This is an open letter to the editor and anyone in the health care field. Please do not take what I am about to say as being unappreciative for all that you do. I do appreciate those who do that job day in and day out. But this pandemic is causing collateral damage. My mother is one of those collateral damage. She did test positive for Covid 19. However, what sent her to the hospital was NOT covid. She wasn’t that sick. Wasn't running a fever. Coughing up just a tinge of blood. Didn’t feel that bad, just had a slight cough. Doctors at emergency room did an x-ray. Immediately wrote it off as double pneumonia because of the covid. Sent her to a hospital in Joplin who didn’t take time to look twice. Started treating her for covid.
Turns out that wasn't what was wrong. She was starting into Congestive heart failure. And no one asked family history, listened to my strong objections that covid wasn’t what was wrong. Instead, told me I didn't know about this virus, or what I was talking about. Let her get worse, isolated, and then set her home. Only for her to go back 3 days later worse than she was. We are now at 10 days in another ICU, and finally one doctor listened. Dr Fleiman and Dr Escerra were the only ones who took the time to not just write it of as covid. That was when her Congestive heart failure was spotted.
But it all may be too late. My mother is 89 and the damage may be too great. And yet they are all treating it as covid is the primary problem. It isn’t and I am sick to DEATH of the tunnel vision some of these doctors and nurses have now. Did everyone suddenly stop getting sick from other things besides Covid? Is this the only thing that matters to anyone anymore? Is everything, every death that shouldn’t have happened be excused because of this pandemic we are dealing with?
If any doctors, nurses, radiologists, techs, lab techs, ANYONE in the medical field reads this, please, I am begging you. Slow down. Take a second look. Don't become so focused on this pandemic you miss other everyday ordinary illnesses that people suffer from. CHF is still out there. Asthma, common cold, allergies, food poisoning all these things are still a around. Don’t make another daughter or son or husband or wife make that final conversation with their loved one when they shouldn't have to.
I keep saying one phrase over and over in my head - she wasn't that sick. She wasn't even running a fever. And now I have to think about taking her home to die. She wasn’t that sick.
Lisa Wiggin
Webb City, MO
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