About
18 years ago my youngest son got a virus, Roseola, and he became very ill after
he seemed to be over the initial virus. We now know he has Leigh’s Syndrome and
his body takes extra time to recover from a virus even after the actual virus
has run its course. When it happened, he was three and just at that time in
life where he was beginning to talk quite a bit and roam all over the place
playing and exploring. But that all came crashing down so that he was reduced
to using furniture to walk around, showing no signs of wanting to play, extremely
lethargic, and eating far more than normal. Within a two-week period, he gained
over ten pounds. We were frantic with worry and taking him to our family doctor
almost every day. Our doctor ordered an MRI suggesting our boy had a metabolic
disorder. Of course we had no idea what that meant but he wasn’t getting
better. Our doctor, seeing the rapid deterioration of our son’s health, sent us
to Seattle Children’s emergency room where we were admitted on a Friday
afternoon in April. Seattle Children’s is a teaching hospital so we were overwhelmed
by teams of researchers, therapists, etc. because our son was experiencing
something almost inexplicable.
That
Sunday night in the hospital Bryson began to choke and cough up blood for no
apparent reason. Immediately a team brought a portable x-ray machine to the
room to find that his lungs were filling with blood. They took him to the Pediatric
Intensive Care Unit where they put him on a ventilator. All night long we
watched in terror as they worked on him unable to stabilize him. Finally, they
put him on ECMO (extra corporeal membrane oxygenator), a machine to oxygenate
his blood outside of his body. It seemed like the last resort and we were even
given the option of removing him from all life support with the distinct
possibility that he might die anyway with this strange mitochondrial disease
that they now believed he had. These doctors and nurses worked tirelessly
through the night, overshooting their shifts by several hours to save our son.
I have heard similar stories of people with Covid-19 also being put on
ventilators and ECMO, and of course, the stories I have heard have been of
survivors. ECMO is not readily available to hospitals.
Just
because we are being overwhelmed now by a disease that is crippling our
hospitals due to great need does not mean that sacrificing so much time, energy,
and personal well being is new to our medical professionals. It was doctors and
nurses who worked on my son through the night to stabilize him. It was
therapists who worked daily with my son to get him to swallow, sit up, talk,
and eventually walk again. It was social workers, hospital staff, and cafeteria
workers who guided us down the path to recovery as a family and kept our
finances stable by assisting us with medical bills and housing away from home.
It was our family physician who directed us to Children’s Hospital to the life
saving skills of that institution. It is the medical researchers who study
disease, genetics, and human behavior that guide us all through these
terrifying times. None of this is new, we’re just now fully taking note of who
our heroes are.
I
have not taken this for granted, nor has my family as we have, with great care
and help, battled heart disease, mitochondrial disease, and breast cancer here
in the United States and the United Kingdom. My oldest son has decided to
become a doctor because of how his own life has been shaped by both the terrors
of disease and the loving care of medical care workers who have become life
long friends. I am so grateful for health care workers all over the world and
my heart is heavy thinking about them at this time and the incredible burden
that they are bearing for all of us. It’s true that everything about the
American health care system is not great, but those workers are the best people
in the world (those workers all over the world), sacrificing so much so that we
can live healthy productive lives. I cannot be more thankful for these people.
#hcwshoutout
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