#her mother worked in the ICU and her father was a medical research doctor

[jayaorgana]

Thinking about Lira's siblings...

#she had three sisters and a brother she was right in the middle #Kriin was a doctor like their parents she worked in the ER at the Aldera universal Medcenter #Ryea was an artist her and Lira were closest they shared a room when they were little #Sash was her brother he wanted to be a medic and join the Rebellion he looked up to Lira a lot #and Nari was the baby she was 12 when Alderaan was destroyed she wanted to be a pilot her and Misty got along really well #oh and also her parents #Alna and Dast they were both doctors #her mother worked in the ICU and her father was a medical research doctor #siren squadron #swocs

[wikibious]

Who is Vanessa Alfermann? Wiki, Biography, Age, Family, Lost her Baby Due to Covid

Vanessa Alfermann Wiki - Vanessa Alfermann Biography

Vanessa Alfermann, a nurse in Missouri, contracted COVID in November before vaccines were available and are now sharing her story to encourage others to get vaccinated. She was about halfway through her pregnancy in November 2020 when she and her husband contracted COVID-19. As a nurse at Missouri Baptist Hospital in Sullivan, she had spent the year treating COVID-19 patients and she knew how serious the virus can be, but she considered herself lucky to have had mild symptoms and recovered. However, a few weeks later, she began experiencing back pain and cramps. At about 1:30 AM on November 24, I woke up to find that she was in labor. I just realized that this was not just spasms, that this was not something not to worry about; It definitely worked. And I realized something bad was happening, "Alfermann told KMOV News.

Vanessa Alfermann Age

Vanessa Alfermann is 32 years old.

Vanessa Alfermann Lost her baby to Covid

Vanessa Alfermann never had a chance to hug her son, Axel, before he died. A nurse at Missouri Baptist Medical Center in St. Louis, Alfermann contracted the coronavirus from her husband, Ryan, in November, just weeks before the vaccine was available to healthcare workers. The virus led to a rushed trip to the hospital and an emergency delivery at 20 weeks. Axel did not survive. Now the 32-year-old Alfermann is sharing her story to encourage pregnant women to overcome her doubts about vaccinations and get vaccinated. She said she doesn't want them to go through the same hardships, shocks, and losses that she suffered, especially if they get a chance to get vaccinated. "They send you home and you have to start over," she said. "I was stuck in bed. I didn't speak to anyone, I was just in complete depression. It was devastating to lose Axel. He still is. I call him my missing piece." Alfermann's decision to share her story coincides with the release of new research this month showing that Covid increases pregnancy risks, leading to premature births. A second study published earlier this week examined reactions to vaccines among pregnant people and showed that the vaccines were safe. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also recently recommended that pregnant women receive the vaccine. "These studies are huge and have substantial numbers," said Sabra Klein, co-director of the Center for Research on Women's Health, Sex and Gender at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "This is data that you can believe in, and I think the message is very clear: if you are pregnant and you are not vaccinated, you should be vaccinated. You should be more afraid of this virus, especially these new variants, than you should be" . of the vaccine ". Despite being considered a high-risk population for Covid, less than a quarter of pregnant people have received at least one dose of a vaccine, according to the CDC. That's a major problem, as the delta variant is much more infectious and has caused large numbers of unvaccinated people to be hospitalized. Read Also: Who is Jackie Cottrill? Wiki, Biography, Age, Family, Cause of Death, Incident Detail A University of California, San Francisco study published earlier this month found that the risk of preterm birth in less than 32 weeks was 60 percent higher among people infected with Covid during pregnancy, and the risk of giving delivery before 37 weeks. it was 40 percent higher. The risk was also substantially higher among those with hypertension, diabetes, or obesity. Dr. Deborah Karasek, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and a researcher with the California Preterm Birth Initiative at UCSF, led the study, which looked at more than 240,000 California births that occurred between July 2020 and January 2021, including nearly 9,000 cases in which the woman was diagnosed with Covid during pregnancy. "Our study is representative of all births in the state of California, so there is less chance of bias because it is a population-based study," Karasek said. "Our findings are really based on a lot of evidence that we are seeing within the medical and public health community, so I think that, taken together, it really supports that we are seeing adverse effects of Covid infection in pregnancy." A study by researchers at the University of Washington found that pregnant women suffered no harmful or serious side effects from receiving the vaccine. More than 17,000 people participated in the study. Experts agree that these findings show a clear correlation, with some seeing it as a call for more pregnant people to get vaccinated to protect themselves and their children. Doctors on the ground said outcomes for pregnant Covid patients are deteriorating. Dr. Marta Pérez, a Washington University worker at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, said she has seen many pregnant women admitted to the ICU with severe respiratory distress. Fans or machines have been attached to them that pump and oxygenate their blood out of the body to give their hearts and lungs a chance to rest. Some Covid patients who gave birth in hospital died from complications caused by the virus and were unable to meet their child. Others lost their baby or had to be quarantined without knowing their newborn. "We are seeing all these ripple effects of really difficult situations with patients, many of whom may pass away without knowing their baby or may go weeks without knowing them," she said. "Other patients may be unexpectedly separated from their baby because, due to Covid, the child needs additional care that we did not anticipate." Doctors and researchers said the biggest problem is misinformation, which has found a strong foothold among pregnant people and online pregnancy groups. Pregnant people are at increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes if they become infected, and there is no evidence that vaccination during pregnancy has adverse outcomes in the pregnant person or developing fetus," Klein said. "And that's it. Those are the facts." Alfermann said there is a lot of misinformation among her patients and in conversations with friends and family. She said it is traumatizing to see people close to her spread misinformation, and it has forced her to remove some people from her life. It is especially difficult to listen when she knows the effect Covid had on her pregnancy and the patients she and her colleagues treat in the Covid room every day. "It's like we're drowning and to be honest I'm pissed off," she said. "I'm mad that we have to deal with this and, to be a little selfish, I'm mad that we have to deal with this. But I love being a nurse, I love taking care of people, and I do it for Axel. No one else should have than to lose his baby, not his son, not his mother, not his father. " While Alfermann never had the opportunity to receive the vaccine to protect her unborn child, she said that pregnant people now have that opportunity. They should take advantage of it as soon as possible. "I wish I had the vaccine six weeks earlier and my son was here, but I couldn't," she said. "Others have that opportunity though, and they can have their baby and be there for their baby. I just want Axel's legacy to be one that helps save someone, helps him get the vaccine, so this never comes back. to happen". FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK Read the full article

