"You killed mom foliaro," he said when she died of COVID at the hospital - A woman

- Mom, you're not going anywhere, it's just the flu. You don't go with the flu, you have to lie down. Remember what Dr. A. said? That she had a patient who went to work with the flu and died of a heart attack? So lie down and stop panicking. Drink hot tea with lemon and ginger, do not get out from under the duvet, you need to sweat - I asked when my mother was feverish, coughing and wanted to go to the local clinic - remembers Anna.

Because it did look like ordinary flu. And Anka's mother had nowhere to get infected. She didn't see anyone, her husband and children did the shopping - Anka and her brothers Wojtek and Maciek. - When it was bad with mom, it turned out that she met someone. If we had known earlier, maybe everything would have turned out differently. I torment myself with this - says Anka. For some time now, there has been a tent in front of her house, where anyone can test without leaving the car. When it passes by, everything is remembered ...

Cancer is cured, don't panic

2019, even before the pandemic. - The doctor's hand misses, he will stick a scalpel in my eye and I will lose - Anki's mother panics before cataract surgery. I couldn't believe my mother was saying such stupid things. Fortunately, we explained to her with the ophthalmologist that it was impossible, because this operation is performed with the help of ultrasound, so she agreed. After all, when it turned out that it was a moment and without pain, she began to tell everyone that she finally knew who she was answering for "good morning" during the walk and that she could see even the paving slabs clearly. And she persuaded all older friends to do this - recalls Anka.

There was a moment of peace in the family, but only for a month. - Father has cancer! - Anka's mother called her daughter, then her sons. - Mom, cancer is cured, don't worry too much! - I reassured her. But after we hung up, I sat down on the floor because I didn't have the strength to stand. Crouching, I cried and cried. Then I got up and started acting like an automaton. I always have it like that - he says. She could not count on brothers at that time. On the Internet, they can find a movie on Netflix, shoes on Zalando, or some part for a car on Allegro and OLX. Anka hopes not porn, though she wouldn't be surprised.

Photo: Private Archive There is a tent in front of her house, where everyone can test without leaving the car. When it passes by, everything is remembered ...

She had imagined the oncologist otherwise

She got her father's DILO card one day, then searched forums for cancer patients for recommended doctors. It worked, but the one who had the best opinions accepted it in Krakow. That's where she took my father. She herself - mums did not want to take, decided that it was "not for her nerves and heart", and the brothers withdrew - Wojtka's two-year-old daughter had severe angina, and Maciek had an event at work that he was leading.

- I do not blame them, they were actually random matters, because I saw that they survived terribly, they visited their parents every day, they called me every day, they said that if money was needed for doctors, for drugs, the amount does not matter - he says Anna.

The road to Krakow. Anka thought that they would silently overcome that my father would be down. But he wasn't, or he was disguising himself well. He chose records in the car, they listened to Cyndi Lauper half the way because she loved her as a teenager. At the end of the tour, Dad fell apart. He began to apologize to Anka for being an absent father. She interrupted him: "Dad, come on, we had a great childhood, you are a great grandpa!". She was stupid, because this absent father had been her song since the therapy. The fathers of my colleagues were much worse.

Krakow, waiting room in the clinic. The doctor opened the office door, a blue shirt peeked out from beneath the unbuttoned apron, and he wore orange-rimmed glasses. I imagined oncologists differently. The first thought was a disappointment that it was a migrant from Instagram - says Anka.

But the most important thing was what happened next. Diagnosis: "It's an ordinary adenoma, tomography showed no signs of malignancy. Please repeat the ultrasound in three months, but I think it will be ok. This is the so-called find - accidentally discovered lump. You may have had it for years, maybe from childhood. Nobody. he never had an ultrasound for you, so you lived with him in peace. " - A relief that cannot be described - recalls Anka. - I did not expect that two months later the ambulance service will take my father to the hospital on the signal. And it turns out he has a heart attack. And that it is suitable for by passes - he adds.

