Thread by @CassieY4

A letter written for my not-gonna-get-boosted-parents, that I'm not sure I'm going to send, a thread:

Hey Mom and Dad --

So, first off, I'm not super proud of the fact that my first response to finding out y'all aren't going to get boosters was cussing and hanging up on you, Mom.

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But at the same time, I've done nothing but watch people die of covid for 1.5 years here -- taking care of someone today who is likely to, right now, as I type up this draft --

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so the fact that you all are going to turn down life saving science because "everyone's going to get it" baffles me.

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Do you know what every covid patient who comes to the hospital wants the second they realize they're going to be inpatient?

The vaccine.

But by then, it's too late.

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(Sorry, pt care)

I certainly hope you all dodge the odds, despite the fact that you're both over seventy and mom, you've got comorbidities.

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You already have clotting issues, and omicron seems to be giving people a ton of clots and PEs.

And as for you having had a stroke post vaccine shot #2, dad, first off, I didn't want to say anything while I was there in April, but I strongly suspect that that was

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that that was either a reaction to you having had covid when mom had it (remember, you and Alan both tested positive for antibodies last year, right?) but I didn't want to seem like I was blaming mom for giving it to you, especially when, who knows

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you could've been the one who gave it to her.

Mostly, people who have had the exceedingly rare side effect of clots are getting it from the J&J, which I'm pretty sure neither of you got.

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Back to science land -- as you can tell from my bro having had covid now for the 2nd time, having had it in the past provides no guarantee of immunity for the future. So whatever mojo you think you've got going on because you've been exposed -- you're wrong.

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And each time you get it, is like rolling the dice.

Getting the booster reduces symptoms and vastly lowers your chances of hospitalization (and/or helps you survive it if you are hospitalized.)

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Remember when you had covid mom? And you told me you'd never been so sick in your life? And that you wished I could come out there and take care of you, and all I could do was hope if you were hospitalized some other nurse would care for you as much as I care for my patients

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Do you have any idea how helpless that made me feel? How much it broke my heart? How futile my entire nursing existence felt to me? A nurse, who couldn't even get her own mom to take her advice?

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At least then, there was a vague excuse when you got it, it was pre-vaccine. (I mean, I did tell you not to go to Arizona, because it was a plague state at the time, and still is, but I digress.)

But now?

NOW?

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When America, Science, and probably God-himself has provided a way to survive this horrible, devastating, possibly life-taking illness?

And you'd just spurn it?

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Also -- have you thought even for a second about whomever else you'd be exposing to covid, if you had it, even asymptomatically? Do you truly know no one (especially at your age!) who is immunocompromised, disabled, or on chemo???

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Are you willing to callously risk their lives as well? Whomever you pass at the grocery store, when you take off your mask because you've got an itch, whichever poor person walks behind you in that aisle? Everyone you breathe on at church?

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I've spent the entire past two years trying not to kill people.

I am completely baffled and aghast that you're apparently just OK with risking other people's lives.

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Likely you think I'm overblowing things, and that you'll be fine. And yeah, you might be (except for the strangers you possibly help kill on accident) --

But if you're not?

And if you both don't manage to die at exactly the same time, for whatever reason?

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Whichever one of you is still alive, watching the other -- oh, wait, no, no visitors, so you won't even be able to see them -- knowing the other is ALONE at the hospital, possibly dying, and you're not going to be able to love them, hold them, touch them

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and you'll have to live with the knowledge that to some degree, it was all your fault?

That's going to fucking break you.  

My pt's spouse today talked them out of getting vaxed.

You can bet they wish they'd chosen differently now.

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It's broken me, and it hasn't even happened to me personally -- listening to the shrieks and cries of someone who knows that they are ENTIRELY CUPLABLE in their loved one's death.

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It's no wonder people turn to horse paste and drink urine or participate in whatever the quackery de jour is, in an effort to place blame ANYWHERE ELSE than where it solidly belongs -- their inability to suck it up and get the most miraculous shot that's been created

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this century.

I am sorry if it seems like the science changes -- science is supposed to change, it's not absolute, it's always being tested, and most things are theories until proven. I realize this malleability is what makes vast chunks

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of America distrust science, because if science ever changes its mind, they feel ripped off or something, when in actuality, science is always supposed to be improving

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upon data that's come before and adjust for new situations.

I don't know what to say past this. I don't know how I can live in science-land over here, and watch you sink into a backwater by choice. I'm sorry that we only talk about cat stuff now, but I honestly don't know

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what else to talk to you all about -- I can't trust you with my hopes and dreams anymore, because you don't acknowledge the reality I'm living in, the one where actions have consequences, and millions of people have died for nothing

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and millions of people have died for nothing, including nurses who had to risk their own lives taking care of fools.

If you'd seen even 1/16 of what I had at the hospital, you'd be willing to get in line to get a shot every month if you needed to.

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I love you all so much, but I'm also so angry with you all. And I don't really have much strength left to spend -- I need to spend my entire time when I'm not at work being happy, gardening

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and hanging out online with friends who acknowledge covid's real and who've taken all their shots and who will continue to do so.

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I know this means we're at another exciting impasse and I guess you all can do what you want, again, and if the worst comes to pass, I'll manage to bite my tongue, but if one of you kills the other I'll be pissed at whoever survives.

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