#VanessaAlfermann #VanessaAlfermannage #VanessaAlfermannbio #VanessaAlfermannhusband #VanessaAlfermannimage #VanessaAlfermannlostherbaby #VanessaAlfermannmanymorefactsyouneedtoknow #VanessaAlfermannnurse #VanessaAlfermannvideo #VanessaAlfermannwiki #whoisVanessaAlfermann

[wsmith215]

Mental health challenges during the coronavirus pandemic – 60 Minutes

Hundreds of millions of Americans are at home. Most of them don’t want to be. Simple choices about what to touch, where to walk and what to wear are fraught. More than 100,000 people have died worldwide, and fears of how much more those numbers could grow have stopped much of daily life. But the bills have not stopped coming, though the paychecks in some cases have. We don’t know when it will end. It’s a recipe for anxiety, stress, and grief which puts more of us than ever before in a struggle to stay well. The regimen of physical hygiene is well-established: wash your hands; stay six feet away, cover your face. But the rules for good mental hygiene are not as clear. Psychologists told us that after Americans get past the worst of it, the worst of it may not be over. There may be mental health aftershocks. It’s hard to predict, and living with that unpredictability is part of the challenge.

John Dickerson: What does it feel like when that phone rings?

Francesca Santacroce: We run and we pick it up right away. And we’re just waiting.  Just we don’t know what to expect. We don’t know if they’re going to tell us good news or bad news. We’re just really anxious about it.

Francesca Santacroce

Francesca Santacroce is describing the daily update from the hospital treating her father Joseph, a COVID-19 patient on a ventilator. Before the coronavirus hit her home in the close residential neighborhood of Staten Island, New York, her father took care of the family while Francesca worked in a doctor’s office, saving money for medical school. A 23-year-old biomolecular sciences major, she is the first in her family to graduate college. But when we first interviewed her, at the approved distance, in her driveway two weeks ago, Francesca was shouldering her father’s duties, cooking, cleaning and caring for her 16-year-old sister, and mother, who needs five days a week of home dialysis. This video was shot by Francesca’s sister on a cellphone, after their mother was also diagnosed with COVID-19.

Francesca Santacroce: I literally feel like I’m about to shatter in a million pieces right now. I feel like one wrong move and I’m going to break. And I’m going to fall apart. But I know that I can’t. I can’t do that. Because I need to take care of my family right now.

John Dickerson: You’ve been doing this now for a week…

Francesca Santacroce: Yeah.

John Dickerson: How long do you think it’s going to last?

Francesca Santacroce: We don’t know. The doctors don’t. We don’t know. And I don’t care how long it takes, as long as he comes home.

Uncertainty. Anguish and hope. In the age of coronavirus, it’s not just Francesca who is straining. The pandemic that has rocked her family has touched nearly every American life.

Daniel Kaplin: In the last few weeks, I think, COVID has dominated all my sessions.

Daniel Kaplin

Daniel Kaplin is president of the New York State Psychological Association and Francesca’s therapist. He spoke to us with her permission. 

John Dickerson: Everybody’s racing to get back to their previous lives. But once that moment comes, what psychological effects of this do you think will linger?

Daniel Kaplin: I don’t think the world’s going to be the same. I think the loss of jobs–  even after the virus is gone, people are still going to struggle. They’re going to struggle with, “How am I going to pay my rent, my mortgage? How am I going to feed my family?” So, it’s going to be an ongoing stressor for many people in this country.

John Dickerson: And there’s also a psychological benefit to doing productive work–

Daniel Kaplin: Sure. Right. What do you do when a person had their identity taken away from them because they no longer can work?