- Mum, as always in a panic, the brothers did not look particularly terrified when the surgery was coming. I guess after this false cancer alarm, nothing seemed terrible anymore - says Anka. Or maybe the family has already got used to the fact that it is family health care.

She took a day off from work and was huddled in the hospital corridor while Dad had surgery. During this time, she drank a few coffees from the vending machine, and the application on her phone showed that she had walked a 6 km walk down the hospital corridor. Then he reached the cardiac surgeon who operated on my dad. "There were no complications, the patient is fine" - she heard. There was peace in the family for two years.

On the telepath she said that she has a sense of smell

May 2021, teleportation. It was then that Anka's mother got a fever, runny nose and cough. Anka's husband, that is Anka's dad, put a can of coffee and Armani perfume under her nose, which she had received from the children for Christmas Eve. She said she felt so they decided it wasn't COVID.

They had no idea Mom was lying. "I didn't want to upset you," she will say later. But for now, everyone has decided it must be the flu, and it is better not to go anywhere but lie down with it. When it turned out that tea with honey did not help, the husband registered his wife with an internist at the National Health Fund. For teleportation.

The doctor asked if she was vaccinated and heard that she was not. And that Anka's mother did not go anywhere, that she did not lose her smell, but he recommended not only to observe, but also to take a test. And buy a pulse oximeter. And watch carefully. They bought a pulse oximeter, they did not do the test.

- Mom said that she smelled, COVID was unlikely. After all, if it was a coronavirus, my father would have been sick a long time ago, and so would me and my brothers, because we live in the same house, but we have separate entrances from different sides of the garden, but we see each other every day and touch the same door handles. And my mother said: "They will all quarantine you until the result. And the clerk at the bakery said that if she had a suspicion of COVID, she waited a few days for the result. and so they give half of the false positive "- says Anka.

"Maybe it's bad that she didn't get vaccinated," Anki's father said. He vaccinated himself, just like Anka and her brothers. - It's too late now anyway, you can't be infected during the infection, so why bother - answered Maciek, Anka's brother. It was she who advised my mother not to vaccinate. I mean, not quite, but she said why hurry, it's always better when the vaccine is on the market longer, because each version will be improved for sure.

- Then you heard so much about other countries that were testing something and trying to figure it out. I didn't know which would be better - Astra or Pfizer, and then suddenly they introduced the single-dose Jonson, so I figured the longer we waited, the better the vaccine would be. Wojtek was always catching something, his wife and little daughter too - if I don't have the flu, then hoarseness, then angina. Maciek also caught a cold once a year. And mom and I never, so why should we be in such a hurry? One of the neighbors did not get vaccinated, and he has non-stop contact with people, because he is a postman, a taxi driver he knows has been driving without plexiglass for a year and nothing. He only said that he did not drink, smoke, eat garlic and run, but for recreational purposes, not to torture himself, because it was counter-effective against immunity. And nothing, and his wife keeps screeching and sneezing, she coughs, something scares her and she is still running around the doctors for ultrasound.

Photo: Private Archive Behind this lock begins the COVID department of the hospital of the Ministry of Interior and Administration in Warsaw

And his daughter, a young doctor, when no one had ever dreamed of a COVID vaccine, also repeated that the most important thing was her own immunity - healthy eating, getting enough sleep, avoiding alcohol and not being exhausted, plus distance, a mask in the tram and frequent washing of hands . As no one in our home fell ill for a year of the pandemic, I was sure that it would be like that - says Anka.

Mom has COVID, not the flu

A few days after the teleportation, Anka's mother got worse. Violently. Because although she was feeling weaker every day, the saturation was still 92-95, and they knew that in smokers and those with COPD it could be the norm. And mom still smoked, only dad gave up after a heart attack.

Suddenly it crashed. Mom began to choke. My father called 112 and then Anki. She was already after work, having a coffee with a friend from work. They had a remote one, they had not seen each other live for a long time, and finally decided to see each other after months. The meeting lasted 25 minutes.

