Boris in ICU

[PicsInRed]

Oh Boris no 🙁

All this talk about Boris supposed athletic prowess makes me roll my eyes to be honest.

This virus doesn’t care if you’ve won all the Olympic medals since the competition began in Athens.

Your body responds how it will to the viral infection and it doesn’t matter at all how many rugby matches you played 30 years ago, nor how many arses you can whip on a tennis court, nor how hard a ‘fighter’ you are.

If enough cells are killed off by the virus replicating in the cells lining the lungs, they get soggy, your lungs fill with liquids from your blood and you drown. If the liquid in your lungs gets a secondary infection you have pneumonia.

You can go from being ok to being in a very bad way in a matter of hours. I did. And others on this thread who’ve survived it can attest that also. The virus’ job is to replicate, and it will do just that - it does not discriminate.

There are absolutely no guarantees that anyone who’s ill in st Thomas’ hospital today will recover and leave alive. That’s how statistics work.

Globally, on average 50% of patients in ICU die there, alone and without their families by their side. Boris is in there now with all the other patients. His odds are even.

Imo Boris behaved very stupidly and very imperiously towards this virus by ignoring social distancing advice, given by his medical officer, thinking he was somehow immune because he’s in a bubble of power (as trump clearly does) and selfishly shaking hands with all and sundry, not just putting himself at risk, but everyone he shook hands with, his fiancé and his unborn baby.

No one is immune, and there is no treatment.

The message is clear.
Stay at home
Wash your hands
Be kind to each other, because life’s shorter than you think.

I agree with your whole post @NellGwynsPenguin

I rolled my eyes at the 'fighter,' thing. Does that mean the people that died weren't fighters?

But I think you can get viral pneumonia without having a secondary bacterial infection. Happy to be told otherwise.

a lot of people are making out dying of this is horrific
horrific for others to witness the speed and the numbers, horrific to suffer the symptoms but I thought that once pneumonia sets in the increased C02 levels make you slightly euphoric and you slip away peacefully?
Obviously there is nothing peaceful about dying on a ventilator if you are conscious, but afaik you'd always be sedated?

Nell I agree with you on the fighter thing.

I also agree with you @NellGwynsPenguin.

He was smirking at the so-called vulnerable (read: people who aren’t useful enough for the economy) three weeks ago.

I do think there’s a certain irony to the ‘fighter’ rhetoric though. One minute he’s doing his best Churchill impression and the next -because it’s not actually a war, it’s a pandemic-he’s in intensive care. Metaphors of battle and international conflict are pathetically irrelevant.

I'm surprised Boris doesn't have pneumonia.

The actual quote was ‘hasn’t been diagnosed with pneumonia’ which is slightly more slippery than doesn’t have it.

@UYScuti. Really? I sat with my mum as she came off her CRAP machine. She’d developed acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). It was horrific. Her death was horrific.

The press conference thing is so annoying. The 'journalists' are rubbish. I think we'd be better off with members of the public asking questions.

Why do the journalists ramble on, and ask the same questions over and over?

The actual quote was ‘hasn’t been diagnosed with pneumonia’ which is slightly more slippery than doesn’t have it.

Indeed, some lazy journalism, including by the BBC which said that a minister had said BJ would
be out of hospital very soon, unhelpful omitting the key word “hoped”.

If pneumonia is inflammation of the lungs caused by an infection, it’s hard to see how he doesn’t have it if he has needed oxygen?

Could be cardiac ? Pulmonary oedema ? Pulmonary embolus ? Who knows. Ultimately and infuriatingly it's private.

Could also be kidney problems, quite common with coronavirus. But it could also be that he has been moved to ICU at a much more ‘well’ stage than normal and doesn’t require invasive treatment yet.

Im sorry hes' ill. I wish him the very best and a quick recovery. I absolutely will not be clapping tonight. Him being ill does not suddenly make him a nice person or a good politician. People have very selective memories. This is a man whose party has brought the NHS to its knees. This is a man who cheered when the 1% pay rise for nurses was blocked. I sincerely hope that he will now give the NHS, those who work in it and other frontline and keyworkers the appreciation and respect they deserve.