John Dickerson: Their identity taken away from them and then they can’t move about to replace that identity with any other useful, purposeful activity.

Daniel Kaplin: Absolutely. Yeah.

John Dickerson: It’s a double whammy.

Daniel Kaplin: Yeah. It is.

Days blend together when so much of what used to distinguish them has been paused. Bridge club is on hold. Graduation ceremonies are cancelled. This week’s religious services have been virtual. Those who live alone are vulnerable, particularly the elderly. But Kaplin says we must all fight against the blurring of the days by establishing a routine. 

John Dickerson: What happens if you don’t have routine? 

Daniel Kaplin: When you don’t have that structure, that routine– can, for some people, reduce their motivation to do the activities that they still need to do, but from home. And long term, they can become overwhelmed, “Oh, I’m not accomplishing my goals.” And then they could spiral into a depression.

Many of us look for connection in social media and the news, but too much of that can be harmful. A preliminary study done in China after the outbreak found that high social media exposure nearly doubled one’s chances of depression and anxiety.

Dr. Yuval Neria: We know already from previous disasters that ongoing anxiety during trauma is a huge risk factor for PTSD and depression in the long term.  

Yuval Neria is the director of trauma and post traumatic stress disorder at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He’s a former Israeli tank commander whose own traumatic experiences in the 1973 Yom Kippur War informed his career studying the brains of veterans with PTSD.

Dr. Yuval Neria

Dr. Yuval Neria: The brain is really obsessed about identification of fear, you know, of what is safe and what is dangerous.

John Dickerson: And what I wonder about though, there is the part of the brain that is always alive to fear. Part of the brain that says, “It’s okay, don’t be fearful, you’ve been through this before.” But we’ve never been through this before so…

Dr. Yuval Neria: Oh, that’s so true what you just said, because most of us don’t have a comparable memory or set of memories that can serve our understanding of what’s going on right now.

Neria led research and training efforts in New York in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, which has led him to be particularly concerned about the health care workers on the front lines of this pandemic.

Dr. Yuval Neria: I mean we saw that after 9/11. We saw how many first responders really left out without sufficient medical care and psychiatric care.

John Dickerson: In New York City, at 7 o’clock, people open their windows, they applaud. But then what happens when the clapping stops?

Dr. Yuval Neria: Right.

Neria estimates that after 9/11, 1% to 5% of New Yorkers suffered from PTSD four years after the attack. He worries there will not be a plan or enough money this time to treat a similar share of a vastly greater population.

Dr. Yuval Neria: There is kind of almost like a honeymoon phase right now. There is consensus, high adrenaline, adrenaline, and let’s do it together. I think once this is ended, and we face the reality of the aftermath, coupled with financial difficulties and shortage of services– all of those things can rapidly elevate the risk for a second pandemic, which will be a mental health pandemic.

The cascading challenges were already falling on Francesca Santacroce, who was managing them through therapy. But the day after we first talked to her, the hospital called. Her father Joseph Santacroce passed away. He was 50 years old. 

John Dickerson: Francesca, I’m very, very sorry about your father. 

Francesa told us she had been unable to see or speak to her father in the hospital, but after he died, she was given permission to enter the intensive care unit.    Francesca Santacroce: And they walked me through the ICU to see him. And just to see all those people on ventilators, it was really sad. As I walked in, the nursing staff, all the physicians, everyone who was on his case, they were– they were crying too. They were so upset and he looked like he was sleeping honestly. And I said to him, “I’m here. I’m going to take care of everyone. You know, and everyone’s in good hands. You know, I got this.” And I told him I loved him. And that he can, you know, that he can go to heaven and I’ll take care of everyone down here.

Francesca’s first task was taking care of her father’s belongings and his car which he had driven to the hospital. 

John Dickerson: And what was going through your head, Francesca, as you were driving home?

Francesca Santacroce: I apologized to him.

John Dickerson: Apologized why?

Francesca Santacroce: I was so sad that he had to, you know, go through that alone. He had to spend his last– last week in quarantine, you know. He didn’t get to talk to us or see us. I wish that I was able to hug him one last time and tell him I loved him one last time and, you know, have him play a joke on me one last time. If I would’ve known that this was coming, I would’ve used that time more wisely. 

Daniel Kaplin: One of the areas of guilt and regret is not being able to say good-bye. 

John Dickerson: What do you think are the challenges that Francesca now faces?

Daniel Kaplin: She’s in her early 20s. She is not financially secure. Mom is medically fragile. Just the anxiety around, “How do you float the household,” and then long term– how does she take care of the family while truly pursuing her dreams?

Wynton Marsalis honors father on 60 Minutes

The day Francesca learned of her father’s death, jazz great Wynton Marsalis’ father checked into a hospital. 

Wynton Marsalis: He was in New Orleans.   John Dickerson: And you were in New York?

Wynton Marsalis: I was in New York. I was kind of torn between, if I go down there, he doesn’t have it, and I bring it to him, it’s going to be worse. 

Four days later, Ellis Marsalis, a respected jazz musician and teacher, passed away from complications of COVID-19. He was 85 years old.

