{"id":30554,"date":"2020-04-03T19:52:43","date_gmt":"2020-04-04T01:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=30554"},"modified":"2023-07-06T13:34:34","modified_gmt":"2023-07-06T19:34:34","slug":"life-in-the-time-of-covid-19-a-crisis-and-a-crocus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/life-in-the-time-of-covid-19-a-crisis-and-a-crocus\/","title":{"rendered":"Life in the time of COVID-19: a crisis and a crocus"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p><em>Bill St. John typically writes about food for UCHealth. This week, he shares his insights on dying &#8230;. and living.<\/em><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_30557\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30557\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-30557 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/03194615\/Bill-photo-tiny.webp\" alt=\"Bill St. John with his medical mask and a will\" width=\"600\" height=\"394\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/03194615\/Bill-photo-tiny.webp 600w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/03194615\/Bill-photo-tiny-300x197.webp 300w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/03194615\/Bill-photo-tiny-150x99.webp 150w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/03194615\/Bill-photo-tiny-200x131.webp 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-30557\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bill St. John is recovering at home and wearing his mask after getting his affairs in order. Photo courtesy of Bill St. John.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"su-callout-box col-xs-12 col-sm-6 right\" style=\"background-color:#dce4e7; color:#2e3b44;\">\n<h3><strong>Where to start with advance care planning<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The Colorado Healthcare Ethics Resource Group has created guides and tip sheets to help people consider specific medical treatments, values and decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cConversations about things we do not have power over help to give us a sense of control,\u201d said Peggy Budai, a nurse practitioner for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/\">UCHealth<\/a> who serves on the state committee that created the guides. \u201cWe cannot predict every choice we may have to make, but we can give those we love the\u00a0guidance to confidently make decisions for us. This is the time to help the people closest to us \u2014our friends, our spouses, our parents or grandparents\u2014get the care that is right for them if they become seriously ill with COVID-19.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Consider your next steps with these tools:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Use the Conversation Project\u2019s\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/07112046\/Conversation-Project-COVID-Guide.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Being Prepared in the Time of COVID-19<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>guide and start talking\u00a0<strong>today <\/strong>with a trusted loved one in person, by phone, or video chat.<\/li>\n<li>Complete a\u00a0<strong>Medical Durable Power of Attorney Document MDPOA. <\/strong>You can fill\u00a0it out on UCHealth\u2019s patient portal, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/access-my-health-connection\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">My Health Connection<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(helpful <a href=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/07112104\/My-Health-Connection-MDPOA-instructions-04072020.docx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">instructions<\/a>).<\/li>\n<li>Review the <a href=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/07112052\/COVID-19-Treatment-Decision-Support-Guide.docx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong><u>COVID-19 Treatment Decision Guide.<\/u><\/strong><\/a> If you go to the hospital and become seriously ill, these are the questions you likely will be asked.<\/li>\n<li>Watch the\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=34_Rsb3HXeU&amp;feature=youtu.be\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">COVID-19 TCP Presentation<\/a> <\/strong>to learn about advance care planning basics.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>We all live in fear now of getting sick. But fear turns into terror when a man fears he\u2019s dying.<\/p>\n<p>I am 70 years old. I have adult-onset asthma. I\u2019m considered a high risk of becoming severely ill or dying of COVID-19. Around 4 a.m. the morning of Wednesday, March 25, I woke in terror.<\/p>\n<p>Intense pain throbbed throughout my lower gastrointestinal tract; six times I spat up bile, the green of the Wicked Witch of the West; a hippopotamus sat on my upper chest; I quivered, I grimaced, I FaceTimed with my doctor\u2019s office, and I got my sad sack to the Emergency Room.<\/p>\n<p>At the hospital, I shook so fearfully that a staff member kindly steadied my hand so that I could pen my signature on the consent forms. I spent the day in the ER, a battery of tests and palpations run on my body so that my insides became my outsides.<\/p>\n<p>But, like so many others right now, I didn\u2019t get a \u2014 what shall we call it? \u2014 \u201ccoronatest.\u201d They weren\u2019t available to ER patients \u2014 only admits into the main wards. I understood that; nonetheless, I was scared.<\/p>\n<p>Did I \u2014 do I \u2014 have COVID-19? Dunno; won\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p>Or, perhaps, did I just have a norovirus? Many of my symptoms in the immediate days after that Wednesday reminded me of a norovirus that I had contracted while on a cruise in 2005.<\/p>\n<p>Or a brass ring off this season\u2019s merry-go-round of influenzae, despite my Senior+ shot back in the fall?