Wistful Gypsy: March 2022

To say the past month has been hellish is an understatement.

On the morning of February 17th, JP and I watched as my 88-year-old housebound aunt was driven away in an ambulance after being ill for a week or so with what she told everyone was a cold. We let the hospital know that I was the local contact person in the family, along with my Virginia-based cousin who was designated the not local contact.

The hospital staff said they would call me later in the day to update us after they completed their evaluation of my aunt.

We waited but no call came. We went to sleep that night thinking they didn't call because testing was not complete, only to find out the next morning that wasn't the case at all.

Turns out that the two daughters of one of my aunt's friends - in their infinite wisdom (or lack thereof) - in perfect busybody fashion could not wait to find out what was wrong with her so they called the hospital and pretended to be her niece (i.e. me) and the hospital gave them all the information. So the hospital did not call me that day because they thought they had already spoken to me. We, her family, sat around sick with worry not knowing what was happening with her while these busybodies had all the information.
But wait, it gets 'better'.
One of the daughters of that friend, thought she would "update" me via Instagram - if you can even believe that - and proceeded to tell me that my aunt had been sick, that she went to the hospital, etc - all of the things HER ACTUAL FAMILY already knew - especially me and JP since we'd been with my aunt several times that week. She wrote in such a way that it was as if we all had just forgotten about our aunt - who lived one floor above my own mother in the same building - and that she/they knew all there was to know about what had been happening to her despite the fact that these people lived states away and hadn't actually seen her in God knows how long. The audacity left me almost speechless.

Then this person dropped the bomb in her update and told me my aunt's diagnosis, which we - her actual family- did not know because these fools* circumvented us and lied to the hospital.

Diagnosis: Covid.

Somehow my 88-year-old housebound, unvaccinated aunt had gotten Covid and it was obviously very, very bad.

10 days after my aunt was admitted to the hospital and was still there battling Covid, on February 27th, my mother passed away, losing her battle with lung cancer and ending her lifelong love affair with cigarettes.

Then, on March 4th, I woke up at 4am-ish and was in the bathroom when I heard the house phone ring.
It was the hospital calling to tell me that my aunt had passed away an hour earlier.

There are cautionary tales from this nightmare that I want to address**.

1. My aunt and mother both refused to get vaccinated despite their advanced age and the large target that put on their backs from Covid. My mother, in fact, told me she didn't want to get the vaccine because "there's too much wrong with me." No amount of reasoning could sway her.
My aunt likely thought that since she never left her apartment, there was little risk to her. She did all the other right things and when I was in her apartment recently, it broke my heart to see the stack of pretty masks she had near the door and all the cans of Lysol she had and used after someone dropped off her mail or groceries.

Because I was the person the hospital called to discuss my aunt's medical issues, I now know what can happen to an elderly unvaccinated person that gets infected and it is the stuff that nightmares are made of. For a while during her hospital stay she was physically improving, but Covid had gotten to her brain and the doctors did not know the long-term effects of the delirium it caused that had a griphold on her and her brain.
Up until a conversation I had with one of her doctors, I had no idea that Covid could cause delirium.

So she had physically improved but there was the mental part that was the problem. They informed me that the next step for her if the delirium improved, was to transfer to a rehab facility, which filled me with more dread. This was not a woman who would do well in that environment.

Then my NFL and NBA-loving aunt, who had an affinity for Nacho Cheese Doritos, who never forgot to call anyone on their birthdays, who told me on her own recent birthday on Feb 2nd that her new plan was to make it to 100, developed a pulmonary embolism thanks to Covid and as the nurse who called to tell me she had passed said, "she declined rapidly as a result"...as in succumbed to it less than 24 hours later.
A couple or few vaccine shots and she'd likely be at home right now, counting the money in her bank account, and cheering on her favorite teams.

2. Just please do your best to stop smoking. You already know the risks but maybe you've never seen someone die from it. Maybe you don't know how your smoking affects your family and what you might put them through some day when your lungs are black, when your voice disappears, when you can't breathe or take 3 steps, or when you lose the control of all of your bodily functions, when your feet swell up like balloons and crack open and ooze.
Maybe you don't know all the things you'll miss out on, all the memories you won't make.

Because of my own health conditions (lung issues after double lung collapse) and the value I place on my own health, I could not spend any time with my mother in her apartment because the cigarette smoke was so bad. There was not a surface that was not coated with nicotine and I promise I am not exaggerating. Upon her death, nothing in her apartment was salvageable. I cannot fathom how they are going to re-rent her apartment; it is that bad.

3. Do not ever call a hospital and pretend you are a family member because you are ~~nosy~~ trying to find out information about someone. Respect the family of the person and always defer to them. If you are entitled*** to know the information, wait for the family to give it to you. Don't be a jackass.

Am I bitter? You bet I am. Bitter, angry, sad, mad, horrified, disgusted. That's not even the complete list.
It's going to take time for me to work through all of this - and I haven't even told the whole story yet.

*Apparently one of the fools - the one who made the call and lied to the hospital in a massive HIPAA violation kind of way - is herself a medical professional who should very much know better.

**But first let me say that you might not agree with what I have to say and that's okay. All I ask is that inasmuch as you have the right to your opinion, so do I - so, please, no angry comments just because we might disagree. I'll just delete them anyway so best not to waste your time or mine if that's the route you were going to take.

(Also, commenting anonymously is not really anonymous, by the way. You'll have to trust me on that.)

***Entitlement has been a theme lately.