Wynton Marsalis: He just didn’t complain. He had a world view. He said, “Man, I don’t determine my time.” He said, “The fact that you lose a loved one is no more significant than all the other people who are losing loved ones.” And that was always his philosophy. 

John Dickerson: We’re all part of the same human family.

Wynton Marsalis: He felt that. He believed it. He played it. He taught it. And– you know, and he accepted death in that way, also.

While Marsalis grieves, he is also responsible for Jazz at Lincoln Center, where he is managing and artistic director. The nonprofit has had to close its performance space and has lost millions of dollars. And Marsalis says things are even harder for freelance musicians.

Wynton Marsalis: My father was a freelance musician. If this had happened when we were growing up, we would literally just have to go from house to house on our street and– just to eat. This is a very serious time– for the survival of a lot of our musicians. 

A man used to juggling projects, he once contributed to this broadcast, Marsalis has been touching base with musicians around the world and trying to raise money for Jazz at Lincoln Center and also for struggling artists. All of this returns him to the lessons of his father. 

John Dickerson: So if he taught you about philosophy as much as about music– what would his advice be for this moment we are in, where we’re sitting in an empty theater, we don’t know when this is going to end, people are suffering.

Wynton Marsalis: You know, he would say, you know– “Where you at, man? What are you gonna do?” He said, “You talkin’ about doin’? You doin’? Do sumpin’. Let’s go.”

Wynton Marsalis with correspondent John Dickerson.

John Dickerson: So how does that work when you’re talking to all the people who are involved at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and you’re–

Wynton Marsalis: I say almost the same mantra. You know, we– we’re in a bad position. And we’re not going to get out of this overnight. But everybody is in our position. So let’s embrace this space. Let’s work on the trust that we’ve built up all of these years. Let’s go out and make stuff happen that we want to see happen, we have to move very fast, but we have to be even more process-oriented and more deliberate. And that’s how you master a moment of chaos. And that is also the strength of jazz. 

John Dickerson: I was just going to say, jazz – all of that practice, and then in the moment, you have to be ready–

Wynton Marsalis: That’s right. You marshal all your forces.

John Dickerson:  And be ready to improvise.

Wynton Marsalis: And be ready to meet the demands of that moment. Another thing that we say to each other is, “Let’s see if we are who we said we were before we had to deal with this.” When…

John Dickerson: And what does that mean? 

Wynton Marsalis: When everything is normal, it’s easy for us to be full. Full of arrogance and commentary. Now we have to be for real. Our morality, our concept, our integrity, All these things are coming to bear in this moment. 

John Dickerson: Because it’s a test.

Wynton Marsalis: Yeah, let’s see, man.

Wynton Marsalis: We have a tendency to hear all the negative. Everybody’s dying, this and that, skull and crossbones. There’s also this reaffirmation of what makes us great, not just as– people in a country, as human beings.

Recognizing the good amidst the sorrow is at the heart of the second-line funeral celebrations of Marsalis’ native Louisiana. When his mother died three years ago the jazz community took up their instruments. For Ellis Marsalis that celebration will be delayed.

John Dickerson: Since we’re here in this beautiful space, would you– like to play anything for your father?

Wynton Marsalis: Oh yeah, definitely. 

John Dickerson: Yeah. 

Wynton Marsalis: I’ll play something for him. I wanna– wanna lay down my burden down by the riverside.

Produced by Andy Court. Associate producer, Evie Salomon. Broadcast associate, Claire Fahy. Edited by April Wilson.

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#Coronavirus News

[realcleargoodtimes]

Coronavirus patients are faring worse in rural Georgia than almost anywhere else in America, according to researchers at Emory University in Atlanta. 

