The Fear of Your Family Dying Alone of The Covid-19 Virus

I spent the night tossing and turning. I have been speaking with a friend in South Florida whose husband is on a respirator while she is in isolation at her home.

As many of you know, the Covid-19 Virus can turn on a dime. By the time my friend got her husband to a drive-through testing station on Friday morning, to the time he was taken by an ambulance to the hospital, was within an hour. She hasn't spoken with her husband since Saturday when they put him on a respirator. She lives for the calls to the hospital three times a day to get an update. The call last night was not good.

She was told that she called too much. Sitting alone in her home devastated, scared to call now because she felt that the staff would take it out on her husband, if she called to check in this morning.

Her children, who are spread throughout the country, can't come to comfort her, because she is in isolation. She is all alone in her home, waiting for word about the man she has been married to for her entire adult life. The man who she raised two children with, and three granddaughters. The man she has shared every happiness and sadness with.

Her daughter has a friend who was positive for the virus and now is negative. He wants to fly out from California to Florida to donate his plasma to him, but the hospital doesn't want to do it.

There is no one to speak with to understand why the hospital won't try this measure that could possibly save his life.

I think Governor Cuomo had a great idea to implement mental health counselors right away. My friend had to go the emergency room in the morning for shortness of breath. It wasn't the virus. It was the anxiety of having a loved one separated from you so tragically.

I took a walk this morning and thought about what we could be doing to help the medical staff stay on task and the families cope.

What would it take for psychologists and psychiatrists and social workers to get the reports and call the families at specific times of the days to update, to take the burden off the doctors and nurses?

What would it take for those who need to say "I love you" and to see their loved one before they took them off the ventilators to say goodbye through Facetime?

Our fear is not dying from this virus, it is the dying alone and leaving our loved ones with the horrible burden of that which is the fear. How can we help with that transition and keep our medical staff on task as well?

As I am writing this, my cousin is texting me to tell me that her daughter, a nurse in New York has a friend who was put on a respirator. These are young nurses. Our niece will now be put on the frontline of this battle.

Can we work fast enough to implement steps to ease the burden on her healthcare workers on the front line, and help the families with this information void on their loved ones?

Asking for everyone.....

UPDATE-I wrote this in March of 2020. Things have only gotten worse. Wear a mask .