Moneteasy Widget

- They already took her to the hospital! - Anka greeted her father. - It's good that I called the ambulance, even though my mother kept me from panicking and that they would charge us for unnecessary calling an ambulance! - added. He had no idea no one would charge anyone for something like this. And that doctors have been calling in the media for months not to let people wait until the last minute.

- Mom has COVID, not the flu. She confessed to the paramedic that she did not smell, that she lied to us. One of the paramedics pressed her down, leaned over her in an "alien" mask and hissed that he was talking to her differently than the policeman in the film, that anything he said now could be used against her, but that anything he didn't tell them, can kill her. And she said - my father reported on the visit. - My mother did not want Wojtek and Maciek to attack her again, that Ania listened to you and did not get vaccinated. And she also said that she met a friend to whom her granddaughter came from Germany. And that this granddaughter has already returned, so that she would be only for a long weekend, but that after arriving in Germany, it turned out that she had coronavirus. My mother was afraid to admit it, and my friend, that is the girl's grandmother, did not get sick, so she did not want to do the scandal - added the father. They called my grandmother's friend. She reassured them that she did not get infected, that she is feeling great, and the granddaughter is also getting better and is undergoing COVID at home in Germany, she is in isolation with her husband. And so the whole family was put in quarantine. A couple of neighbors were shopping for them. - The rest of us blew it, they didn't even call. We felt like lepers - recalls Anka.

I love you, take care of Daddy when I come down

Then followed the 21 longest days of their lives. Anka's mother went to the infectious diseases ward, but fourteen days later, to the ICU. She was lucky enough to have vacated the bed anyway. If she had quit the day before, would she still be alive? No one knows.

Before she was intubated, she had her first and last conversation with the children since she was hospitalized. "I love you children! Very much. Look after my dad when I go down. And you, Wojtus, look after Maciek Ania" - mum said, or actually she told the nurse's phone on FaceTime. She didn't have a smartphone herself, but an old Nokia, and she always insisted that it was enough for her and that the battery lasted a long time.

"I was glad the nurse was so humane that she gave my mother her phone to see her." I didn't even think it was a bad sign. It was a time when the Ministry of Health reported the number of deaths every day, but also the number of spare respirators. None of us were interested in how many people get out of COVID ICU on their own and how many go to the morgue. I was calm about my mother. I knew the coronavirus was attacking the lungs and her "lungs" was now a respirator. As long as there is oxygen in the hospital, mom will be safe - says Anka.

She died alone in the COVID hospital

It was Anka who answered the phone that my mother had died. Although so far from the hospital they only called my father. Once a nurse that they were taking her to intensive care, and before that the rescuer, the one who took her to the ambulance, said that she was already at the emergency department, that my mother had a swab, that they were waiting for the result, and that they would take her for a lung tomography, that the result should be confirmed and that the doctor will continue to inform you about it.

- "Hello, I'm calling from the hospital ... Am I talking to Halina X.'s daughter, Anna X.?" - I heard a woman's voice and I saw spots before my eyes. My mother was dead ... - recalls Anna.

Despair reigned in the family. But before that, disbelief, and then jumping into each other's eyes. To this day, the relationship between Anka and the brothers is tense.

- They killed her there. If she hadn't gone to the hospital, she would have come out of it at home, like many people, my father said then.

- She would've come out of it if she had had the vaccine, Dad. It was Anka who killed mom! Wojtek said. And he turned to Anki: - You killed mom, foliaro! - added. And Maciek, crying, began to say that the grandfather of a colleague from work was lying in the hospital on COVID and the family was in front of the hospital every day. She passed letters to her grandfather and cards from her grandchildren. And the aunt of another, also old, because she was already in her 80s, stuck an iPhone into her hand while she was driving the ambulance. That there would be contact with her, that although she did not know how to use it, she could always ask someone younger in the ward to call her and turn on the camera.

- We did not think about it, my mother died alone - said Maciek. - And my father cried, because it did not occur to him that his mother would at least have a marshmallow, which he likes to send to the hospital, and jasmine tea, and also a book that she left on the bedside table at home - "Wills" read halfway by Margaret Atwood . - I told my father that what does it matter now, besides, my mother would not have the strength to read anyway - recalls Anka.