More than a quarter of people in Terrell County live in poverty, the local hospital shuttered decades ago, and businesses have been closing for years, sending many young and able fleeing for cities. Those left behind are sicker and more vulnerable; even before the virus arrived, the life expectancy for men here was six years shorter than the American average.Rural people, African Americans and the poor are more likely to work in jobs not conducive to social distancing, like the food processing plant in nearby Mitchell County where four employees died of COVID-19. They have less access to health care and so more often delay treatment for chronic conditions; in southwest Georgia, the diabetes rate of 16 percent is twice as high as in Atlanta. Transportation alone can be a challenge, so that by the time they make it to the hospital, they’re harder to save.At least 21 people have died from COVID-19 in this county, and dozens more in the neighboring rural communities. For weeks, Weston’s phone would not stop ringing: another person in the hospital, another person dead. An hour before this funeral, Weston’s phone rang again, and this time it was news that another had succumbed to the virus—his own first cousin, as close to him as a brother.Some here had thought that their isolation might spare them, but instead it made the pandemic particularly cruel. In Terrell County, population 8,500, everyone knows everyone and every death is personal. As the mourners arrived at the cemetery, just the handful allowed, each knew others suffering and dying.The couple’s son, Desmond Tolbert, sat stunned. After caring for his parents, he’d also rushed his aunt, his mother’s sister, to a hospital an hour away, and there she remained on a ventilator. Her daughter, Latasha Taylor, wept thinking that if her mother survived, she would have to find a way to tell her that her sister was dead and buried.“It’s just gone haywire, I mean haywire,” thought Eddie Keith, a 65-year-old funeral home attendant standing in the back who was familiar with all the faces on the funeral programs piling up. “People dying left and right.”Usually, on hard days like this, he would call his friend of 30 years, who was a pastor at a country church and could always convince him that God would not give more than he could endure.But a couple weeks earlier, that pastor had started coughing, too.___As Georgia and other states rush to reopen, some out-of-the way places might believe that the virus won’t find them. Many here thought that, too. But it arrived, quietly at first then with breathtaking savagery.The cemetery on the edge of town staggered graveside services, one an hour, all day. The county coroner typically works between 38 and 50 deaths a year; they reached No. 41 by mid-April. They ordered an emergency morgue.Of the 10 counties with the highest death rate per capita in America, half are in rural southwest Georgia, where there are no packed skyscraper apartment buildings or subways. Ambulances rush along country roads, just fields and farms in either direction, carrying COVID-19 patients to the nearest hospital, for some an hour away. The small county seats are mostly quiet, the storefronts shuttered, some long ago because of the struggling economy, and some only now because owners are too afraid to reopen.These counties circle the city of Albany, which is where authorities believe the outbreak began at a pair of funerals in February. Albany is also home to the main hospital in the region, Phoebe Putney Memorial, which serves an area of 800,000 people spanning more than 50 miles in every direction, many of them with little other access to care.The hospital saw its first known coronavirus patient on March 10; within a few days, it had 60 and the ICU was full. Two weeks later, patients began flooding in from farther-flung rural communities. Helicopters buzzed from the top of the parking garage, flying patients to other hospitals that still had room to take them. They burned through six months of masks and gowns in six days, said Phoebe Putney president Scott Steiner. Then they were competing for supplies against wealthier, more politically powerful places; they paid $1 each for surgical masks that typically cost a nickel and were losing about $1 million each day.The patients were very sick. Some died within hours. Some died on the way, in the back of ambulances. The region is predominantly black, but still African Americans died disproportionately, Steiner said. African Americans accounted for about 80% of the hospital’s deaths.Black people have been dying at alarming rates across the country: the latest Associated Press analysis of available data shows that African Americans represent about 14% of the population in the areas covered but nearly one-third of those who have died.By nearly every measure, coronavirus patients are faring worse in rural Georgia than almost anywhere else in America, according to researchers at Emory University in Atlanta. Although New York City had thousands more deaths, the per capita death rate in these Georgia counties is just as high.“They are vulnerable people living in vulnerable places, people who are marginalized on a variety of measures, whether we’re talking about race, whether we’re talking about education or employment, in places that have fewer resources,” said Shivani Patel, an epidemiologist at Emory. Then COVID-19 arrived: “It’s like our worst nightmare coming true.”Dr. James Black, the medical director of emergency services at Phoebe Putney, was born in this hospital, grew up in this region and is proud of how they’ve managed with the odds stacked against them. He hasn’t had a day off in two months. The question now, he believes, is whether society decides, in the wake of the virus, to continue neglecting its most vulnerable people and places.“I think that history is going to judge us not only on how well we prepared, it’s not going to just judge us on how well we responded,” he said, “but what we learned from it, and what we change.”Georgia has lost seven rural hospitals in the last decade. Nine counties in rural Georgia don’t even have a doctor, according to the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals; 18 have no family practitioner, 60 have no pediatrician, 77 without a psychiatrist.Ezekiel Holley, the longtime leader of Terrell County’s NAACP, said health care is what has left him “banging his head against a wall.”At first Holley thought a virus would be one thing that did not discriminate. He opened the newspaper, scanned the faces in the obituaries and knew every one of them.“Then I thought, why are low income people and people of color dying more than anyone else? This is the richest nation in the world, why doesn’t it have a level playing field?” he said. “Tell me that.”___At first, Benjamin Tolbert just felt a malaise; he had no appetite. Within a couple days, he could barely stand.His son, Desmond, took him to the hospital in Albany. By then it was full, and he was sent to another hospital an hour south. Benjamin’s wife, Nellie Mae, who everyone called Pollye Ann, got sick the next day. She was routed from the Albany hospital to another an hour north.Everyone in town knew Benjamin, 58, as a hard worker. He had worked for 28 years at a Tyson Foods plant, and yet he always found more work to do, washing his car, tending the lawn. He and his wife had been together 30 years. He was mild-mannered, but she found a joke in everything. She was a minister, she played the organ, sang gospel and danced, wildly, joyfully.