Had a family member give up because of the loneliness associated with being in a facility that shut down. The facility was meant to be a temporary measure until surgery (cancer) could be done. Instead, they signed a DNR and stopped eating/drinking, and no amount of cajoling over the phone could change their mind. My nurse cousin managed to guilt the facility into letting them in to sit, with full complement of PPE, so that my uncle wouldn’t die alone, but he didn’t know them by that point. Not death due to COVID, but wouldn’t have happened at that time without COVID. He might have eventually died of cancer, but if not for COVID, surgery wouldn’t have been delayed and he would have had a good chance for recovery this year.
I’ve never been grateful for alzheimers, because it’s s***ty, but my grandma is doing fine in her memory care unit, because they have schedules and every day is the same, and she doesn’t remember that my grandpa is gone, and just lives her life, without knowledge that the outside world is crazy.
my wife’s grandfather passed this year (lots of health issues, was 91). He spent his last 6 months at home with few visitors, then went to hospice and died a few days later. I think his daughters did visit him once at hospice and a few times in the months before. The patriarch of the family for 50 years, killed me to watch it unfold like this.
Some solace, he had severe mental decline late last year and it is likely he rarely understood his situation this year. I saw him xmas 2019 and he didnt know me or my wife.
The family who was in our bubble until a few months ago (we were watching her kids, she’s a nurse, then school started and they started seeing other people without telling us, so we stopped seeing them) went to Thanksgiving with her family, and then his. Her sister tested positive over the weekend, so likely gave it to at least some of the family. We really made the right call there.
doesn’t her being a nurse make her not entirely safe? although, so far, my father’s nurse who works in the covid wing of a nursing home every other weekend managed to avoid getting covid.
she’s taking december off from the nursing home. i’m hoping by the time she goes back in january there is a vaccine available to medical workers, but that might be too soon. she avoided the virus so far though, but it’s getting really bad again on staten island and the nursing home is again a disaster. might be reaching march/april levels again there. i know they had to open field hospitals again on staten island.
concerns me with my father in that i don’t know how long that immunity lasts that he got from his bout of covid in march and also because of my mother who lives in the same house, but they are being more careful in my mother staying on the other floor and separated now that it’s an issue again on staten island.
No one is entirely safe. She was an essential worker who needed childcare, and she didn’t work in a COVID ward (although we would have watched her kids if she did; someone had to). We see a difference between the exposure someone has as a result of their jobs or duties, and risks people take on willingly. We were ok with the first, but not the second in her situation, and thankfully she no longer needed childcare by the time it got to that point.
She quit her job because she was being told she was going to be forced to work in the COVID ward. We mused between ourselves that we thought that was…interesting…when it came out later that she wasn’t being entirely responsible, per our previous agreement.
was her reasoning because she fears covid or because it’s depressing? if it’s just a covid fear, then yeah, dumb. my nurse friend has a full armor of ppe now and she is super careful in her daily life outside of the nursing home, so has not caught it so far, and hopefully never will.
We’ve had a family death from COVID and I know a couple other people who’ve tested positive. One was like a mild cold, the other currently still has it and is sleeping about 14 hours a day, and is coughing and has “brain fog”.
We skipped Thanksgiving. I can see family next summer.
In the past month I’ve had 4 nieces or nephews test positive ranging from asymptomatic to potentially high risk due to other medical condition but all 4 seemed to have recovered or soon be back to normal.
This week had an uncle pass away from covid, though in fairness covid seems to have been the last straw as he was first in hospital with pneumonia, then while out on rehab had relapse and got covid going back to hospital which seemed to be too much.
No one was is a mining engineer in Alaska, works in close quarters for 2 week on 2 weeks off with 6 hour bus ride each way picked it up there was asymtomatic and no one else picked it up.
2 were in So Cal. The nephew and roommate work in filming and got it on set where rules were very lax and brought home to niece who has heart condition from birth.
Other niece was in Colorado (with Nephew staying with her and her husband) but so far haven’t heard of it spreading there to rest of family. That one was “just bad cold” and loss of smell.
Uncle, really a cousin but always called him uncle growing up with him being 25 years older than me was in New Jersey.
A few months ago my grandfather (Veterans home) passed from COVID. Last month, my aunt (nurse at a nursing home) fought off a nasty bout, and her daughter (completely ignored all precautions, no masking, distancing, etc.) also had what she called ‘the worst illness of her life.’
My mother tested positive a couple months ago, with just minor coughing symptoms, after going to the hospital for a knee surgery. She’s definitely high risk, so it was a big sigh of relief when she later tested negative.