Maybe if it weren't for COVID, she would have died anyway

The extended family also blamed Anka. - I've never been any anti-vaccine. With this "foliar" it was an inflection, although I was actually looking for articles on whether long cell phone calls would cause a brain tumor and I found contradictory information, I could not verify its sources. But I wasn't going to wrap my head in foil so that 5G wouldn't get me, no kidding - says Anka.

- I just had doubts, anyone can have them. But after my mother died, my family would pick me up so that if they could, they would have infected me with COVID, I had the impression that they would like me to die instead of my mother. It was terrible for me then, because I also felt that maybe, if I did not raise these doubts, I would not delay vaccinating ... he did not call us to ask how he was doing and if we needed any help. When she was sick at home, only her uncle and the friend from whom her granddaughter probably contracted COVID called - she adds. And it is not known what would happen if ...

Photo: Private archive The test tube is marked that it has collected infectious material

- After all, my mother had various risk factors, it is not known whether she would have had a thrombosis or other serious problems after the vaccination. I know it is once in millions of cases that someone dies after vaccination, but you can always be this case, just as you can be lucky - a million in Totolotka, after all, someone wins too. I think that maybe her death was meant to be hers and that is how she was vaccinated then, for example, she would have been hit by a car. It is a weak consolation, but it is easier for me to live like this - adds Anka.

The Ministry of Health issued a dispassionate message

Anki's mother did not run out of oxygen, the respirator fulfilled its role flawlessly. She got a pulmonary embolism. - There is a clot in some vein or artery, it broke off and clogged the main vessel - something the doctors told us. And that they gave her prophylactic heparin, because today even young people who sit at home with a broken leg take it.

People who undergo COVID intensive care under a ventilator get it from a machine. But although there are procedures, you never know if the dose is right for this particular patient. Too low risk of ischemic stroke, too high - hemorrhagic stroke. At least that's how I understood the doctor's words and what I found on the internet - he recalls.

- And my mother may have been prone to a stroke because she had high cholesterol, diabetes and arteriosclerosis for years. Her family doctor explained to her at the beginning that this could be adjusted by changing her diet and exercising. She did not want to, she could not deny herself anything for longer. Not bread with lard and vodka. Then she got pills to break these exceeded parameters. None of this, she took them maybe for the first week, then only sporadically - says Anka.

The day after my mother's death, the Ministry of Health gave a dispassionate message: "We have X confirmed cases of #coronavirus infection from Mazowieckie voivodships (...). X people died due to COVID, and due to, etc., the coexistence of COVID-19 with Y people died from other diseases. " My mother was among the nearly 300 people who died at dawn on that May day.

The obituary was posted on the fence by Anna's family, but not in the newspaper. “It was such a shock for us that we didn't want the whole world to know. Anyway, there could be no more than 50 people at the funeral then. It wasn't even that much. Half of the family was scared of COVID, and most of the neighbors scared too. To this day I have a grudge against them, I pretend that I cannot see, not to say good morning to them - says Anka. He also avoids contact with his brothers, and they avoid contact with her, although they live in the same house. They meet only at their father's, but a little by force, only for him.

- I didn't see my mother in the coffin because it was sealed. It hurt me so much that I didn't say goodbye to her, even after my death. Now I think that's the only plus point of the pandemic. This death of hers seems so abstract to me, as if it did not happen at all, as if my mother left. I think my father feels that too. Because there is still that Atwood in their bedroom, slippers and sandals in the hallway, and a brush with tangled hair on the shelf under the mirror. I know that dad and brothers think what I think, that maybe if she got vaccinated, she would be alive. But maybe she would have had a stroke anyway, but a lighter one, and to this day she would be lying like a vegetable at home or in a hospice. I know that my mother would not like it - says Anka.

The author of the text is also the author of the book "Infectious Ward. Stories without censorship", in which nurses, doctors and paramedics talk about how the pandemic changed their work and family life. Contact: agnieszka.sztyler-turovsky@redakcjaonet.pl