“Oh my goodness, she was a dancer, and the dances were so hilarious, you would just fall out laughing watching her dance and laugh at herself,” said their niece, Latasha Taylor, whom they loved like a daughter. Benjamin would hang back, but Pollye Ann would pull him up and he’d dance along with her.Both were diabetic, Pollye Ann had had heart valve surgery, Benjamin had been on dialysis. Pollye Ann’s sister, Katherine Taylor Peters, often got dialysis treatments with him. They were a close-knit family: Peters lived just blocks away.Shortly after the Tolberts got sick, Peters called her daughter and said she too had an incessant cough and was struggling to breathe. Latasha was working hours away, so she called her cousin, Desmond, and asked him to check on her.He put her in his car and drove her to another hospital an hour from home. They soon sedated her and put her on a ventilator.Much of the rest is a blur for Desmond and Latasha: calls from doctors and nurses, driving hours among three hospitals, begging to see their parents but being told it was far too dangerous.“I couldn’t see them, I couldn’t talk to them,” said Desmond, 29, who had lived with his parents all this life. Suddenly he was alone.And all around them, neighbors were getting sick.“So many people, it’s a feeling you can’t even explain. It’s like a churning in your stomach,” said Taylor. “People you’re normally waving at, speaking to in passing, at the pharmacy, you’re never going to see them again.”Desmond was on the phone with a nurse as his mother took her last breath. Two days later, the call came from his father’s caregivers. Benjamin never knew that his wife got sick. She didn’t know her husband was on his death bed. They were apart, far from home, without their son at their sides.The only solace he can find is imagining them meeting again on the other side, and that neither had to live without the other one.___Eddie Keith had known this couple all his life, he knew their phone number by heart, where they lived, where they worked, their mothers and fathers.“They knew me real well,” he said, “as well as I knew them.”He has worked for the funeral home for 35 years, and part of his job is to pick up the bodies. He got a call about Pollye Ann’s passing, and when a hometown person dies someplace else, he considers it his duty to bring them home to Dawson.Sometimes he talks to them as he drives, sometimes he sings.When the second call came about her husband, two days later, he wondered if what was happening in his city might be too much to bear. He’s used to death. But now people were dying one right after the next, too quickly to reckon with each in real time.Keith is a deacon at a country church down a dirt road just outside of town. His pastor, Rev. Alfred Starling, always told him that God doesn’t make mistakes, and Keith wanted to be reminded of that now, because Dawson’s people kept dying, and Keith kept retrieving them. But the next morning he was picking up a body in Tallahassee when the pastor’s wife called. He’d gone to the hospital with a bad cough, and he hadn’t made it.They’d known each other 30 years. Once, years ago, he’d complimented his pastor’s necktie. After that, every time the pastor bought himself a tie, he bought Keith one too. It became a symbol of their love for each other. “He would always look out for me,” he said.Keith pulled off the road and sat there a half an hour.“Why God? Why God? Why God?” he thought, and he caught himself. He was always taught not to question God, so he asked for forgiveness.There were three funerals the next day, and he left just after to pick up his pastor’s body.He talked to him: “I didn’t think you’d leave me so early; I thought we were going to grow old together.”He thought of his pastor’s favorite spiritual. “Good news, good news,” the pastor would sing and walk from behind the pulpit, a little strut in his step. “I’m going to lay down my burden, store up my cross. And I’m going home to live with Jesus, ain’t that good news.”He sang it to his pastor as he drove him home.___By time the Tolberts’ funeral arrived, so many had been lost to COVID-19 that Rev. Willard Weston had gotten used to delivering his eulogies through a mask. Gloves. Hand sanitizer. Don’t touch, don’t embrace, no matter how much you want to.“At this pace, you don’t get a chance to really take a deep breath from the previous death, and then you’re getting a call about another,” he said. He’d found himself on his knees in his bathroom, trying to scream out the sadness so he could keep going.He put on his suit and tie.He walked outside, looked up to the sky and pleaded with God to find the strength to deliver a double funeral.“Lord, how can I go and do this?”In normal times, the Tolbert family’s funeral would have drawn a packed house. Pollye Ann was a minister at Weston’s church. She could deliver testimony like no one he’d ever seen: she was like a freight train, he recalled, slow at first then faster, faster, faster. People were drawn to her.Instead it was just him and a handful of mourners in the cemetery, staring at the two caskets. He read from scripture and told their son, Desmond, that he’d never walk alone.He worried his instinct to comfort with an embrace would overtake his knowledge that he couldn’t, so he walked away and got in his car. He felt guilty. He prayed for God to take that guilt away. Because there was more to do. The next Saturday, he would have three funerals, back to back.A couple weeks later, on a Friday afternoon, he was preparing to leave his empty church and head home for the weekend without a single funeral planned for the first time in weeks. It felt hopeful. Then his phone rang again.“Man, no. Oh, wow,” he said, and his shoulders slumped.“Some more bad news. Somebody else has passed.”___There was some good news too.Pollye Ann Tolbert’s sister survived weeks on a ventilator. She still tested positive for coronavirus and remained in isolation, so her daughter Latasha could only talk to her by phone.The first thing she asked when she woke was how her sister and brother-in-law were doing. Latasha paused. Her mother repeated the question. It felt unreal. Mail still arrived in the mailbox for them. Their house was just as it was the day they left for the hospital. She and her cousin had washed the linens and wiped the surfaces to rid it of virus, but were otherwise too paralyzed to move a thing.“I had to tell her that while she was sleeping, her sister and brother-in-law left us forever,” Latasha said. “They’re already buried, they’re in the ground.”Peters told her daughter that the last thing she remembered was a doctor on the phone, telling her that her sister wasn’t going to make it. She thought she would die too, if not from COVID-19, then from grief.She had hoped it was all a bad dream.Then she woke up.___AP writer Katrease Stafford and data editor Meghan Hoyer contributed.View reactions (461) Sign in to post a message.

