Corona patient shared online details of his dealings and received hundreds of responses • "Around the patients are changing, according to the sad staff eyes I understood alone"
Corona Department at Shaare Zedek Hospital
Photography:
Oren Ben Hakon
Despite the closure of the State of Israel, the morbidity rate continues to be high and severe, and every day the death toll continues to climb.
Tomer Chachmon, who contracted the corona virus, posted a Facebook post that soon went viral, revealing the hospital experiences, the heavy workload and pressure in the wards, the difficulty and the daily war of the medical staff and especially trying to raise awareness among the public so that as few people as possible experience the nightmare The ongoing one has passed.
In the post, Tomer shared in dealing with the illness, anguish and intensive care he went through, expressing anger towards those who despise Corona and begging people to keep the guidelines.
"I do not usually post on social media, but in view of the contempt and failure to follow the guidelines, I thought to myself that maybe if you read, firsthand, experiences of a corona patient you know it will change your attitude," Tomer opened the post.
"My family and I are very strict in following the instructions. We did not celebrate the holidays with the extended family, we did not round corners and get along (who are we actually trying to work on, who will it hurt in the end?), I did not go to gatherings, I did not go to mourners of good friends, I forced myself to isolate and close except for shopping for almost a year.And all I needed in early December was a verified corona patient, who came into my wife's office, only to say hello from afar, to infect my wife - who infected me.
For the first three days everything was fine, we are verified patients, in isolation, without symptoms and then lose the sense of taste and smell, still not terrible except that it is difficult to cook.
On Thursday the coughs start, and I do not know if it is from the dust outside or just a cold.
Get a stochastic gauge (checks the amount of oxygen in the blood) and I'm fine, 96-97 and in a few hours it goes down.
Calling the family doctor, getting antibiotics and "Yad Sara" getting an oxygen balloon and telling me there is nothing to worry about and until Sunday it will pass.
And here was the first mistake - found positive, you started coughing - chicken to hospital.
Every minute is important in the treatment, at most they will photograph you, do a blood test for you and if everything is fine you will be released home.
"Everything was fast - they took me to bed, connected me to a monitor and an oxygen machine"
On Saturday the situation worsened, but the doctors at the checkout said it was reasonable.
And on Sunday when I felt it was not, I turned to the cashier, demanded and insisted on being evacuated to a hospital.
An MDA ambulance arrived, connected me to the sturgeon, startled me and within a second connected me to a large oxygen balloon and in the sound of sirens evacuated me to a hospital in Nahariya. Everything was fast, I was taken to bed, connected to a monitor, and within an hour a whole team arrived. , Did a chest x-ray, connected me to an oxygen mask and explained that as soon as the tests came back they would update me on my condition. I still have the feeling that the tests will be fine, at most I will spend the night in the hospital and return home.
Here came the turn: the doctor approached me and told me - your condition is difficult but stable, 55% of your lungs are not working, too bad you did not arrive earlier.
You now need to stay connected to the mask, and you will be given intravenous steroids (to soothe the body storm that is happening because of the corona) as well as abdominal injections so that you do not have clotting and embolism.
I write and inform my family, and as I update them, I already understand that it will not be as simple as I thought and change the mood to a state of war, in which I am going to win.
Looking at the room that became my second home for almost three weeks - no TV, no distress button for the nurses 'room, there is a video camera and a phone through which you can talk to the staff. I wondered how I would talk when I was bedridden? In the nurses' round I ask for their room number and the same The moment is my connection to them, a connection that saved me twice and also some of the patients who were in the room with me.
I look at the people in the room - next to a young man, 41 years old from Kfar Ba'ana, I tell him that I am from Karmiel, and he tells me not to worry and that everything will be fine.
He goes on to say that he arrived ten days before me in a much worse condition than I am, and now he is already being released.
I told him "blessed", and when he returned to his family in the village and warned everyone he knew about the corona - and here I understood the second mistake many people make - "if I recovered from corona then it is not really a serious disease as they say", he tells me when he was released.
And I try to hint to him that this is not the case, but without success.
"I was mistreated, I had hallucinations and slept most of the time"
Within two days my condition worsened, I lay bedridden with no ability to move, I was given a diaper because I could not get up and could barely breathe with the oxygen mask.
The doctor returns to my room and updates that my condition has greatly worsened and I need to connect to an oxygen machine at high pressure flow, and it is no longer a mask but tubes that connect to the nose, and they itch and exhaust but there is nothing to do, without it I do not survive.
In addition, due to my aggravation, increase the amount of steroids from a small 15-minute bag to a huge 6-hour bag.
People react differently to steroids, there are those who become hyper, they move non-stop, extreme emotional reactions of crying and then laughter is uncontrollable, for me also because of the amount, the steroids made me miserable, I had hallucinations, and most of the time I slept.
