Lesson for everyone: how a family of covid skeptics survived the coronavirus

Another case history has appeared on social networks, told by a married couple from St. Petersburg, former "covidoskeptics" who reveled in their "freedom" and, as a result, drove into the intensive care unit, grabbing a powerful dose of infection from the same "free people".

“Now they have grown wiser, having walked along the edge, writes publicist Ilya Vaytsman. - They were lucky, survived. But not everyone is so lucky. Yes, masks do not guarantee 100% protection. But they certainly reduce the viral load many, many times during infection, prolonging the onset of the disease and giving the body a saving time for the formation of an immune response. As a result, in "masked cowards" the disease is more often mild and less likely to kill..."

And one more fact of luck - this married couple ended up in the hospital. Botkin, to the only adult infectious diseases hospital in St. Petersburg, which was also recently built - all the others were redesigned. It is clear that this hospital employs infectious disease doctors, specially trained and trained medical personnel. The hospital is well designed and built. The logistics and routing of patients is the same as it should be in an infectious diseases hospital. In other, repurposed hospitals, it is much more difficult to comply with all this...

So, the story of how carelessness kills:

“We survived. Having received an almost lethal dose of the virus, after resuscitation, mechanical ventilation, pulmonary edema, plasma transfusion, intravenous "feeding", which was infused through catheters stuck in all available vessels (including metal catheters sewn to the skin with threads) - after all this we still survived, ”- wrote on social networks journalist, writer, historian, member of the Union of Journalists of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region Tatyana Khmelnik on October 7.

Together with her husband, the head of the Regionavtika project, Alexander Potravnov, on September 11, they were urgently admitted to the Botkin hospital literally three days after they felt unwell. CT scan showed both lung lesions: 70% in Tatyana and 50% in Alexander. And then - catheters, mechanical ventilation, plasma transfusions, hallucinations and blackouts - the doctors literally pulled both of them out of the other world.

Three weeks later, they left the hospital and realized that they could not go up to the fifth floor - there is no elevator in the house, their legs do not obey, shortness of breath. It was the longest way home.

Tatiana and Alexander made the decision to share their medical history so that those who still refuse to wear masks understand that covid is equally dangerous for everyone.

“We did a huge stupidity - we walked without masks, we were proud that we are independent, that we are above all this, that this is all bullshit, just talk that, as always, they are trying to drive us into some kind of framework, that we are thus deprived freedom. And it turns out that we suffered severely because of our own stupidity, - says Tatiana. Her lungs are now half working. - A lot of people demonize the virus and begin to attribute human qualities to it: “He wants to scare us,” he doesn't want anything.

He wants to eat and reproduce. We are food for him.

Why I decided to tell about it - because among us there are too many careless people like us, who think that this does not concern them, that this is somewhere a neighbor Uncle Misha, an alcoholic died, well, to hell with him, but I - nooo. I'm so advanced, savvy, I look at Dr. Malyshev. Not a single doctor asked us: where did you get it? Because the person's forehead does not say, "I am spreading a virus." This is in films about zombies - in infected eyes, fangs - you can immediately see that it is a zombie. And a person infected with covid and who can spread this infection - nothing is written on him. He can be completely normal in appearance. "

"Thought it was the flu"

“Before the illness, we lived in tents near Izborsk. We do this every season because we get tired of the city. We are basically sociopaths and we have a narrow social circle. I don't think it was possible to catch the coronavirus in the forest. Unless Petrov and Bashirov passed by and spat at us, - Tatiana jokes. - It began on September 11, and the day before, on Thursday, Sasha went to Moscow on a business trip.

By the way, in "Sapsan" almost no one was wearing masks.

And the temperature was measured only at the Bologoye station! And what to do with those who have a temperature - a kick in Bologoye from the train? Moscow is absolutely careless - no masks, everyone is happy and contented. Especially funny are the inscriptions in the metro at rush hour - "distance of 1.5 meters", - says Tatiana.

