I’ll admit, despite being a highly educated person, I had never even heard the word “pandemic” prior to a few months ago. Since none of us can remember what day and/or date it is at this point, I can’t even pinpoint when I first heard it.
Living right outside of Manhattan and with all of my doctors in NYC, these last few months have been indescribable. I run the gamut of emotions on the daily. One minute I’m angry at everything. The next, I’m weeping seeing photos of my doctors on the “frontline” because, Yes, it is a war zone here. If you are one of those, “This is all a hoax” or “We have the right to allow ourselves to die” types, stop reading now. I’m not sorry for refusing to tolerate ignorance. Hearing that kind of talk then brings me back to my manic anger.
I feel frustrated and helpless that I cannot do a thing to change the state of affairs here, when hospital staff have to risk their lives and/or the lives of their families working in hospitals literally full of virus patients. I cannot handle the sight of tents set up in Central Park and other areas in the City, filled with patients because the hospitals are too overcrowded by this pandemic. I cannot handle knowing the millions upon millions of dollars that stream into the hospitals in which I treat. Yet, healthcare workers have to find their own PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) to keep themselves safe. We are applauding the fact that only a few hundred are dying these days, down from 700/800 people per day… per day! Yet, we don’t even know the actual numbers because, well, I’ll keep the politics to myself.
So, as of today, there’s been over 75,000 deaths in the U.S. and over 20,000 in New York alone. Well, that we know of at least. The 9/11 attacks killed 2,753 people at the site of the World Trade Center. Those who have been taken by this virus are mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, etc. They include nurses, doctors, and other hospital staff. Morgues and funeral homes are filled to capacity. So, refrigerated tractor trailers sit outside of the hospitals to load in the bodies. One Brooklyn funeral home was even recently found to be simply keeping bodies on ice in rented trucks due to overcapacity. The owner was quoted, “I ran out of space. Bodies are coming out of our ears.” These patients died an isolated, what’s been described as an extremely painful, horrific death. Then they’re just loaded into trucks, their family and friends unable to honor them with a proper funeral/burial.
One Jewish woman in an Assisted Care Facility, also in Brooklyn, was even buried in a Catholic cemetery despite already having a paid family plot in obviously a Jewish cemetery. Oh, and her estate was charged nearly $15,000 for her “Catholic funeral” that never even took place!
I truly feel like I’m living through the worst Sci-Fi horror movie, ever. As a cancer patient, I’m accustomed to “quarantine life”. However, the few times I’ve actually left my apartment, the sight of (mostly) everyone in masks, wearing surgical latex gloves, avoiding getting too close to strangers on the sidewalk, literally empty Manhattan streets… It really feels like the apocalypse has come and it’s not ending any time soon.
While I was in acute, in-patient rehab at NYU Langone’s Rusk Institute, there were rumblings of the virus spreading. There were very varied opinions at that time in early February. Some nurses and staff were extremely concerned, while others believed like so many of us it would just be like a bad flu. When I was released in mid-February, feeling so strong and energized, ready to get back to my outpatient PT & OT routine, no one advised me to be safe, wear a mask, limit my contact with others. That’s not the fault of the hospital staff. In my humble opinion, they were being kept in the dark, again like so many of us.
Once I was finally released, I had now undergone my 7th brain surgery and had a shunt placed into my brain that drained fluid into my intestinal area. I had spent a full week in ICU plus 2.5 weeks at Rusk. I was obviously immune-compromised, yet I went around NYC to all my follow-ups and to all the appointments I had missed while hospitalized. I didn’t wear a mask. I didn’t practice social-distancing, which is another new term I’ve learned. In fact, I rode an elevator with music-industry legend, Clive Davis, and his entourage. I was continuously told, the virus would not be as bad as some were saying. So, I didn’t worry. I mean, in less than six years I have REALLY been through some ish! How could this be any worse? Oh how wrong I was – how deeply deeply wrong I was. (Cont. on Page 2)
