Tech Friday: Just a 2022 WordPress.org update
Posted By RichC on January 28, 2022
In an attempt to start 2022 off right, I’ve updated MyDesultoryBlog.com‘s WordPress to the current 5.9 … along with the interface that I’ve never learned to use or appreciate. Someday perhaps?
Since this was a pretty short Tech Friday blog entry, I’ll include a JAMA guest link from my daughter that reminded her (and me) of MomC’s final days … and I thought about DadC too. Thanks Katelyn.
January 25, 2022
Poppy’s Final Lesson — Nickolas Fouladpour, MDAs a specialist in pulmonary and critical care medicine, I spent most of 2020 and half of 2021 treating patients with severe COVID-19. I managed ventilators and communication with their loved ones in a maelstrom of fear, grief, and exhaustion. The late spring provided a brief, but welcome, reprieve in the number of COVID-19 admissions. I received a call about a gentleman in his 80s, experiencing chronic pain and dementia. For the last 4 months, he resided in a long-term care facility requiring assistance to move between his bed and wheelchair. He had presented with sepsis and a myocardial infarction, but medical management had stalled over the past week and he remained hospitalized with persistent hypotension and worsening kidney function. His family had decided against heroic measures and wanted my opinion on what to do next.
This hospital was new to me, and I clumsily waded through the COVID-19 screening protocol, making my way into his room with unfamiliar trepidation. Upon entering, I saw a frail man writhing in pain as his nurse and daughter looked at me expectantly. He appeared delirious and I worried he wouldn’t recognize me. I grasped his hand and looked into the piercing blue eyes of my grandfather, “Poppy.” He looked up moaning and pleaded, “Son, please do not let them hurt me anymore than they already have.” I closed my eyes, sighed deeply, and looked back at his nurse and across to my mother and slowly nodded my head in resignation. In just over a month, I would begin a “midcareer” fellowship in hospice and palliative medicine.
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