“Why do people kind of give a damn about it? Because the measures are often formal. We are all used to the authorities lying to us. She always lies, that today she says one thing, tomorrow another, that there must be some kind of self-interest hidden behind these measures, that she wants to take away from us that little freedom that we have - to walk without muzzles. Is it easier to deal with muzzles?

I was still running that morning - I run every morning. I also thought: something aches a little ..., you never know, Friday, tired. We made plans for the weekend: where we would go for a walk. When Sasha came home, he found me in a poorly sane condition. Temperature 38.5 and incipient delirium. He thought, “Well, the flu. How inappropriate. " And while he was thinking about it, he himself lay down beside him and did not get up. We decided it was the flu - body aches, a terrible headache, unbreakable temperature - I didn't take paracetamol.

We could neither eat nor drink. Then the sense of smell disappeared. I thought: strange, soap doesn't smell, coffee doesn't smell ... let me smell indoor flower fertilizer, which smells disgusting. I didn't feel anything. A slight cough began.

On the third day, we went to do CT - to the clinic on Richard Sorge street. On the way, I had the feeling that we would die on the way. I'm getting worse. And then before my eyes is a picture that I will never forget: it is raining, I am lying near the door in a puddle - from attacks of coughing I can neither sit nor stand, I lie curled up - and it was not a cough, it was barking or howling - I try to breathe and I can't. The staff of the CT center who accompanied us say: "She is dying, what are you worth?"

CT analysis showed that Tatiana had 75% lung damage, and Alexander had 40%.

Urgent hospitalization

Both were brought by ambulance to the hospital. Botkin. Tatiana remembered the ambulance doctor: “He was alone, without PPE, usually dressed. I said: "We have a covid", and he: "But they did not confirm me" ...

Tatiana and Alexander were put in a double infectious box - the same one from which a St. Petersburg woman escaped at the beginning of the pandemic. “The staff walk inside, and the patients are taken outside - on a special balcony - so that the streams do not intersect. Feeding through the prison window - and rightly so! "

“We were poked with needles, catheters were sticking out of us, we could not live without oxygen. We had nothing to breathe. The pipes are always in your nose - you run to the toilet and back! My worst nightmare is that I lost these things and I cannot find them. They gave us antibiotics, injected something for blood clots, injected in the stomach - we were blue and spotted. And then Sasha became ill and was taken to intensive care".

It was the most terrible time, because Tatiana did not know if her husband was alive.

She herself was in a semi-conscious state: “Then I read in the map that I had a paradoxical course of the disease. I didn’t sleep at night or during the day. I remember lying in bed and seeing well the Belarusian partisans who hunt for the coronavirus and one opens the toilet and says: “Commander, I drove one here, what to do with him? And I say, "Annihilate him." It's funny now, but then I saw them so well. Another Belarusian partisan fumbled under my bed and crushed the coronavirus. It was not a dream, but it was not a reality either. They measured my temperature from sampling to sunset, constantly taking blood. For a long time we ate saline solutions, we were given droppers several times a day. We couldn't see the food.

Then they poured plasma with antibodies from a sick person - an unknown hero. I was told that antibodies are foreign, they do not live long, should be enough to help me further: either my antibodies will be developed or not. A couple of hours later, I opened my eyes - the Belarusian partisans were gone, and I said something like: "How I want a piece of bread."

For three days there was no news from her husband. The medical staff did not know anything, and then a nurse in an astronaut suit ran into my room and said that my husband was asking for a phone and a charger - that means he was alive! A few hours later I receive an SMS from him - there is complete gibberish, only a set of letters. And I understand that he is under the ventilator and does not see anything, and simply sends letters that he is alive!

Under mechanical ventilation

“Later, in the discharge, I read that I had pulmonary edema, 75% of lung damage - at admission it was 40%. It literally takes 2.5 days! Therefore, I was taken to the intensive care unit. I felt really bad in the toilet, I began to choke, I could not breathe, I don’t remember how I crawled to bed, who called the doctor, how they treated me. I remember only one moment that I wanted to take my glasses and my phone, but they took it from my hands and failed again. Tanya told, about 5 doctors gathered. Apparently, I was unconscious ... ".

