This series documents stories from the Herman Cain Awards subreddit, tracking the COVID mis- and disinformation on Facebook that is leading to so many deaths. Today’s cautionary tale is tragic, but understandable.
No memes today. Just one heartwrenching and infuriating story.
No memes today. Just one heartwrenching and infuriating story.
My career of treating patients has ended
After more than three decades as a physician, the Q maniacs have succeeded in driving me out of providing care to patients. I, like many of my colleagues, am moving into medically-adjacent work, where we can continue to apply our training and decades off knowledge without ever having to come in contact with sick people.
I've been able to deal with the years of patients who attended Google Medical School, and the hours wasted explaining things such as why cinnamon cannot be used to treat diabetes, or that garlic and beetroot can't treat HIV. And Lord save me from essential oils.
COVID and Q finally proved to be the one of amateur "experts" that was too much for me. The horrific deaths are beyond what you might imagine. They emerge almost unrecognizable to their families. Since June, I have never seen a horrible case of someone who was vaccinated. I have seen people struggling to breathe through lungs that have hardened to near uselessness, begging us in their ignorance to give them the vaccine now. We can tell, almost without fail, which ones will die when they come through the door of the ICU, but we do everything in our power to keep them alive - BIPAP, ECMO, ventilator - knowing we are stretching out the inevitable. We use paralytics with ECMO and ventilators, then ease them off to see if they can function. And as the drugs wane, the look of terror emerges, the tears. We try to calm them, to swallow our desire to scream at them: This is your fault! This didn't have to happen! Often, their spouse or their uncle or neighbor is nearby, dying along with them. And we work hard for those rare cases where we can pull them back from the edge.
I could deal with all of that. What I can no longer handle is the screaming, not from the patients, but from the families. They are not screaming in anguish, or in recognition of how their foolishness has led them to this point. No, they are screaming at me. Because, you see, I am part of the global conspiracy to commit genocide. If only I would give 10,000 mg of Vitamin C - even though the body can only absorb a maximum of 100 mg a day, with the rest creating the world's most expensive urine - they would be saved. Or hydroxychloroquine. Or ivermectin. Those have never been studied, they assure me, and when I tell them they have been, they snap that I don't know what I'm talking about. I want, oh god I want, to tell them that if we are the ones responsible for killing their loved ones, then why the hell have they brought them to the hospital? Why throw them into our clutches? I know the answer: They know it is all lies. But their egos are so huge they cant bring themselves to admit it.
My breaking point came three weeks ago. I dealt with a particularly horrible case. This was a husband and father, 38 years old. A wife, two daughters, one son. All of age to get vaccinated, none vaccinated. If you could have seen his face, and the ravages left by both COVID and the time he spent prone on his stomach. An enormous clot kept reforming in his leg, and we had been forced to amputate his foot in hopes of keeping him alive. When he was awake, the look of terror in his eyes, the crying, the pain. It was nothing new. But the begging, over and over, "Don't let me die." And "Give me the vaccine." All I could tell him is "We won't let you" - although I never said we might not have any choice in the matter. And I told him, repeatedly, it was too late for the vaccine.
He begged me to bring in his family. A nurse called them, because they had never come to the hospital. They refused to wear masks, and so would not be admitted. The nurse told the wife that her husband was likely dying, and was begging to see them. All she cared about was masks. She would only come if she and her daughters didn't have to wear any.
The nurse came to me and told me the wife wanted to speak to me. I got on the phone and she ordered me to cure him with ivermectin and vitamin C & D. I explained to her, those do not work, they have been extensively studied and the amount of ivermectin needed to treat even mild COVID would kill a human being. Once again, I was told I was ignorant. I asked her to come down to the hospital, to bring her children, to at least wait outside. Somehow, she agreed.
The nurses were all busy, and I took over the role they usually perform, comforting the dying. I sat beside the man's bed. Through tears, he rasped out sounds I could vaguely understand as a question. I guessed at what he was asking, and assured him that yes, his family was coming. He was so frightened, and I could tell he knew death was unavoidable. I'm not religious, but I knew he was, and I talked about the comfort of Jesus as I held his hand. About a minute later, he coded. We tried to save him, but there was nothing to be done. He died.
Twenty minutes later, I heard from a nurse that the family was here, that they had made a ruckus down in the lobby demanding to be let upstairs without masks, and had been thrown out of the hospital. I consulted with a few colleagues who agreed to cover me so that i could speak to them in the parking lot. I took the elevator down, and asked security to point out the family that refused to wear masks. Fortunately, they had not left.
I stepped outside, went to the wife, and identified myself. I told her that I was sorry, that we had done everything we could, but her husband had passed a few minutes earlier. I did not manage to get the words of the sentence fully out of my mouth when I felt the fist strike my face and heard the screamed words "You murderer!" I fell backwards, tripped, and plopped onto the pavement, the back off my head striking asphalt. I vaguely heard the words being screamed about ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and god knows what else. I heard "you could have saved him if you listened!" I tasted blood from the top of my lip. It took a moment to know it was seeping from my nose, which she had broken. My mask was getting wet, and thus useless. Security grabbed her. They were getting ready to call the police, but I knew if they did, I would become the next national target for the Q maniacs. I told them to just put her in her car. I wasn't going to press charges. I went back to the hospital.
I started looking for a new job the next day. I will never treat a patient again.
Thank God.