In the evening the doctor asked if I would agree to participate in the study and take an experimental drug that was supposed to help me - and I in my condition, completely dizzy from the drugs, agreed to everything.
Only in the morning when the doctor came and gave me the experimental drug, I asked him: If it is an experimental drug in the research phase, how do I know I am getting a drug?
Or am I part of the control group that gets a placebo?
His answer was that they did not know either, and I smiled an ironic smile at myself and said that with my luck it would be candy and not the medicine, but still continue to take.
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I got into a hospital routine - there is no separation of curtains between the beds because you have to see at any given moment what the condition of the patients is, and the light is on most of the time, including at night, and at five in the morning you wake up for a fever and blood pressure test. Veins and arteries take my blood and the whole body is already sore and full of hemorrhages in the places they tried, and again a doctor visit, dinner, medication and injections to the abdomen, until at 22:00 there is a final check of fever and blood pressure.
All around the patients take turns, where are they I ask the staff who is covered from head to toe and only his eyes are visible, and they mark a negative movement with the head, their eyes are sad and I already understood alone.
It is not possible to talk to the house because of the mask so I correspond, take care of my wife who is also sick and alone at home, and then realize what an amazing community envelope we have in Carmiel, starting with the mayor and staff who take care of Corona, through my wife's friends and facts. This feeling of loneliness is the hardest to deal with, both in a hospital and at home.
"His powerful father suddenly became a toolbreaker"
One week behind me, and announce that I have a visit - my daughter and son have arrived.
They are already big and my son was verified sick so I was less worried.
When they came in to see me I had a hard time recognizing them at first.
My daughter could not hold herself and started crying.
I tried to calm her down mostly with my hands and it worked a bit.
Allow them to be here for only 10 minutes each, because it's still a dangerous area.
After my daughter, my son comes to me, plays her hero but I realize he is shocked that my speech is very slow and that his strong father suddenly became a broken vessel .. When they left, I tried to hold myself, but I could not, I cried quietly and promised myself it was not the end And there will be many more experiences that I will go through with them, and it is my duty to continue to fight.
The next morning they bring in a new patient, an old Ethiopian, who does not speak Hebrew, and there is no Amharic speaker on the staff who tries his best to ask if he is sensitive to drugs and try a mobile interpreter and it does not work so we do what we all do, oxygen mask, steroids and injections.
The next day at six in the morning an angel arrives, dressed for my citizens who asked if I was from Karmiel, and it took me a few seconds to recognize that she had worked with me in the past and her daughter was my apprentice.
And she brought me a cup of tea and because of her past experience with the absorption of Ethiopian immigrants she talks to that old man and asks how he is, and brings him water.
"Why are you civil and without a mask?"
I ask her, she explains that she has no respiratory problem, only a small inflammation in the gallbladder and because she contracted corona from neighbors / friends who were not careful she is here, but her condition is excellent and she will soon be released.
And so she came to me every day until my release.
During the last two days of my stay in the hospital, I did not see her again and I was very happy that she had already been released home, but after I was released, I learned that her condition had suddenly worsened and she passed away.
My condition slowly improved, and a respiratory rehabilitation came to me and gave me exercises that I could not perform, and he says: "Do not worry it will come and you will be able to do everything."
I was laid on my stomach, I started to choke and then dripped on my back for a minute until my breathing stabilized and the head nurse shouted at me on the intercom to keep lying on my stomach and fight.
"Even the strongest person needs support and faith"
My bed is in front of the nurses' room and the reception, and day by day I see how the number of patients increases, the pressure increases and the amazing staff wears out, and sometimes at night I hear the nurses talking to us, how hard it is for them and I often hear their voices suffocating and crying.
And I say to every medical staff member who deserves a big thank you for saving me and keeping me alive and most of them tell me it's not them that it's God.
And as one who does not believe in the existence of God I thank them again and they again tell me that it is God until we come to the conclusion that it is everyone's cooperation.
Then I realize that a whole year of treating Corona patients even the strongest person needs a strong backing and belief that it is not all up to him just because without it they will collapse.
Another visit from my kids (my wife is still in isolation for a third week) which is now much calmer, my daughter says I look better and then I decide to try to make a short video, and send home that my mother, who I have not seen her for two months and my brother, can Keep up to date with my situation.
I take off the oxygen mask and talk for barely 10 seconds and return it quickly because I start to choke and suddenly realize what I look like, very thin, sunken eyes but still send the video.
The next day one of the brothers in the morning tells me: "Enough with your nonsense that you are sick, what do you think you are on vacation you shower" and I do not know if he laughed at me, and I asked him exactly how I would get to the shower without oxygen, then he brought me a huge oxygen balloon on wheels , Connected me and we went to take a shower.
I sat down on the bed, lowered my legs to the floor and my body collapsed.