<\/p>\n<p>Or something else? Dunno; won\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p>In the absence of a coronatest, I don&#8217;t know if I have the virus or not. But given today\u2019s communal responsibilities, I am obliged to act as if I do.<\/p>\n<p>Like so many others who are ill, some of whom I know firsthand and others about whom I read, we are in a viral version of \u201cSchrodinger&#8217;s Cat.\u201d Scientist Erwin Schrodinger surmised that if you put a cat and something that might kill the cat (he suggested something radioactive) into a box and closed the box, until you opened the box, you wouldn&#8217;t truly know if the cat had died. Until the reveal, the cat was both &#8220;dead and alive.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Did I \u2014 do I \u2014 have COVID-19? I do or I don\u2019t, but I do not know.<\/p>\n<p>What I do know is what I have, symptoms that two friends of mine have had, both<br \/>\nmen younger than I, and both of whom tested positive for COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>The symptoms are, at base, a miserable cocktail of massive fatigue, random body and joint aches, listlessness, shortness of breath even when gently active, significant tightness in the chest, a sort of \u201cmuscle nausea,\u201d to devise a term, zero appetite, and headache. All of these have remained constant since day one, although in some instances (for example, headache and joint pain) pretty much disappeared. The others wax and wane daily, in either intensity or presence.<\/p>\n<p>For my part, my pulse has raced (up to 140 once) and I feel forever jittery and squirrelly, what I take to be high blood pressure.<\/p>\n<p>I wish to make clear that I have had none of the certain other symptoms that are often mentioned as common \u2014 indeed signal \u2014with COVID-19 (high fever, fibrosis of the lungs, severe respiratory pain, death).<\/p>\n<p>Overall, and as an arc, since my day in the ER, I\u2019ve been improving, but it is slow going and there are ups and downs, sometimes even within the same day. It\u2019s a dispiriting dance.<\/p>\n<p>I tell this as a way to tamp down our shared panic, its knee-jerk hurt to ourselves. Many hundreds of us are ill, suffering through who knows how many different symptoms. It appears to manifest itself to us, among us, in us, in many different ways.<\/p>\n<p>But it isn\u2019t \u2014 it isn\u2019t <em>always \u2014 <\/em>the simple math of fever plus painful fibrosis of the lungs plus respiratory failure plus death.<\/p>\n<p>In all of this, tempering the terror and making some meaning of the malaise, a goodness has come to me, just like an April crocus against the grey and sodden earth.<\/p>\n<p>My papers are now in order.<\/p>\n<p>Most of us, it\u2019s clear, have our finger on a cultural pause button concerning public decisions about the ends of our lives. Looked at one way, \u201cprocrastination\u201d is just another word for \u201cNope, not gonna die today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But on Thursday, March 26, I wasn\u2019t so sure. So that day, I updated my Last Will and Testament. On Friday, March 27, I printed out all my logins and passwords (the razor wire of our lives) so that my son, Colin, would have them handy.<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, March 28, I filled out all the crucial end-of-life papers that I\u2019ve intended to complete for \u2014 what? ten, 15 years now? \u2014 the advance directives for my physician and \u201cHealth Care Agent\u201d (Colin, again), those directives laying out with great specificity what medical care (mostly what little) I now choose that will obtain in that time \u201cthen.\u201d I used the widely-accepted \u201cFive Wishes\u201d form which is itself a model of present-day giving of care.<\/p>\n<p>As an ancillary directive, I finished the Colorado Medical Orders for Scope of Treatment and had it approved by my physician, a Readers Digest \u201cFive Wishes\u201d with the kicker of a Do Not Resuscitate order right off the top.<\/p>\n<p>Then had all this stuff witnessed, double-witnessed, printed out, placed in my \u201cWhen I Die\u201d box (a notorious rub \u2014 rib? \u2014 between Colin and his father). Well, finally, it\u2019s all done, set in ink, and now there. There now, there now.<\/p>\n<p>For a bit over a week now, in the absence of the terrifying calculus that can be COVID-19, I just go on, papers in place. Usually short of breath and often too tired to talk, I just go on.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s what\u2019s important to do.<\/p>\n<p>But you there, please learn my lesson and gain my grand feeling too.<\/p>\n<p>Complete those forms (many, such as Five Wishes, both inexpensive or free and available online). It will help you feel better; moreover, it is a gift to others.<\/p>\n<p>And tell everyone, anyone, close or far, who matters to you that they so have and that you love them for it. If you procrastinate, you very well may miss something terribly significant.<\/p>\n<p><em>Reach Bill St. John at billstjohn@gmail.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bill St. John typically writes about food for UCHealth. This week, he shares his insights on dying &#8230;. and living. We all live in fear now of getting sick. But fear turns into terror when a man fears he\u2019s dying. I am 70 years old. I have adult-onset asthma. I\u2019m considered a high risk of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2197,"featured_media":30557,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,8],"tags":[1478,4799,4859,4860],"class_list":["post-30554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-living","category-news","tag-advance-care-directives","tag-bill-st-john","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Life in the time of COVID-19: a crisis and a crocus - UCHealth Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Denver food writer Bill St. John was pretty sure he was dying. 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