In 2007, Cec's first cousin Lois, invited us to her daughter Allison's wedding in Edmonton. Allison and Damon still live in Alberta, have four children and so far they are keeping well. Damon's best man at their wedding is a Neurosurgeon in Texas. Here is his story:
Damon's friend's,
Joey Kevin Grochmal
, recent comments about COVID: 14 days after my symptoms appeared, and 12 days after diagnosis, COVID continues to kick my ass like a red-headed step child. Had a few days of respite where I felt better, but now 48 hrs of new myalgias and 24/7 stabbing abdominal pain. Kathryn has managed to skip the stomach pain but is almost bedridden with flu symptoms. Was more short of breath yesterday than I had been since the outset. I honestly didn't expect to be bent over this hard by a virus that seems to keep coming back on every few days with new and unique symptoms; headache, sore throat, stomach pain, you name it. We're fortunate that we seem to have dodged any critical manifestations.
Certainly though if I realized before that COVID might appreciably decondition me for MONTHS I might have tried to avoid it a bit harder. I had some workout goals dialed-in for the next two months that are basically trashed now, as trivial as that sounds it pisses me off. So while I know many people are of the mind that everyone should just get it and get it over with, I'm here to tell you that for many people (myself included) it can be like getting hit by a truck, repeatedly, from different angles, and just after you thought the truck went away. I'd certainly avoid it if possible.
Not that you even can avoid if you tried in this COVID soup of a town I live in, I'm talking more to my other friends who live elsewhere.
Why is nobody in Lubbock talking about how bad COVID is in Lubbock right now? I just listened to Dan Pope talk about the direction for the city, the re-elected mayor, and he lent basically zero concern or gravitas to the COVID issue; it was basically a side note in his speech. Maybe I'd feel better about the situation if somebody was actually raising alarm bells. Our recent death tolls in Lubbock (population a few hundred thousand) are 1/2 that of Los Angeles county, with a population of who knows how many million. Our case numbers in Lubbock alone mirror those of my home province of Alberta. For those 'Mericans who have no idea where that is, it is a Canadian "state" with the land mass of Texas and a population of 4.4 million people or so.
I would classify myself as a liberatarian. It's one of the reasons that I love Texas and Lubbock in general. I feel that capitalism is awesome and anyone should be able to do anything they want, so long as those actions don't harm other people. I am 100% for personal liberty and minimal government involvement, and for each person assuming a personal responsibility in doing their part to decrease transmission, and I wish that as humans in this city we were capable of that, but we have shown with enthusiasm that we are absolutely incapable of making these decisions of our own accord. Being a citizen or a member of society is about maintaining personal rights and freedoms, which I support wholeheartedly, but also about responsibility. EVERYONE wants the rights, NOBODY likes the responsibility part. I don't care if the illness isn't fatal. Could you have done something to keep your neighbor healthy but didn't because it was inconvenient? There is a name for that, it's called being an asshole. We have been given ample chance here in Lubbock to demonstrate that individuals can have the intelligence and responsibility required to manage pandemic precautions without draconian enforcement, and we are FAILING that test as humans, miserably. How much rope should a population be allowed to hang themselves with? How much of a public heath crisis is justified in trying to give each person their own autonomy in following recommended health policy? Right now the position in Lubbock is "all the rope" and "let's try not to think about it".
The ambivalence towards mask wearing and distancing in this city absolutely astounds me, as effective as these measures may or not be I can guarantee you the odds of transmission are less if you stay the hell at home rather than hang out in large groups shoulder to shoulder, maskless or rocking the "chin diaper". I bring it up with people and they come back with "well you just don't know what to believe" etc. OK, sure. Well I would suggest some field research for you; get off you tube and walk yourself down to the two tent hospitals being erected in the parking lots of UMC and Covenant where we are now moving the overflow COVID patients because the hospitals proper are full. When are the warning lights going to start flashing around here? I thought MASH units of COVID patients in the parking lots would have done it. Guess not.
And not that it matters now anyway. My gut tells me the COVID genie can't be put back in the bottle in Lubbock at this point. I'm getting quite nihilistic and from that perspective somewhat glad, in a twisted way, that I was infected and am getting through COVID before the submerged iceberg of exponential case growth brings the system completely to it's knees. We have Thanksgiving and Christmas around the corner, with basically zero measures thus far taken to reduce the rate of infections at all, no limits at all on indoor gatherings, and no enforcement of the relatively weak restrictions that actually are in place.
Welcome to COVID hell for the next who-knows how many months, Lubbock. From personal experience I know that moribund patients from the periphery who need intensive care support, while being worked up as life gift for organ transplant, potentially giving a new heart to somebody's mother, a new set of lungs to somebody's child, a new liver to a father of three, are not able to be transferred in due to ICU bed capacity issues. That is the kind of medical care that is currently being sacrificed to service the in-hospital COVID demand. Hope your mom didn't need a new heart. For that matter don't get sick or in an accident for the next several (?) months I would say, if you can avoid it. My hats off to our hospital systems and administrators who are going above and beyond to manage the demand as best as is humanly possible for the resources we have. But it's starting to resemble trench medicine. Hundreds of health care workers are being flown in from out of county to replace the ones out on isolation with COVID themselves, and to staff the new tent hospitals.
And the funny thing is that you hear nothing about it anymore in Lubbock, on the news or from our leaders, compared to when COVID first came out and we had 2% of our current numbers of active infected people. Like we're all on the Titanic and people are complaining about the deckchair arrangement, never mind that gooshing sound from below decks. I get that people are just "tired of hearing about it". So am I, but my crystal ball tells me this one will not be swept under the rug so easily. 6 months from now I want to hear from anybody in Lubbock who didn't have their life or their health significantly impacted by the squeeze that this virus is going to put on this city over the holidays and new year. Because you ARE going to get it, and though you probably won't die there is a very good chance that it will do a serious number on you for a long long time. And forget about getting any medical care except for reasons of life and death for I have no idea how long. If Lubbock as a city doesn't get palpably submitted in a triangle choke by COVID in the next several months I am ready and willing to come back on Facebook and recant this whole thing. But for what I fear is coming, I can only hope that a few of you look back to the point of Rubicon, likely now long past, and question if maybe, just maybe, we couldn't have done things a little differently.
