From Megan, RN, in Tallahassee...

[babylonsister]

From a FB friend...

Painful but very important to read
Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare


Numbers alone will never tell the full story of what’s happening within our walls right now. This pandemic is devastating – for our patients, our colleagues, their families. Megan Dunaway, RN is an Assistant Nurse Manager in our Emergency Center – Northeast, working on the frontlines of this fight. Please take a moment to read her powerful perspective:

I’m posting this in honor of my staff in the ER who are working relentlessly, and seeing horrific outcomes, in honor of both of my daughters who are currently sick with COVID (doing ok, they are not experiencing what I have seen in other children in our ER fighting this), and in honor of all of my patients I have lost over these past few weeks – as this is laying heavy on my heart.

I hope you read it, I hope you share it, I hope you restrain from commenting negatively. Controversy is the last thing I want from this share. I simply hope you start supporting, stop fighting, and start thinking before coming to the ER, “is this an emergency?”

To my patients I have lost: I can only hope I brought you a little comfort in your final hours. I hope you believed me when I looked you in the eyes and said, “I’ve got you,” when I knew damn well COVID is bigger than anything we have for you.

To all of the wives and husbands and children I separated at our ER doors as their loved one checked in: “I’m sorry, COVID patients cannot have a visitor.” I’m so sorry I took away precious time and last moments away from you.

To my daughters: I’m sorry you have seen me red faced and tear stained every day when I get home and I have no way to explain to you, because you don’t deserve to know the darkness. And now, watching you sick from this virus, I’m sorry I did not do a better job at protecting you.

To my staff, my family at TMH: You all are HEROES. Every single one of you. You are the light in my darkness and I will continue to show up every day with you, as you show up every day for me.

To the Tallahassee Community: Instead of googling and arguing about what may or may not be real, here are actual events, witnessed by this 1 tiny nurse, in this 1 tiny ER in this 1 tiny town. In the past 10 shifts, I have personally taken care of at MINIMUM 1 critical patient with COVID per shift, all to have died. Daily. From COVID. Unvaccinated. Young. No underlying illness. There are no beds in our hospital COVID units or ICUs (though daily we work tirelessly to make space). I am caring for these patients for hours/days in our ER, in addition to emergencies walking in. I get to know them in their darkest hour, their families, then finally, I get a bed for them at the hospital, I hug them goodbye. I have had to stop checking up on them the next day, because my heart cannot handle hearing one more time, that none of them made it. This is my reality. Which means this is YOUR reality. You live right here in Tallahassee with me. This is YOUR community. This is not google researched. These are not skewed facts. This is my actual account. Right here in Tallahassee. We, as a community, are in crisis.

Stop fighting over what is real or not. Stop fighting over whether you should get the vaccine or not. Stop fighting over whether to wear a mask or not. I can only share with you my experience. In the meantime, we, in the ER, will continue to have our doors open and care for you in your emergency as best we can. I just hope we can sustain and support your need.

PLEASE extend grace to our staff. We are working so hard, and we are tired. When you yell at us, when you treat us like we are not a human being, it is infuriating, as one of my major roles is to protect my staff. If you are not being seen quick enough to your expectation, please take comfort in the fact it means you will not be dying today. I cannot say that to the person I brought back in front of you. We are doing the best we can. We are bringing you back based on your acuity.

In addition, we cannot let your loved ones in and out of our doors out of protection for YOU AND for US. Extend some grace.

We are not a COVID-19 testing center. We are an emergency center. COVID patients are overflowing and let us not forget everyone else coming in with emergency needs NOT related to COVID. People are still having heart attacks and strokes. People are still getting cancer. People are still having non-COVID emergencies.
I have been a nurse for 18 years, most of it ICU and Emergency Nursing, so by the nature of the beast, I have seen some things I would wish on no one.

But this, by far, is the most horrific thing I have ever experienced.

Let’s come together as a community and support each other.

May we get through this TOGETHER,
Megan

[Still Sensible]

1. Thank you for sharing

A very important testament to our healthcare professionals.

It is beyond me how so many can be not only willing to buy into the alternate reality of the right wing, but how they go beyond and spread it once they drink the Kool Aid!

[StarryNite]

2. I can only weep at reading this.

It did not have to be this way, not to this extent.

[magicarpet]

3. A lot of AmeriKKKans have forgotten or intentionally disregard the mercy and compassion we owe,...

.... one another.

