I’ll tell you my family odyssey between tampons, therapies and local health authorities. Ferruccio Sansa’s post
The post by Ferruccio Sansa, journalist and Pd and M5S candidate in the last regional elections in Liguria, taken from Facebook
In the end, to warn my contacts, I had to make a post on Facebook. Other than Immune. Other than tracking.
They promise you that they trace the contacts of the sick: lies. They tell you that they will use Immuni: science fiction. They tell you that they will follow you while you are sick at home: wait and hope.
I'll tell you about the covid seen from the bed.
So… last Friday my 15 year old son has a fever. No typical symptoms, he got cold in the pool but I decide to keep him home from school. And to keep the two younger brothers at home because I don't want to infect anyone. You never know. We swab him on Saturday even though we're sure it's nothing. But on Monday the answer arrives: it is covid.
On Tuesday, this worked, the ASL summons us for the swab in the car. Us and the grandparents. The person who calls us does not track our son or our contacts. He just asks what school they go to. No questions about the gyms we frequent, football, scouts. Zero. Luckily we took care of warning everyone immediately.
We ask if we can communicate Immuni's data since we have all downloaded it (parents and children). Answer: “Immune? we don't know what to do with it ”.
Since then the emptiness begins. The ASL disappears. It doesn't call anymore. Doesn't answer phone calls. The result of some of the tests arrives: I am negative but I have had a fever of 38 days for days. I don't smell anymore, I breathe badly and I have broken bones.
My wife has had a fever for days, lying in bed exhausted. The sense of smell cleared. Does he have covid? The symptoms are there but after four days he still awaits the result of the swab. She doesn't know what to answer to those who know her.
It is impossible even to attempt a family quarantine like this, without knowing who to isolate. Of the two young children, one was negative, the other who knows. Nothing more is known about the tampon.
The family doctor, the only one who responds from the anti-flu vaccinations trench, recommends taking antibiotics to avoid complications.
I try to ask a private laboratory if it is possible to redo the swab at my expense. Answer: October 16th. But by that date we will all be healed or … better not to wonder.
Meanwhile, the symptoms persist this morning. A doctor friend recommends speeding up therapy. “You have had symptoms for five days, which are the decisive hours, he says, for a positive reaction. Cortisone begins ”. But there are also those who suggest “going to the hospital for an X-ray or a CT scan because you don't have to waste time”.
But you need tampons to begin with. For me and my family. To protect their health and the health of the people they met. Relatives, friends, companions.
What to do? I don't want to take shortcuts. I want to follow the path of any citizen. Then I call the ASL. One, ten, twenty times. The covid center is not responding. The switchboard spreads his arms: “I'm sorry, it's a disaster”.
The toll-free number of the Region no longer exists. There's only 112. Do I do it?
Meanwhile, we remain hanging on the oximeter; the cursed contraption – but does it hold up, down or flat? – who has to give an answer on your destiny, but once it marks 99 and an 80 and you do not know you are cured or are about to end up in intensive care.
It is consoling to think that we are ultimately lucky. Yes, to get sick now because, given how they are organized, it is better to feel bad at the beginning of the second wave. And it is certainly not the fault of those who work in the wards, of doctors and nurses. Terrible months of danger and fatigue are preparing for them too.
It is comforting to know that hundreds of other people in Liguria today are in the same situation as us. In the same solitude. People who are not footballers and cannot swab thousands every weekend.
People who are not called Trump, Berlusconi or Briatore and know they can count on stocks of remdesivir like Dom Perignon.
But if I post maybe someone will intervene. After all, I know doctors and pulmonologists for emergency cases. But so many others who are really alone what can they do? The covid seen from a bed is so different if you have to use Facebook to say you're sick.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/vi-racconto-le-mia-odissea-familiare-tra-tamponi-terapie-e-asl-il-post-di-ferruccio-sansa/ on Sun, 11 Oct 2020 13:55:06 +0000.