Tag Archives: survival

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Covid-19: simplified self care

  1. I am a Family Practice Physician for 30 years. I have had pneumonia four times. I last got pneumonia on March 20, 2021 and I am still off work and on oxygen. This is the first time I have been on oxygen. No tobacco, no marijuana, no lung disease found to date but my mother had tuberculosis when I was born and my father smoked unfiltered Camels. With the hospital beds filling up, this is to help keep people out of the emergency room if they don’t need to be there and to help people track how sick they are.
  2. Learn to take your pulse. You need a second hand. Your heart rate is the number of beats in 60 seconds. Take it at rest (which means sitting or lying down). Then try taking it after you walk. It should be regular unless you have known atrial fibrillation. Also, if you are fifty or older, you may skip some beats so that you have early or late ones. That is not worrisome.
  3. Normal is 60-100. If you are very out of shape, you might go up to 120 after you run up the stairs or walk fast.
  4. If your resting pulse is 120 or higher, call your physician. If you are very short of breath with that or your lips are turning blue, call an ambulance right away.
  5. If your resting pulse is normal, say, 70 beats per minute, and your pulse after walking goes up 30 points or over 100, you are sick. If you are very short of breath after walking you may need oxygen. Call your physician and walk… really… slowly. When your lungs are swollen, there is less air space to exchange oxygen and your heart makes up the difference. If your heart is beating at over 100 for long, it is like running a marathon. Don’t stop walking completely because you are at risk for blood clots. But walk really slowly.
  6. If your resting pulse is normal and your walking pulse is ok, try a loaded walk. Carry something that weighs 20 pounds if you can. Then sit down and check a pulse again. If it is over 100 or jumps 30 points, you too have lung swelling, it’s just a little more subtle. You need to rest too.
  7. With practice, you will have a good idea what your pulse is before you do a formal count.
  8. You can use a pulse oximeter but you have to use it accurately. The fingers should be not moving and lying on the person’s knee or table or something. Otherwise it will give inaccurate readings and scare you. With a regular heart rate, look for the light to be picking up regularly before you believe the oxygen level. O2 sats under 87% need oxygen, but also if someone is going below 95% or is a child, call doctor or ambulance.
  9. Take a multivitamin. It is a lot of work for your heart to race fast. Rest, rest, rest. I have had 4 rounds of pneumonia with lung swelling. It took two months, two months, a year and this time I am five months post pneumonia and still on oxygen.
  10. Don’t use quack supplements and don’t take veterinarian ivermectin. Hello, you are not a sheep.
  11. Remember that if someone is hypoxic, they may act goofy, happy and unconcerned or be scared or have memory loss or just be confused. I write really weird rhyming songs when hypoxic and have the poor judgement to sing them to my doctor.
  12. GETTING VACCINATED IS YOUR BEST BET TO NOT DIE OF COVID-19. AND WEARING A MASK ALL THE TIME AROUND OTHER PEOPLE.

Good luck and take care.

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outfits inappropriate for work 2

When pneumonia nearly takes me out, I want COLOR. I think I managed it with this. The skirt is not only silly, but a little short for me to wear to work….

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survived

Pneumonia is weird. I look good after I manage to not die from it. I start going outside a little more and I run in to people. “You look good,” they say.

“I nearly died of pneumonia.” I say.

“….but you LOOK good,” they say, looking confused.

It was weirdest in 2012 and 2014 when I had strep A and sepsis symptoms and couldn’t get any doctor in town to believe me. The out of town Pulmonolgist and Psychiatrist did. The ENT didn’t really care. The Neurologist said that it was not myasthenia gravis or one of those weird muscle diseases. How do you KNOW, I asked. “Your lungs are getting better and they wouldn’t be if it was one of those.” “Oh. So this is just really bad strep A in my muscles.” “Yes.” “And I will get better?” “I think so, eventually.” “But we don’t know and don’t know when.” “Correct.” How non-reassuring. The Infectious Disease doctor said we don’t know how to treat you but you can TRY taking one 250mg penicillin tablet daily. Didn’t work. I got nauseated pretty soon. In contrast to when I have pneumonia and can take 500mg four times a day. It’s ridiculous. The asthma/allergy testing was all negative and after the 2014 round my lungs healed.

I hope they do this time too.

I wonder if people will have the same, “Hey, you look really good,” as much with me being oxygen. Except I have the mask over the oxygen tubing (talk about tangled!!) so they can’t see my face anyhow.

“Hey, how are you?” someone says.

I hold up the oxygen tubing.

“OH.” they say.

“Okay,” I say.

Okay.