Two brothers immediately grabbed me, and together we walked with the balloon to the shower.
I was seated in a chair and the brother told me to "enjoy".
I wondered who would take care of me inside, and then they told me that the shower door was half open, but I did not care. The main thing was to clean the body and go back to doing small things for healthy people.
Closes the second Saturday at the hospital and on Friday morning they shout at me again from the nurses' room: "You have an important phone answer" - the hospital rabbi on the line.
He says to me, "Are you Tomer Hoffman?"
- "Yes" I whisper to him.
The rabbi continues: "I do not know you, but you are probably a great tzaddik if so many people call me and demand that I ask how you are."
I wonder, "Who are those people?", And he gave me a list of names.
I was able to identify them as good friends from the jeep unit of friends in the north, who keep writing to me and strengthening me - as the volunteer unit commander wrote to me: "We are an army of 800 jeeps in the north, there is nothing we can not do. We need you back with us."
"The pressure in the hospital increases - one nurse for 12 patients"
The third week in the hospital begins, my condition is difficult but stable according to the latest doctors update.
The pressure in the hospital is growing and there is one nurse for 12 patients, and they are allowed to be in the red area for 3 hours (where the patients are), and I recognize by the eyes and body structure and speech that there is staff here for 7 hours in a row.
I asked my doctor how long he is on duty (26 hours), and sometimes it takes two to three hours to get to you or the other patients in the room, and lucky to have the phone you call nurses, because here a patient falls out of bed and there another patient hangs out for oxygen or just cries for help.
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Suddenly I notice that much younger guys, in their 20s and 30s who have disrespected and gathered and celebrated at parties and are now paying the price, come to the ward, and they do not know how to cope and it is difficult for them.
And they cry and call for help, call their parents who are not there and I measure with the oxygen balloon and try to calm them down, some at my daughter's age.
And on monday morning they take me again for a ct test, connect me to a portable oxygen balloon, put a cloth mask on the oxygen mask because I have corona, the resuscitation kit is tight (which is really relaxing) and go for a photo.
Three people take me, the close brother from the ward, a transport crew and a security guard who shouts every time "this is a corona patient please move" and I can barely see, but notice that people just move and run away from me, just like a suspicious object.
We got a test and injected a contrast agent into a vein, and after a few minutes I suddenly got a huge heat stroke on my stomach and testicles and the examiner told me it was natural, she did not feel it but it was natural.
In the afternoon the doctor came in and said that the test came out well, my condition is still difficult but the lungs are a little cleaner and there are no pulmonary emboli and in his estimation on Thursday or Friday I will already be home.
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Tuesday at 10 a.m., the day after the photo shoot, almost a month after I was infected, the doctor came in and told me to call home and announce that at noon they would come and pick me up.
I look at him and ask, "Are you sure? I'm wearing a mask, 90-92 stature barely standing" - the doctor replied: Yes, I'm sure.
You recover and I give you 3 sick days and after that you can go back to work. "And go explain to him that I am self-employed and because of the corona I have not worked for 8 months.
I call home to my wife: "Come pick me up but make sure there is an oxygen generator in the house and a small oxygen balloon for the ride."
Passes over to a staff member, who has become a friend over time and I tell him I'm going home and he tells me that in normal condition they would leave me longer, but the pressure is great and need beds for more difficult patients and it sounds more understandable because there is priority.
My wife and daughter arrive, I see them in the safe area, disconnect me from all the needles I had in my hands all this time, disconnect me from the oxygen mask, I measure with great difficulty, the pants fall off me (I lost 8 kg) A security guard takes me in a special elevator to Corona patients and down waiting I have my wife and daughter. I take a few more steps, and just collapse on my wife and keep crying. My daughter "steals" a wheelchair from the emergency room and so they bring me to the car.
And now I have to enter the house and there are 8 steps to the door and just drag me, I lie on the couch, no Air, practice breathing and relax slowly.
After a week and a bit at home, I am still coughing, barely walking, the body is very weak and I have not yet left the house I am just waiting to get stronger to go back to the hospital, volunteer and help the staff and patients so that they are not alone.
In the evening he receives a phone call from the Karmiel municipality: "Maybe you can help the family the father of the family is in the hospital and they are very stressed, maybe you will pass on the knowledge to them and then they will be calmer?"
And I answer in the affirmative of course and go along with my wife, because I still have a hard time talking
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I watch TV and get mad at everyone, the ones who break the rules and procedures, the ones who belittle, the ones who trick the cops at checkpoints and that's all, not a certain sector, not a certain age just everyone.
I'm begging you now - enough with that, hold back, report to the police / 106 any gathering you see.
Do not leave the house if you do not really have to, do not succumb to momentary temptations of pleasure, take care of yourself and your loved ones.
