Chronicle of the disease: the doctor of the covid department described in detail the treatment of herself and her relatives

Doctor and popular blogger Anna under the nickname “Doctor_silk” described in several of her publications what is happening in the covid department of the hospital where she works. The fact that she herself endured this illness and after that decided to help her comrades in misfortune gives particular value to her story:

“To be honest, I like this job. Let there be a lot of problems, but few doctors, and therefore a lot of work, BUT. But you see that you are bringing real help. Before that, I was glad that I had chosen the path of a doctor, and now I did.

Not because of the salary (they say, those working in covid are bathed in gold, I have not yet met such. Although everything has definitely improved.

Not because of respect (which unexpectedly fell on the doctors in connection with this situation, although the cases are different. But also because of respect).

And mostly because of their own satisfaction.

Before that my main place of work was the department for war veterans (almost the gerontology department for the elderly). There I helped people to compensate for their chronic diseases, mainly cardiac diseases, but there was almost no opportunity to radically help. Although there have been interesting cases and rare diseases, which I am very glad to find.

Here, in the covid, there are many patients, of all kinds. The specificity of our hospital is that we are not a specialized hospital, i.e. pneumonia is not being brought to us. Only those who have received a "+" analysis within the walls of the hospital are transferred to us. This does not mean that there are no severe ones - sometimes 3-5 people die per day. This also does not mean that they would not have died without the covid - they would often have died, but somehow later. Usually, we help this group of patients as much as we can, in any case, we make the condition easier. But there are many others whose prognosis is very encouraging. When it turns out to help such patients, the feeling of satisfaction is heavenly.

For example, a couple of shifts ago there was a young patient, 65 years old. Comparatively young, of course, nonetheless. In good health, only with a history of smoking. Here he developed pneumonia. He's on oxygen. And I walk past, I look at him, but I do not like him, although the indicators are less and less and there are no indications for calling the resuscitator. I keep it in my head, I ask the sisters to observe, I go further to look at people (and there are a lot of them, 100 people, and I am alone on the detour). And my intuition did not disappoint me - when I came back to see him after all, he looked worse and after that, right in front of me, he suddenly developed - severe shortness of breath, interruptions in the work of the heart - in fact, he began to die. There was a stop, the sisters ran after the resuscitator, and I started resuscitation (I also rocked the inhalation bag). And I did it! What could be better? On the last watch he was just transferred from intensive care to the ward, and, I hope, everything will be fine with him.

And this is only one, and when there are several? Can you imagine my joy?

There are, of course, other situations. A young, 36-year-old guy who was admitted to the hospital with a heart attack and 4 days later suffered a stroke, and after covid, died right in my presence. I received him in the emergency room, but I saw him in the ward, after in intensive care. I am not an attending physician, I am just a duty officer who looks after everyone and stabilizes everyone's condition whenever possible. The attending physicians, however, each deal with their own profile.

After the death of that guy, I went to the hairdresser and found out that it was her brother... She herself began to talk about him, and I learned from the description. It is very sad. Of course he had diabetes. Of course, he was drinking and not dieting / counting insulin. But that still doesn't change the fact that it's a shame that he didn't survive.

You can write about one more case.

A story of two families.

The first one is my friends, a girl anesthesiologist (Olya), her husband (Igor) and their 2 children. The second is Igor's ex-wife, Ira, her second husband, their common child is 4 years old and her child with Igor is 10 years old.

Why these details are important, I'll explain later.

So, Ira is 42 years old, and her whole family fell ill with covid almost simultaneously. The children tolerated it normally, the husband had 2-sided polysegmental pneumonia. Ira took care of her children and her husband for a long time, and he had already begun to recover when he began to notice that Ira had become pale, lost weight, looked unhealthy and often lay down on the bed without strength. Irin's husband called her ex-husband, Igor, and told about the situation. And Ira and Igor (and my friend Olya) communicate well, they have a common son, and there is nothing to share.

My Olya could not come to see her because of the covid quarantine, but she could consult by phone and bring a pulse oximeter. When Irin's husband measured her saturation, she was already 84%. It was clear that time was short. In addition, she developed an arrhythmia, so she was brought to us.

I saw her in our intensive care unit. Beautiful young girl ...

In two days, the oxygen saturation dropped to critical, CT scan 5 (90% of the lung tissue lesions - total pneumonia), and she was intubated. She stayed on mechanical ventilation for two more days.

It became clear that mechanical ventilation did not save her and she needed ECMO ... We do not have ECMO in our region, but they learned that specialists from Moscow can leave and bring it and treat her here. This procedure costs more than a million rubles, but Irina's husbands, both the second and the first, were ready to raise money for this.

Alas, fate decreed otherwise, ECMO did not have time to arrive, and Ira died tonight ... My friend, an anesthesiologist, burst into tears when she learned about this. Then she got ready, called Ira's husband to inform her of the death, and then to her husband, Igor, and told him that they needed to take their son with Ira to their place, right today, otherwise the boy might not cope with this grief.