In the intensive care unit, Alexander was connected to a ventilator, and a subclavian catheter was sewn. “The trachea was not opened for me - the mechanical ventilation was not invasive. The compressor was catching up with oxygen under pressure and the extraction was carried out with another inhalation tube. The mask fit tightly - then there were even bruises. And when I remember picking it with my fingers - when it was uncomfortable, the air whistled and the instruments began to squeak. The nurse immediately came running: "What are you doing, you mustn't."

The first day I was unconscious, then some twilight flashes. I remember nurses, orderlies, doctors - all in protection, respirators ...

I was all enveloped in wires - pressure, saturation, temperature, respiration, pulse were measured - all this was displayed on a monitor, which was at the head of the bed. The staff constantly read and transmitted data to the doctors by radio.

I vaguely remember how the doctors, after the X-ray, discuss whether to do blood purification - you, they say, have a lot of all kinds of harmful muck in your blood. Then a metal catheter is sewn into the throat under anesthesia. This lasted 7.5 hours. Then another X-ray and it turned out that the actions taken helped - the edema stopped developing. I kept asking to contact my wife, because I remember that her condition was worse than mine. I was worried. Then, apparently, one of the nurses reacted to my request and a telephone appeared. I was without glasses, and even wearing a mask - I typed, as it seemed to me, something like: I'm okay, how are you? Received a message from her.

There were two in the ward with me - one had 90% of the lung damage. His lungs did not support independent work. This man could not live without oxygen for five minutes. Another man was taken away literally right away - he had spent four weeks in intensive care before that. And in his place they put, as I understood from the conversations, a welder. He had a high level of metals ... He was also in bed - a catheter was even inserted into his bladder. That is, I was almost healthy against their background.

I indirectly heard that at that moment there was a large influx of heavier ones - they needed places. And on Friday the doctor comes up: “How are you feeling? Can you hold out for several hours without oxygen? " "I can". The oxygen supply in the mask was reduced to a minimum - I held out".

“Then my husband was returned to me - they brought him in an armchair,” Tatyana recalls his return. - He looked like ... remember this terrible photo of Lenin in the hills, when he was no longer covered with a blanket ... That's about the same thing I saw - a creature wrapped in a blanket with bulging eyes and oxygen supplied to his nose.

Alexander spent five days in intensive care. When he returned, both of them slowly recovered. Appetite has become the main sign of health improvement. "Sunshine, eat!" - with these words the nurse came into the ward with morning porridge. Tatiana and Alexander greatly appreciate the attitude of the staff towards patients: "Goodwill and a desire to support are very important, although their work is hellish."

"We are fighting with rags on our nose, but we must fight for life"

“We want to show how scary it is. We were pulled out by doctors from the other world. We were not alone there. In the intensive care unit, space was required. The shaft went - there are more heavy people, ”says Alexander.

“At the very beginning of this quarantine - in March. Our daughter, who has been living in Prague for a long time, told us: we need to wear masks, maintain social distance. We told her: well, what are you - little or what, we ourselves know, - Tatiana recalls. - And she answered:

"You have not a civil society, but a society of some cannibals: why don't you care about each other?"

Our adult child told us this. And she was right. We are really not a civil society. We are fighting with rags on the nose. And you need to fight for life. "

Now the couple have bought masks and wear them indoors and in transport and advise all their friends to wear them. They interviewed all the acquaintances with whom they communicated before the illness, fortunately, none of them got sick.

“The mask - it saves not only you, but a whole chain of people. Think at least of those who are within the radius of your circle”, - Alexander persuades.

Tatiana adds: “We were slovens, we are not ashamed to admit it, but the most important thing is that we should be heard and not be the same as we are. Because with this indifference we kill each other. Covid is a blind weapon. And this must be stopped".

Now the couple try to walk a lot and ... sing. Singing is the best rehabilitation for injured lungs..."