#Covid 19 #rural America #Emory University #Georgia #Polle Ann tobler #"I hadto tell her that while she was sleeping #her sisternad brother in law left us forvever' #'the next Satuday #he had three funeral back to cak'

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Warning Signs Missed? 23-Year-Old Mom Dies Days After Returning From Vacation With Back Pain

Xavier Soto has been desperately looking for answers since his 23-year-old partner, Jeimily Morales, died in June at a hospital in Puerto Rico, nine days after the pair returned from a vacation to the Dominican Republic.

Soto, 27, believes Morales, the mother of a 4-year-old boy, was in good health during their trip to the neighboring Caribbean island. She had a thyroid condition which was under control, he said. He says he would later tell four hospitals that she had a rough landing during a zip line ride, but didn't notice her back hurting until shortly after landing back in Puerto Rico, two days later. Her condition worsened from there.

Morales' death on June 26, which followed the string of hospital visits in Puerto Rico, was the result of a pulmonary embolism, Soto was told by doctors at the Mayagüez Medical Center in the western part of the island.

She died at a time when the Dominican Republic's image had been under scrutiny after the recent deaths of U.S. tourists in different hotels and resorts. But Soto is not pointing fingers and is not ready to do so. What caused the pulmonary embolism that took Morales’ life? Was it something that happened on the trip to Punta Cana with effects that went unnoticed when she was treated in Puerto Rico? 

Perhaps, according to a doctor not involved in her care who is an expert on pulmonary embolisms, and who says that immobility during air travel can put certain travelers at risk for blood clots.

Doctor Umesh Gidwani, chief of cardiac critical care at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, told NBC he finds it strange that doctors in the hospitals visited by Morales didn’t suspect the possibility of an embolism, given that Soto says she reported that her back hurt. She then complained about chest pain, had trouble breathing and had traveled on an airplane a few days before, Soto said.

A pulmonary embolism, Gidwani explained, is when “a blood clot forms somewhere in the vein, typically in the legs or pelvic area.” The clot grows as it accumulates blood until it is expelled, then travels through the artery that goes up to the lungs, where the clot lodges. The consequences can be fatal.

A patient with a pulmonary embolism typically meets at least one of three criteria known as the Virchow’s triad, named after the German physician Rudolf Virchow, who studied embolisms about 200 years ago. The factors are “damage to the lining of the blood vessels (veins and arteries), reduced mobility or immobility and a tendency to form clots” depending on a person’s coagulation, according to Gidwani.

Sometimes someone at risk of suffering a pulmonary embolism shows no symptoms, but in Morales’ case, two of the three factors appeared to be present and they didn’t seem to be silent, according to Gidwani.

“She probably had a blood vessel injury [...] But the other thing here is that she took a flight, and that is immobility. So, the combination of the damage to the endothelium (blood vessel) along with the immobility (in the flight), caused the clot to form,” he said.

The blood vessel injury may have been the result of Morales' mishap on the zipline in Punta Cana.

“She let herself go off the rope like a second earlier than she was supposed to and had a kind of a rough landing on the water,” Soto said.

“It’s entirely possible that the small blood clot formed during this flight and then went undetected,” Gidwani said.

Gidwani admitted the diagnosis is challenging but it’s possible through a CT scan or an ultrasound machine, if there’s any suspicion of a clot, as he believes there should have been in Morales’ case. If detected, doctors administer the patient a blood thinner or perform a procedure to remove the clot with a catheter, ultrasound waves or use of a clot busting drug, Gidwani said.

Morales wasn’t given any of these treatments until her last hospital visit. Medical records provided by Soto showed she was prescribed muscle relaxants and pain relievers like tramadol, meloxicam, amoxicillin, among others. She was also given shots of toradol, morphine and decadron.

“She was treated for spasms [...] I was surprised they didn’t even run any blood tests,” Soto said.

For doctor Andrew J. Einstein, associate professor and director of cardiac CT research at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, a CT scan is performed “if it’s a patient who has a high pretest probability of having a pulmonary embolism.” Einstein understands that a pulmonary embolism on a relatively healthy young woman complaining about musculoskeletal pain is not at the top of the list of a diagnosis.

However, “every patient who comes to the emergency department on multiple visits and keeps coming back and they report to the physician that they have chest pain and shortness of breath has to be taken seriously and they need more than just a treatment for back spasms.”

In a scenario of constant visits to the hospital with Morales showing chest pain and shortness of breath on top of musculoskeletal pain, Einstein said a D-dimer blood test should’ve been ran to detect the blood clot that ultimately took her life.

