020 that you thought you got COVID then. Was it milder this time around? You can probably thank vaccination for that.

[Jason]

Thanks for setting up the meeting, Bill. I kept meaning to set one up but you're the rock! I think you're basically the interim president right now assuming you don't want the permanent position. Not that we necessarily need a president with no regular meetings but somebody still has to take the fall if something goes wrong!

[buster]

In answer to the 'How is everyone doing':

Our problem started two weeks ago today when I tried to get off the bed after an extremely unusual afternoon nap. I slide to the floor, face down and proceeded to vomit, and I was too weak to move my now wet face - don't worry, it was the apple juice sort of vomit, not the kind where the cats would fight over the big pieces.

I could not get up off the floor. My muscles could not move me. (They had gone away on vacation apparently.) Since Marilyn had gone grocery shopping, presumably in Sudbury by the length of time she was away, I had nothing to do except to look at the dust bunnies under the dresser and half go back to sleep. I felt no stress or anxiety whatsoever.

So Marilyn arrived, the ambulance arrived, and I was given oxygen which made a big difference. Carbon plus oxygen gives you CO2 and energy. The doctor in emerg explained that I had Covid, but that wasn't the problem. I had Covid induced pneumonia. Antibiotics cleared up most stuff in about 30-40 hours and I was put on one of the covid wards where I met some fascinating people, most of them nurses. I had some interesting moments. I escaped after 4 days.

But that boys and girls, is a story for a different day.

[William]

Any fever?  Did you not feel "sick"?  I mean, pneumonia don't happen over night.

[buster]

"Any fever?  Did you not feel "sick"?  I mean, pneumonia don't happen over night."

Mild fever and tired. That's all.

[Jason]

Yikes, Buster! You're the 3rd person in our group to get COVID (one that was a presumed case) and the 2nd recently. Glad you're doing better. It seems that most people have been infected with the omicron surge. I have a record to maintain, however.

Pneumonia can most definitely happen overnight, even without a fever, William. I was visiting my brother one evening and he was out of it after being fine the night before. The next morning, I called an ambulance when I couldn't rouse him from sleep. He didn't have COVID; it turned out to be pneumonia. He didn't feel sick the night before; no fever. He was just tired. He was fine after a few days of recovery. Some people with COVID were fine at the beginning of the day and in the ICU the next.

The asymptomatic spreading Is why more people should wear masks. Omicron is mild, so the reasoning goes, so no worries. But it's still putting people in the hospital even if not killing as many. And avoiding COVID is still a good idea with the long-COVID effects. Wearing a mask seems an easy way of reducing that risk substantially. But I guess people find wearing a mask more of a nuisance than rolling the dice on getting infected.

My wife is at higher risk, so I wear an N95 for a high level of protection, but still, that's a 1 in 20 chance of the virus getting through if I'm in close contact with someone infected. If the person infected was wearing N95, that chance would drop to 0.25 %.

[buster]

Harry's Excellent Adventure in the Hospital

Getting oxygen into my system in the ambulance changed everything, and after we drove through the big doors at emerge I got to talk about life as a paramedic, and it's, like most things we've never done, a little more complex than we suppose. But my ambulance team liked doing this sort of work. Both were fairly young and strong, the woman noticeably both. And on every pickup they switch drivers, which seems fair. With the state I was in, information like this was like reading a good novel or watching a PBS documentary. Any stimulation after lying quietly on a floor for 90 minutes was bliss.

          *

In emerge I had a room to myself and the best nurse of my stay, a Peterborough native with 10 years in the business. I liked her because she was more than pushy, she was direct in the way that a friend of mine can be direct.

Nurse: "What do you do with the phlegm you're coughing up?"

Harry: "I swallow it."

Nurse: "Harry you are so gross! Don't do it! I'll get you a dish."

Harry: "Will it do me any harm to swallow it?" And this seemed like a reasonable question to me.

Nurse: "It doesn't matter Harry! It just gross. Don't do it any more!"

And so I had a shiny silver dish sitting on my table, next to my food, filled with what looked like an orange pudding that was too runny.

          *

My emerge doctor was the best I had during my stay, and it goes without saying that he too was a graduate of McMaster. My family doctor is a grad from Mac too, but by a circuitous route. She is a grad of Lakefield College, raised by a single mother who was a hairdresser. She went to York and graduated in Theatre Arts, and then spent 10 years on the stage in Toronto. And then she did her medical studies. She and I have had some great talks about the theatre. Anyway.....

I asked the emerge doctor about his alma mater, and finally the question about my doctor, and they were in the same class! He didn't know about the theatre background. But the coincidence is a bit surprising.

          *

So I got moved to a covid ward with a very unusual room-mate. But my first experience didn't involve him. Rather I saw a man with a cell phone carrying on an strange conversation in the hall.

Strange man: "I'm telling you I'm dangerous!"

A pause.

Strange man: "Listen, I'm strong, and I'm dangerous!"

This was repeated word for word a few times.

I phoned my daughter Jen on my cell and explained what had happened and added, "I think they might have put me in the wrong ward."

Jen: "I think they finally found the right ward for you dad."

          *

My room-mate, who was 77, could walk only with help. He had been found on the floor of his apartment after going two week without food. He said this to me in a rational, quiet delivery: "I'm not sure I want to live in this world anymore. It's changed."

He was generally a quiet unobtrusive person in the room, and I did have the window - a room with a view. But he managed to corral one of the floating TV sets, and his favourite movies were space adventures with monsters and noise. And these were not B movies. These were way down the alphabet. And to add insult to injury, he slept through at least 50% of whatever he watched.

          *

The nurses I met were fascinating. Here are some of them I was glad to meet:

A woman who had gotten out of Iran 10 years ago and hated the leaders over there. Her two sons had  free tickets to a Petes game, and the four of them were really excited to do something they had never done before.

A man who had been born and raised in Siberia. After talking to him for awhile, I knew we would never be bosom buddies.

A man who loved downhill skiing.

A woman who walked in, said three words, and you knew she was from Yorkshire. She had worked in emerg in England and was truly competent.

A woman from an extended Cambodian family, and she was the first of the family born in Canada. She is a graduate of Kenner, has a son who is fluent in the language of Cambodia, and may give up nursing because it's sliding over from care to documenting.

A man who grew up on the local reserve, graduated from Lakefield High, and is quite large, at least in circumference. He is the one who got me sprung early, but that's too long a story.

A nurses aid who has a unique name. She did a search for it and it doesn't show anywhere. She's pretty sure her parents just made it up.

          *

My best line to a doctor: "If covid doesn't kill me, the food will." I ate about 25% of the food served to me.

          *

And all in all it was an interesting experience, my first stay in a hospital in over half a century.

[ssfc72]

Nice story Buster, thanks for sharing.
When I was the hospital ICU, from my motorcycle accident in 2011 I also had numerous weird dreams. :-)

[Jason]

I think you missed your calling, Buster. You would have made a great politician, salesperson, or PR agent with your people skills. A day or two in the hospital and you've made friends with the staff and patients, even the odd ones.

By "local reserve", do you mean Curve Lake or Hiawatha? Sean Conway, from Curve Lake, ran for the NDP for Peterborough-Kawartha in the 2018 Ontario election. Great guy. He's on their Council now.

[buster]

' Curve Lake or Hiawatha?'

I couldn't remember which, so I wrote it as local.

No. I couldn't have been a politician. But thanks anyway. I can get people to open up and talk, but often politicians have to shape thoughts, not allow random thoughts of pleasant conversation. They have to get 'the message' across - that would wear me out.