@HatRack. Yes, I remember that cheer. People think it was austerity from Cameron/Osborne/Hunt et al. But, it took a concerted Tory effort to vote it all through. Boris included.

They are saying ' stable ' now.
I think he'll be ok.

Not many people do beat Roger Federer !
His a robot and corona will steer clear of him I bet!

@UYScuti. Really? I sat with my mum as she came off her CRAP machine. She’d developed acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). It was horrific. Her death was horrific.

I'm really sorry about your mum TheLadyAnneNeville that is terrible.

Obviously there is nothing peaceful about dying on a ventilator if you are conscious, but afaik you'd always be sedated?

When Coronavirus first started I thought it didn't sound like too horrible a death (I had always thought pneumonia was not a terrible thing to die from compared to other deaths) then came all the stories of lungs filling up with water and drowning and gasping for air and it sounded horrendous. But I'm assuming this must be the people not on ventilators as yeh I'm sure once ventilated you are almost always sedated and presumably you are not taken off that until after you have died?

Meant to quote those top lines from TheLadyAnneNeville sorry.

I don’t think many ways of dying are nice. Maybe some do pass away peacefully in their sleep, but the majority don’t.

I assume that those dying of Corona are on a lot of morphine or stronger drugs.

I think, as a society, apart from medics, most of us steer well clear of death, and now we have to confront it.

No that's true. I mean technically my dad had a very peaceful death (from what I could tell) and passed away in his sleep, but he died of cancer and the lead up to it (over a year) was absolutely horrific. The very end can be peaceful and painless (I think the body even releases a natural pain killer near the end I'm sure I read-could be wrong on that but seem to remember it).

I just thought if you are sedated and you never wake-up with Corona it doesn't always have to be agony and gasping for breath and dying alone (sad for the family but the person dying wouldn't know if family were there or not) I don't know, obviously the whole thing even in the best of cases is terribly traumatic for the family and the person who goes into hospital conscious and breathless before being ventilated. My closest family are over 70 so wouldn't get a ventilator anyway I don't think so would be conscious in that case which would be very scary for them if they had a serious case of it.

He's a fighter is a euphemism for how extremely unwell Boris is. It implies a terrific battle is presently being fought which goes beyond simply sitting in bed with O2 tubes in his nose. It hints to the danger of his condition.

I assume that those dying of Corona are on a lot of morphine or stronger drugs
I hope so. I'd hate to think they were left to suffer needlessly.

I am not sure why Raab is confident he will recover. Was he a qualified doctor? Even doctors can be surprised when some patients don't recover when they ought to, but others go on to survive.

Nor ought he to be back at the helm until he is fully recovered. Getting over an illness isn't time for macho behaviour.

What happens to a person who sadly passes away on a ventilator? Do they die whilst on it (sedated usually I think) or do the docs decide after so long that there's nothing they can do and take them off the ventilator and then they die? Just wondering as a lot of people are making out dying of this is horrific, but for the people on ventilators they are unconscious so don't know anything about it right?

It depends on why they die. If they have a DNAR (do not attempt resuscitation) order and they have a cardiac arrest, then they would still be sedated and ventilated when they die. If they have a profound hypotension (low blood pressure) or multi organ failure, then again, they may well be sedated and ventilated when they die. However, if they are having treatment withdrawn because they are not responding to ventilatory treatment, then they would normally have the ventilator turned off or the reduced to 'normal' levels of oxygen, etc.

A patient is never left in pain as far as is possible. Every effort is made to make them comfortable, whether that is by positioning, nursing care, drugs, etc. But death can take time, even when it is inevitable and unavoidable. They're not allowed to deliberately speed that process up, only to withdraw treatments that are futile and will prolong an inevitable death.

Lougle thank you for that, very interesting and exactly what I wanted to know.