Well it eventually had to happen in my practice:

[PCIntern]

Since 1980, I have treated a family in my practice wherein the husband and father is a well-known local politician. He represented an area of the city that was extremely, Shall we say, caucasian-oriented. His politics were far right, his attitudes towards people of color were, and I’ll be polite, questionable, and he was a giant Trump supporter. He lived and breathed all things Trump. Trump was the man who led him to the promised land and I know you all understand exactly what I’m talking about. And I have to be circumspect here because this is a public figure and of course I am restrained by HIPAA from revealing who this is or discussing certain aspects in detail.

He was virulently anti-mask and anti-social distancing and anti-just about everything that you can imagine. As an aside, He and his whole family had a warm spot in his heart for me because I literally saved his 18 year-old son’s life , but That is a story for another day. Well, guess who died from COVID-19? He had been somewhat compromised medically and succumbed very rapidly. Three days from initial symptoms to termination. He had been to a mask-less party at the New Jersey Shore, sickened appropriately thereafter and just gave out.

For the record, his wife and children whom I’ve known my entire career have always been nothing but polite and gracious with me and interestingly, the only Jewish High Holiday card I received routinely from my patients in all these years is from this family. I once estimated that I’ve lost approximately 11,000 people who are my active patients, and as a great writer once wrote every man’s death diminishes me, but the rapidity with which this Mercilessly took this man’s life was positively frightening. In a way, this is like a discount Herman Cain story.

It just goes to show that the virus doesn’t care what you think or who your idol is.

[Squinch]

1. Jesus! 11,000! That's astonishing. And that's just the dead and not the permanently maimed, right

[PCIntern]

3. Maimed is about 75000

[Squinch]

5. My beloved doctor has a very small practice and she is visibly devastated when she talks about the

patients she has lost despite her really heroic efforts.

I am so sorry to hear this. I can't imagine the toll that takes on you. I hope you are taking care of your own mental as well as physical health.

[PCIntern]

6. I'm a disaster area

This place keeps me sane. I’m not kidding.

[Squinch]

8. I don't even know what to say. You have taken on the burden of the ills of our society, really,

and in a very personal way.

I am in awe, for whatever that is worth.

[yardwork]

24. I'm sorry for how this is affecting you.

In my community, the large health systems are providing mental health resources and support for their providers and employees. Do you have any support or resources that you could access?

My heart goes out to you and all the providers on the front lines of this. I see the toll it is taking on all of you.

PM me if you would like more details. I will be glad to share the resources local to my area.

[barbtries]

36. i believe you.

we should all make a warm sheet with phone numbers and emails in case the russians invade again this election. DU is my virtual home.

Thank you for keep keeping on during this pandemic. None of us were trained for this.

[GeoWilliam750]

55. I, too, am in awe

And very grateful for what you have done to heal the world one person at a time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And

Thank you.

[Ilsa]

66. I know what you mean.

Still, you might feel better talking to a pro, or maybe meeting (virtually) with a group of other doctors asa support group.

A little further south of me, we just lost a fifteen year old.

[PCIntern]

68. I'm ok actually

It’s part of the business of doing what I do. But thank you...

[samnsara]

2. every damned one of these deaths is trumps fault...

..everything trump touches dies.

Im sorry for the loss of this man and the other people who made the wrong choice because of trump*

[pwb]

4. Republicans live like life is forever?

And they leave a awful stench behind for what?

[PJMcK]

7. Your stories are gut-wrenching

This one illustrates a baffling feature of today's Luddites.

The science is unequivocal: Covid-19 is easily transmitted and can be fatal very quickly. If a patient survives, this virus can leave serious lasting effects.

Why is that so hard for some people to understand?

Thank you for the battles you fight. For what it's worth, you've earned my deepest respect.

[mitch96]

9. As a previous medical professional, he is fortunate he went quick

I've seen too many linger on a respirator or in a state of vegetation only to succumb later on down the road. Life is a balance and we can't appreciate the light if we don't experience the dark.
m

[PCIntern]

11. You're right about that

The way Some people talk about ventilators you would think that they were some benign Star Trek type breathing machine And all will be well by the end of the show, and Dr McCoy will just save them from a terrible fate. Not so fast, Abercrombie.

