As an old RN, one of the most difficult things is to accurately predict an individual's course

I mean 20% of the people here seem to think that it's just a hoax and that he's only pretending to have it, so he can miraculously recover from it. 20% seem to think that he's on death's door, or dead already, and it's just some sort of Weekend at Bernies/Dave coverup going on.

The real story is that even considering the grimmest numbers, just looking at his age and comorbidities that we know of, he's more likely to survive than not. We don't know his exact condition, and even if we did, it still wouldn't tell us a lot. Different people respond different ways to disease, and to this one in extreme particular.

Whatever happens, it doesn't change the fact that his presidency has been a spectacular failure, and this is a crisis largely of his own making. He and the rest of the republican party and their incompetence at taking this seriously are, I am sure, entirely to blame for the immediate crisis that the republican party is undergoing right now, and without a doubt for the larger crisis it exists within.

when they have end of life breathing patterns on rare occasions they pop out of it and even talk.

Some pediatric cancers are 95% curable. But, what if you are in that 5%. Sometimes no matter how much treatment you get you still die.

I have seen cases where doctors were confused why a rapid growing cancer stopped growing without any treatment and we signed the patient off hospice.

The ones who bark orders at the doctors, demand experimental drugs, refuse oxygen, and desperately try to manage pressers from their hospital beds?

which medications they get. You spend a lot of time holding in your thoughts and biting your tongue and you get verbally abused.

Luckily most patients and families aren't like that.

We can only wait and see what happens to Trump and everybody else who is sick. In the meantime, we must get out the vote.

The motto in our family is that when we hear hoofbeats we should expect - at least - a zebra, and not infrequently a unicorn.

My daughter and I tend to be outliers, which makes our decision making more challenging. It hit home for me with my cancer diagnosis. I had to make a decision on very short notice about whether to do radiation (due the spacing of the rest of the medical and other dominoes in my life). The choice was to risk a relatively high rate of recurrence of the same tumor - or to treat with radiation and create a very small risk of a very deadly cancer. Given my tendency to be an outlier, had I not had to make a very quick decision, I would likely have decided not to have it.

It is the only medical decision I've made that I have not been absolutely comfortable with once I had made the decision - even when the predicted outcome was not a positive one. I crave information to make those decisions, and was unable to obtain it before the decsision was made.

I see that tendency here, as well - when it is not my life, or my family's life directly at risk - but it is indirectly at risk based on the outcome of Trump's illness. So I hate that I don't have the informaiton I crave.

steroids does not mean he is better.

I used to do data processing for car plants, and I'd train new people to know that if the plant nurses called, DO NOT TRY TO BLUFF THEM, they are on to any delaying tactics if their programs are not IMMEDIATELY available. One gal shouted at a trainee I AM OLD RN, YOU CANNOT FOOL ME. LOL.

I spent too much time in hospitals from the time I was ?12 when my mom had to go to the hospital (she got severe asthma when I was 5 1/2 in '58, some other stuff later on) off and on. 😧

Then later on my mom got much better with the asthma, but some years later my dad had troubles. ☹️

So glad that they had caring nurses and other medical staff, good doctors.

My sis has a long time ❤️ nurse friend.