Me,... Me,... Me,... Mine,... Mine,.... Mine,.... My,... My,... My,.... Selfishness is leading to our detriment and eventual/inevitable total downfall. We must chart a more sustainable course or humanity as we know it is done.

[gratuitous]

4. It's just mind-boggling

"So, you guys had this pandemic in 2020, more than half a million people died as the pandemic overwhelmed hospitals. THREE vaccines were synthesized and you were in some ways even worse off the next year? How does that happen?!"

[pnwmom]

5. Here's a link in case anyone else wants to share it.

https://m.facebook.com/TallahasseeMemorial/photos/a.162195950486361/4479901345382445/?type=3

[calimary]

10. Thank you for the link. I'm saving it.

Sounds like the next nominee for “Quote of the Week”.

I pick the quote that leads my Indivisible group’s weekly Call to Action email. “Head writer’s prerogative”, I suppose! Problem is, I’m almost drowning in amazing quotes. Too many good ones - and poignant ones like this.

I’ve become almost a fanatic about collecting quotes. This one is excruciating. Especially this part:

“If you are not being seen quick enough to your expectation, please take comfort in the fact it means you will not be dying today.”

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph…

[pnwmom]

14. You're welcome, calimary. I also intend to spread it far and wide. n/t

[IronLionZion]

6. Health care workers have been burning out

a lot of them have had enough of this for way too long. I wouldn't want to deal with this much trauma and death every day.

[Stuart G]

7. Thank You for posting...K and R..

[denbot]

8. K&R n/t

[niyad]

9. Heartsick KNR

[Jon King]

11. This has been decades in the making, since Reagan started the "I'm from the government".

Reagan got the ball rolling with his mocking quote "I'm from the government and I'm here to help". The mistrust and tribalism and hate the elites just accelerated after that. Onward to the Al Gore is evil and big oil companies are telling the truth. And on and on and on to Fox and Rush and social media.

This is the natural culmination....millions upon millions of enraged and arrogant and ignorant drones that have no idea which way is up. Their doctor of 20 years is lying to them, Hannity is telling them the truth.

We truly have entered bizarro world.

[Mickju]

13. You summed it up quite well.

[pnwmom]

15. You've nailed it. This all started with jovial old Ronnie Reagan, Evil wearing a Happy Face. nt

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

12. Thank you for this post.

Last December I had symptoms of a heart attack, but was somewhat unwilling to go to the local ER because of the Covid pandemic. Not because I thought I might get Covid there, but I was concerned they'd have no room for me.

Fortunately I went in during a certain lull in Covid, got diagnosed with the heart attack, got a stent, spent three days in the hospital with EXCELLENT care, then went home.

I count myself lucky that the local hospital could give me the care I needed, and not have to shunt me aside for Covid patients. I know that's not necessarily the case these days.

[live love laugh]

16. Still don't understand why they go to the hospital. nt

[Mariana]

26. Because they're hypocrites, that's why. nt.

[Pepsidog]

17. Show them dying on tv. Extended coverage.

[Evolve Dammit]

21. As disturbing as that sounds, it may be useful to the anti-vax crowds? Brought to you by......

[wnylib]

23. Their denial is so strong that

they would claim that the hospital coverage is staged with actors paid by the Democrats.

[Mariana]

27. No. The anti-vaxxers won't believe it.

"They're lying, those people are actors."
"They're lying, those people don't have Covid."
"They're lying, those people are vaccinated and it's the vaccine killing them."

Etc.

[KS Toronado]

18. This is the kind of stuff you'll never see on FQX

or any other right wing media, "But Her Emails" are more important to them.

[bucolic_frolic]

19. Modern medicine seeks to cure

This is more like hospice care in the Middle Ages

[wnylib]

24. Very much like the Middle Ages,

with all the guessing about the cause, how to prevent it, how to cure it.

I have historian Barbara Tuchmann's book, A Distant Mirror, about the 14th century. She devotes a chapter to the first wave of the Plague in 1348. At least the people then had the sense to fear getting infected, even if they didn't know how to prevent it. We have the scientific knowledge today, but people ignore it in favor of their own favorite beliefs.

I'm surprised that the RW fundamentalists have not been proclaiming covid as God's punishment the way people did with the Plague. They are, though, singling out groups to blame it on like like Medieval people did, except today's scapegoats are immigrants, asylum seekers, and people with Asian ancestry.

[bucolic_frolic]

25. I read that book

Yes is very good.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

20. Recommended with a tear.

[Evolve Dammit]

22. Very well-stated and heartfelt. Megan is a true hero and the best of America. Thanks