[mitch96]

13. My close friends father was on a vent after a botched bowel surgery. He got a bad case of

Ventilator brain... Never the same again.. He was always off a bit after that. Previously he was sharp as a tack at 68. He just slowly went down the drain. Now was it just his time to get dementia? Or did the vent help it along... Double blind placebo controlled study.... but how do you placebo a vent experience???
m

[catbyte]

16. No kidding. My late husband had been a brittle Type I Diabetic from age 4. About twice a year

his blood sugar levels would go wildly out of whack no matter how tightly we monitored it. His blood sugar would soar into the 800-1200 range and then ketoacidosis would set in and off to the hospital we go. More often than not he'd have to be put on a ventilator for 2-3 days until they got his blood sugar under control. It was brutal every time. He developed vascular dementia 3-4 years before he died and I've often wondered if all those ventilator treatments had something to do with it.

[paleotn]

17. Indeed.

surprisingly merciful for this bug.

[mitch96]

39. The trick is to die as young as possible at a very old age!! nt

[3Hotdogs]

10. Step daughter, R.N. in a Newark hospital. When the virus hit, all nurses were

switched to virus care. During the first weeks, she reported, "No one has left the I.C.U., alive.

[JudyM]

42. !

Stunning.

[LittleGirl]

12. Wow, poor soul.

If I get it, I want to go fast too, if it’s going to kill me.

RIP old man

[BumRushDaShow]

14. Wow.

I think I know who you are talking about. Didn't realize he had died until I saw an article this morning.

Hadn't really heard his name in the news much lately but he used to be in the news ALL the damn time...for decades... and not for anything "good".

[mnhtnbb]

27. One click on google

identifies who this likely is.

[BumRushDaShow]

28. Or

having a subscription to the Philly Inquirer...

(but am trying to help PCIntern's attempt at "privacy" here...)

[Marcuse]

44. He seemed nice....

“He was one of the most virulent homophobes in Philadelphia history and his open and abusive disdain for gays and people with AIDS led to one of the first unified takedowns of a politician by the collective force of the LGBT community.

[He] was also known for throwing the word “faggot” along with a punch, as he did in the 1979 incident with Street, calling him and Street’s brother, Milton, then a state representative, the anti-gay slur.

Throughout his years in City Council, the popular working-class former boxer was known for his virulent homophobia. This led to a concentrated effort to defeat [him] in one of the first significant political actions of the Philadelphia gay community. A campaign to unseat [him] was launched by Pride Of Philadelphia Election Committee (POPEC), Philadelphia’s first LGBT political action committee (PAC).”

[Hassin Bin Sober]

65. Sounds like good riddance to me.

[Hekate]

60. Well, yeah, but if people get too far into this detective game, the OP will have to self-delete

[smirkymonkey]

61. I think I know who this is as well.

He was pretty old, but I am still surprised that he went that quickly. I especially don't understand elderly people who don't take precautions.

[Kid Berwyn]

15. I am sorry for your loss, Doctor.

The virus is insidious. So is the person most responsible for it’s spread in the United States, demented Donnie the NAZI, Unstable Moron and Putin’s Puppet.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

18. Thank you for sharing that story, good Doctor. We need to hear those stories.....

to help protect us from complacency and carelessness with this horrible disease.

I think often of those emergency care doctors and nurses who have lost close friends and associates in their workplace to COVID-19, even after taking the best of safety precautions. I suffered substantial losses in the last year among my family and friends, but these folks must be in a constant state of mourning and fear of what's to come in the months ahead.

Stay safe and take good care of yourself........

[AllaN01Bear]

19. its amaizing how immune from things that these people feel.

i have some of them in the apartment complex that i live and they feel immune from evrything, from the loss of their pension bennies to pos loss of ss , ssi , ssd and now this, " its fake , its not real, the list goes on and on.

[malaise]

20. We all eventually die

but fools often die for wont of wisdom.

[Martin Eden]

21. He embraced a poisonous ideology

Ultimately, it killed him.

Too bad it's killing so many others who did not do it to themselves.

