I haven't been personally affected (yet).
I'm still staying the fuck indoors as much as possible, and wearing whatever face covering I can manage when I go out.

(Thread. 1/17) https://twitter.com/KrystinaArielle/status/1263901184407924742

I've said before that if I get COVID19, I will probably die.

It's not an exaggeration. It's a statement born of the knowledge of what COVID19 degenerates into. I've HAD what COVID19 degenerates into.

CW: Medical trauma.

2/17

ARDS is terrifying for those who care for you and, until you lose consciousness and are placed on the vent, it's terrifying for you. You can't breathe. Every time you cough, you find blood. You're drowning, but there's no water.

3/17

If you're lucky, you wake up in the ICU after a few weeks of being in a medically-induced coma. There's a tube down your throat connected to the vent that's breathing for you. You have a feeding tube that's pushing nutrients that taste like a fish milkshake.

4/17

You're high on painkillers. It's how I know morphine mixed with ativan makes me hallucinate, and how I know about my vancomycin allergy. You look at your hands, and you can see each bone because your muscles have atrophied.

5/17

Every couple of hours, a nurse comes in to turn you onto your back to beat your lungs in order to clear out the mucus that's hardened onto them, then turns you back over to suction it out of your breathing tube.

6/17

This all goes on while you're unconscious as well. Just as a note.

7/17

You're kept in the coma during the worst of it. Most of my knowledge of this experience comes from my mom, who never left my side for the month I was hospitalized.

8/17

My lungs collapsed. I had 5 chest tubes put in - by the way, those are WEIRD when they come out, and the scars don't go away.
Because of the mucus and tearing in my lungs, I went septic. Ultimately, this is what almost killed me.

9/17

I was the first recipient of an adult-sized oscillator, since the ventilator wasn't keeping my O2 levels up. That oscillator, the wonderful doctors and nurses at @AlbanyMed, and - perhaps most of all - my mom are why I'm able to sit here and type this thread.

10/17

I was 13 when I went into the PICU in April 2004. At that time, there was about an 85% mortality rate, and a girl a couple of years older than me from a neighboring school district had just died from it the week before.

Now, the rate is 36-52%.

11/17

I was lucky and made a remarkable recovery with minimal immediate complications once it started. About a month after finishing rehab - I needed to relearn how to walk and train my muscles back up - a cyst was found on my spleen. It was easily dealt with.

12/17

The lingering complications began later. My junior year of high school, I fainted after running because I couldn't get enough air. This was isolated, I thought, and I simply received a note from my doctor saying that I could no longer run.

13/17

My own respiratory therapy regimen that I created for myself was singing. It's what led to my studying voice in community college, and why I'm not entirely tone-deaf. It was tough, but my lungs never felt better.

Then I had to stop.

14/17

Rapidly, my respiratory health deteriorated. I've seen multiple pulmonology specialists. I've been diagnosed with chronic bronchitis and, because of the scarring from the ventilator, only have 60% of my lung function on a good day.

15/17

Taking a deep breath leads to a coughing fit and chest tightness. I still sing, but my breath control is shoddy at best because of this. My lungs hurt constantly. If you see me, I am probably in pain, but I'm so used to it that I can put on a brave face and continue on.

16/17

COVID19 degenerates into this, and is the complication that kills people. If it doesn't kill me at first, the lingering effects will, because they will compound with my problems from my first go-round with ARDS.

That's why I stay the fuck inside.

17/17