Thread by @Poppyjuice

My strongest memory of COVID:

I was sat in a respirator. They are horrible to wear. It made my nose stream and I'd gone deaf in one ear from pressure on my temperomandibular joint from the mask straps.

I was tired. So, utterly, dog tired.

I'd just reviewed a man, in his 50s

Very little in the way of comorbidity, he was being ventilated, COVID, face down, oxygen saturations terrible, lungs stiff like wood. The regional ECMO centre felt nothing they could offer that would help. There was nothing left I could try either.

He was obviously dying.

I sat down at the phone to call his next of kin.

It's hard enough to have an end of life conversation face to face. Let alone on the phone. Let alone bellowing down the phone through a plastic helmet, unable to hear or talk properly.

His sister answered.

"I'm sorry, but it's

not good news. He's dying, we can't stop it. Can we organise for you to visit?"

She just sobbed. And sobbed. And sobbed.

She was an Emergency Department sister herself. Working through the pandemic.

Her mum had just died of COVID the morning previously.

Her Dad was dying at

home. Unable to come to hospital because there wasn't room for the dying.

She would have to watch him die in her living room.

Whilst she grieved her Mum and now her brother.

She couldn't come

I promised her he wouldn't die alone without caring hands touching.

I hung up.

And I moved on to look at the next person dying. Unable to stop it happening.

It was unrelenting.

I went home. I wanted the company of friends. The blissful ignorance of stupid drinks in a pub.

But we couldn't. So we didn't.

I slept, and came back to run the loop again.

It was what we were asked to do.

It was fucking horrible.

But we did it. In the knowledge we were all in it together.

No cake.

No parties.

No mutual soothing.

No party hats and quizzes and cheese and wine.

Just head down, keep moving, for the greater good.

What a betrayal.

What venal, dismissive, entitled, arrogance.

All animals equal, but some laughing at their own special trough that wasn't available for us routine pigs.

Fuck them.

I loathe them.

I'm so utterly angry today I can't even begin.

They do not deserve to even stand side by side with us who followed their rules.

Let alone lead us.

It's time for a swift, aggressively thorough, clean out of the sleaze that somehow hoodwinked us into tossing their crumbs from the table.

I want a change.

Now.