[UserNotFound]

22. Sad story.

But, as you say, "...the virus doesn't care..." My chiropractor passed away 2 weeks ago from covid-19. He was much beloved and affectionately known as "Dr. Big Hands".

Anti-maskers are a strange bunch. My best friend of over 40 yrs calls them Branch Covidians. I wish I'd thought of that!

[lindysalsagal]

35. Branch Covidians. (Branch Davidian: Waco) So star trek!

I'm keeping that. along with this DU gem:

"Did he catch The Hoax?"

[niyad]

23. There are not enough words to thank you for your incredible service.

Like all the others here, I have the deepest respect for you, and cannot even begin to imagine how you are holding up. Remember that your DU family is here for you.

I lost a friend to this plague last Sunday. I has learned only recently that he had turned trumpet, totally anti-mask. Even coming out of ICU the first time, he refused to take the disease seriously. He relapsed, back to ICU, and a vent. His daughter had to sign the papers to remove life support.i am still angry.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

43. Oh my dear niyad...

[niyad]

57. Thank you so much, Peggy. He was the third person I know personally.

First died in April.second one, recovering, from June. Now this.

I pray for all of us daily, and check on as many people as I can. Seems so little against the enormity of this horror.

Be safe and well.

[PCIntern]

69. This is a terrible time.

It stinks.

[appleannie1]

25. The one's that get me are the "It's my choice" crowd.

Fine, if they are all so gung ho about dying, take your precious gun, load it and do yourself in without infecting others in the process. Other people CHOOSE to live and are trying to avoid the virus.

[OMGWTF]

34. Bet most of that choice doesn't apply to women's bodies.

[mitch96]

40. I never under stood the logic. It's all about the life of the fetus but after the kid is born...

fuck 'em..... they are on their own...
m

[jmowreader]

58. Exactly.

I went to Carl's Jr yesterday for lunch. In the parking lot was a pickup truck just covered in anti-abortion bumper stickers. (The truck was an old rust bucket; I'm pretty sure he chose these stickers both for their message and for the exceptionally strong glue on them.) Out comes the driver wearing a shirt claiming it would violate his rights to wear a mask.

So...I can't tell you what to do but you can order around every woman in America? Gotcha.

[Joinfortmill]

26. Thank you, doc. Stay safe.

[nuxvomica]

29. Our brains are supposedly wired for survival

So I guess when Anna Freud articulated the concept of "identification with the aggressor", she wasn't describing just a phenomenon but an actual disease. As a health-care provider, it is probably especially sad for you to see the conditions that are not only preventable, but easily so. Wearing a mask outside the house is just so much easier than even regular brushing and flossing are. Peace to you and to his family.

[Demovictory9]

30. 11K lost from C19?? wow.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

37. No. He means that over the years he's lost about 11,000 altogether.

Not recently from Covid-19.

[Roc2020]

31. three days. that's dizzying

sorry for your loss. This virus is like a rabid hyena shredding lives and lots of people think they can still toy and play with it.

[Larissa]

32. Thank you, Doctor

. . . for sharing. It's a serious lesson to be learned. We must learn it every day. It is baffling that some folks chose not to do so. This pandemic rages on in this country without any national "all hands on deck" effort to stop it. It's a very ominous sign that a state, such as Florida, is doctoring the infection and death rate numbers downward. It means that Covid-19 is out of control there.

Here are some of my shopworn maxims for sharing:

"I have never seen a virus in which the spectrum is so extreme. This disease goes from nothing to death."
~~ Dr. Anthony Fauci

From a New York City health commissioner: "We won't be able to move in front of this virus until we respect its power."

Twenty-five to forty-five percent of the totality of infected people likely are without symptoms. The key is to act as though everyone has it.

[soldierant]

51. "respect." I'm not sure that's a concept that is possible for a Trumpkin to grasp.

[Wawannabe]

33. ...

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

38. Somehow I can't work up any sympathy for someone

who has been willfully ignorant of this disease. Virulently anti-mask? I'm only sorry he died so quickly and easily. Or that he actually used precious medical resources during that short time.

[Kacy]

54. Try again.

It’s the second thought that counts.