In all this dark and terrible story, I saw in my friend so much strength and courage that I could not help but ask why she is like that, where does this kindness come from. And she simply said, "I love my husband. And these are his close people, his family, his ex-wife, the mother of his child, and the son himself. How could I do otherwise? How could I not help and not worry about those who are important him?"

***

I picked up my covid, apparently from a patient who later, alas, died of covid pneumonia.

Picked up on duty. I was looking at the patients in the ward when the nurse called me because the patient was not breathing well. I examined him, wrote everything properly. And after the shift I went home.

After 2 or 3 days, I started sneezing, and a severe runny nose began. Mom joked that I brought a crown (hmm), and I sinned on my allergy (although where is she from in the summer?).

Then my mother started having a temperature. Small, but suspicions began. I had a weakness, but not that strong. After 3 days, my mother was 39 and my father fell ill. I held on as best I could, my husband hid from me in another room and did not communicate with me for three days.

Dad coped with the disease in 5 days, he just had a fever and weakness. Mom, however, began to feel heavy (I decided that I had enough fooling around and also got sick. My husband looked at us all and joined in. Grandfather, who came to us a couple of times during this time, came in and did not leave somehow, and stayed sick together with us.

Positive results came to me, mom and dad with a difference of 1 day. I don’t know what helped my father and me, whether we are athletes, or the fact that we were not allowed to get sick, we had to treat the grave mother and grandfather - I don’t know. But in 4-5 days we were like lightly salted cucumbers - it seems to be healthy, but you crawl as if you were tired all the time.

Mom was sick for three weeks. The saturation was 91 minimum, the temperature was kept for three weeks. She lost 10 kg, did not eat anything for several days, and could not even walk from weakness. The iron dropped to 10, she became pale, and the skin lost its tone from dehydration, although we kept drinking it and dripping glucose and reambirin. The key thing that helped her was oxygen, since we stocked up on it.

There were moments when it was scary to wake up in the morning and call and ask how she is. But then, fortunately, when we were already one step away from taking her to the hospital, the situation began to change. The tipping point came around the 14th day, when the temperature dropped and saturation began to rise.

And then grandfather grew heavy. His saturation dropped to 85 (to 85, Karl!). This happened when something was disturbed in the oxygen supply. His situation was a little worse, and the temperature did not subside, and therefore we began to drip him dexamethasone in addition to reambirin. 3 days for 16 and then every day the dose was reduced by 2 units. they were not always reduced, sometimes the dose was left the same for 3-4 days. But most importantly, the temperature on the dexon had gone and never returned. Artimia (grandfather had paroxysms of atrial fibrillation) also did not come back. Now he is the first days without hormones and saturation without oxygen 97-98. But after physical exercise, saturation still drops, although this is quite natural.

My husband, like my grandfather, had a rash, of an allergic type, all over his body, injected dexon 8-4-4 for three days, then loratadine for a couple of days in the morning and in the evening and it went away. Now (2 months later) there is still a little, but very little.

I am often asked how we were treated. I dripped gripferon into my nose, 3 drops 5 r / day in each nasal passage. I washed my nose with sea water. I drank a lot, sea buckthorn, raspberries, currants, since now there are a lot of frozen berries, I especially liked the tea from Vkusvill and yes, I did gymnastics. Respiratory. And as soon as she got a little stronger (by the middle of the second week), the usual one, squats, lunges, etc. True, I worked out once and slept for almost a day and a half. Then the second and another day of sleep. And then the rules.

I also treated my husband + for a rash. My dad injected himself for three days and my mother used Fraxiparine during her illness. I dripped glucose and reambirin.

As for any chloroquines, umbs - NO, we have not been treated with it. Just like we weren't treated with antibiotics. Yeah, absolutely. Yes, despite bilateral polysegmental pneumonia. Due to the fact that it is viral and AB does not work on it. Everyone chooses for himself. Mom tried to take azithromycin one day (I was against it). You understand such a disorder what, according to her, she does not remember. So no. At first, my dad bought levofloxacin, but he also dripped it one day and changed his mind.

Now, with regards to analyzes not for covid, but general ones. Mother had 156 CRP (c-reactive protein). Whoever is a doctor will understand our despair. Very bad forecast. My grandfather had 52 maximum, but, unfortunately, liver enzymes climbed up, and therefore we gave him phosphogliv and another, I forgot the name, German. Not Heptral, although I voted for him. It helped, and the transaminases were gone. In the general analysis of blood - we donated everything and we all had low lymphocytes. I have 12%, although, on the contrary, they are usually much higher than normal for me (45-50). Mom has 5%, grandfather has 8%.

Oh, I almost forgot. I inhaled them both, with regular mineral water. And she also gave 500 grams of echinacea in tablets and bronchipret in liquid form. When everything began to normalize a little, I gave my mother rengalin for coughs in tablets. We did not drink Ingavirin and Arbidol, I do not trust them at all, but this is my personal opinion.

***

The two people who work with me in the covid department have covid. Moreover, they both went on sick leave the next day after night watch with me.

One of them has repeated pneumonia.

The third colleague has a mom with a plus.

Questions over 300 - will I get sick again or will my immunity not let me down? Taking into account the fact that I work 7 nights in a row, one of them is a day, my immunity is slightly... Not so good..."