[lunatica]

41. Hugs to you!

This has to be hard on you! Patients you’ve known for many years are like an extended family. I went to the same periodontist for a couple of decades. When I found out he had died I was inconsolable! I broke down in his office and couldn’t stop crying. I had to go back to my car to cry my eyes out! It felt like someone in my family had died.

[VA_Jill]

45. I am sorry for you

and for his family. It's a mercy that he went quickly, anyway.

I don't understand these people who absolutely refute science and want to make it all political. I absolutely don't. There are plenty of them where I live. I try to stay as far away from them as I can when I do go out. The fact that we have a president who's an idiot about it doesn't help.

[GoneOffShore]

46. Well, that took me about a minute to figure out who you were talking about.

I'm sorry that you lost a patient. And out of respect for you, I shan't post his name here.

Reading his obit, it's obvious that along with the bad things he did, there was a lot of good there.

Unfortunately he was a dinosaur.

[PCIntern]

47. Figured it wouldn't take long

But the lessons need to be learned.

[GoneOffShore]

49. Absolutely - I only knew about the bad stuff - the obit did mention the good he'd done.

Humans - tough to figure out.

It's amazing that some people don't die of contradiction.

Is that a disease?

[Illumination]

48. Wow! What a story! Thanks for sharing..."3 days from initial symptoms to termination"? He

went very quickly. Goes to show how serious C-19 is!

[cayugafalls]

50. Thank you for sharing the story of the insidiousness of this disease.

We are just now learning about how this disease will impact us for the future.

We need stories like this to remind us to never forget that we are entering a new era when novel diseases are on the rise and will continue to attack the worlds populations as the density increases unabated.

Covid-19 is not the last pandemic.

[Kacy]

52. Note to self

Look up Herman Cain.

Edit: Ah. The Godfather’s Pizza guy. He went public opposing masks. Went to Tulsa Trump Rally. Came down with Covid-19. Died.

[Hekate]

53. I'm so sorry; this has been especially hard on members of the medical community...

I’m glad DU keeps you sane — I know I depend on it more than ever. When I read that Skinner was leaving I had a moment of actual panic until I read further.

Take care of yourself, now and always.

[Javaman]

56. 'No Man is an Island'

No man is an island entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne

[elleng]

59. Awful.

Be well.

[Warpy]

62. One wonders if he had a moment during the illness

a moment of perplexity over the fact that he was so certain this was a Democratic hoax, how could it possibly be happening to him? Likely the course of the disease was so rapid that he didn't have time for that.

I've known a few far right patients who have been pleasant and appreciative. I've also had the misfortune of having a few real stinkers in the mix, especially the ones glued to televangelist TV. Even they have been a minority.

His family will need support. Rapid death is easier on the patient but the faster it is, the harder it is on those left behind.

And no, it does no good to anthropomorphize this virus. It exists only to find a cell and use the interior machinery to replicate itself and move on. It doesn't care about the body that cell is in. It is utterly impersonal.

[mvd]

63. I'm sorry to hear that

At his age and with his condition, he should have been especially careful. Amazing ignorance. I actually had to look up who you are talking about. It said he turned Republican around when Trump occupied the WH. Even as a Democrat, he showed racism.

[ZZenith]

64. I'm sometimes tempted to move to Philly just so I can have you for a doctor.

Thanks for your humanity, it’s really a great thing to witness.

[PCIntern]

67. Awww.

[LeftishBrit]

70. 11000?

How awful.

I don't really need to tell you this, but do stay safe: IIRC you're a dentist, so will have contact with people's mouths - please make sure you always have all the necessary PPE.

[PCIntern]

71. Thank you...

Dentists are arguably, with dental personnel, the highest risk occupation in the United States. I have no problem going to work and doing my job, and I just hope and pray every day that I and my coworkers and all the rest of us are safe and healthy at the end of that day.

When I began my practice, it was largely a geriatric practice, because that’s who lived in Center city Philadelphia. Now of course, many thousands of young people have moved in and the town is just hopping and fully regenerated. Sometimes I go back and look at the appointment books from the early 1980s and think about all these great people who are now gone. It is very sobering especially since someday I And everyone else along side me, here and everywhere else in the world will be joining them eventually. The circle of life as it were.