“Almost every patient who shows up to the emergency department gets blood work. Certainly, patients who show up multiple times,” Einstein said.

A D-dimer blood test helps detect blood clots in a patient and in Morales’ case, if performed, the results “would’ve been positive,” according to Einstein.

Morales, who was recently promoted to manager at the Church's Chicken fast food restaurant in her hometown, had lost her Medicaid health insurance about a month before because her new income exceeded the limit for eligibility. Soto said they were in the process of acquiring a private medical insurance plan for her and her son.

From 'An Amazing Week' to the 'Unthinkable' Soto recalled having “an amazing week” in the Dominican Republic. They met another Puerto Rican couple and spent time at beaches, the hotel pool, nightclubs and an adventure park.

On June 16, the evening of Father's Day when they landed in Puerto Rico, Morales mentioned “her back hurt really bad.” So they decided to go to a pharmacy. She took a pain reliever and lay down in bed to rest, but it didn’t help, he said.

The following morning, as her pain persisted, Soto took Morales to the Aguadilla Medical Services Center where they gave her a shot of decadron -- a steroid to treat inflammation -- and a pain medication prescription after X-ray images didn’t reveal anything abnormal except a severe spasm, records show.

The scene repeated five other times in three other hospitals in the following week. The four hospitals visited by Morales declined to comment on her case regardless of a HIPAA waiver form the family signed allowing them to talk to NBC about Morales’ case. The hospitals said it's their policy not to comment about specific cases even if authorized by families.

The three times Morales visited the emergency room at Aguadilla Medical Services, on June 17, 18 and 19, she was given shots and higher doses of pain medication each time, until a doctor referred her to a physical therapist, according to Soto.

“We went to the therapist who massaged her and she felt slightly better so we didn’t go to the hospital” the following day, Soto said.

But on Friday, June 21, the pain worsened. They visited the Buen Samaritano Hospital, also in Aguadilla, after she noticed a rash on her chest and complained about having trouble breathing. “The doctor said that was a normal reaction to the severe spasm she had,” Soto said.

As her pain intensified, Soto said he became desperate. He took Morales to a different hospital, San Carlos Borromeo, in the nearby city of Moca on June 22 and 24, where a doctor referred her to a chiropractor thinking she might have had a pinched nerve, records show.

That day, June 24, the chiropractor gave her a referral to have an MRI, according to documents. The problem was that “she didn’t have medical insurance,” Soto said. The San Carlos Borromeo Hospital told Soto they don't perform MRIs and that the procedure would cost them at least $800. Instead, they gave her a shot and more muscle relaxants, according to Soto.

However, “an MRI is not the standard way for detecting a pulmonary thrombosis (blood clot) or embolism,” Gidwani said. Instead, he would have ordered a CT scan or an ultrasound image -- that could have given them time to tackle the clot, he said.

Soto took Morales back to the Aguadilla Medical Services Center on Tuesday, June 25. As Soto ran out of patience, he said a nurse at the medical center told him to take his partner to another hospital that was better equipped and staffed in Mayagüez.

Both Soto and Morales' family criticized the Aguadilla Medical Services Center for allegedly not providing Morales an ambulance to transfer her to Mayagüez, roughly a 30-minute drive. She had shortness of breath, they said, and Soto had to drive.

They arrived at the Mayagüez Medical Center at 7 p.m. The staff there ran a CT scan, detected the blood clot and provided Morales a blood thinner, according to Soto. But it was too late. She was intubated and sent to the ICU at around 4 a.m., where she was conscious but struggling to breathe, Soto said. Since she was going to stay there he went home at around 5 a.m. to grab clothes, documents from the previous hospital visits and other personal documents in case they asked him for more information. But the “unthinkable” happened.

“At 8 a.m. of Wednesday, June 26, they called me to tell me she passed away,” he said.

That’s when Soto was told by doctors that she died from a pulmonary embolism and that it was possible she had an undiagnosed condition. “They didn’t say it had something to do with our trip to the Dominican Republic,” he said.

Her body was sent to the Forensic Sciences Bureau in San Juan, the only forensic laboratory on the island, which is short-staffed with five pathologists working only on weekdays with about 300 bodies to examine, according to Carlos Vélez, a forensic investigator at the bureau. Violent deaths and car accidents are the priority.

An autopsy was performed and a toxicological analysis was done, the results of which will be available in “not less than 90 days,” Vélez told NBC.

Morales' body was returned to her family on July 10, after two weeks at forensics. They held the funeral and burial on July 11 in her hometown.

“I’m not thinking about lawsuits or any of that," Soto said. "I’ll wait for the results, for answers. I lost my partner and we were always together. I don’t know how things are going to be from now on.” 

'Impossible Not to Love Her' The pair met seven years ago behind the counter of a Church's Chicken. As co-workers their relationship grew over time. In a short time they became friends. Then, they found themselves in love.

"It was impossible not to love her. She gave herself to everyone around her [...] She was joyful, very charismatic," he said.

Morales' aunt, Yolanda Salas Guzmán, told NBC that the days following her niece's death have been "painful and devastating" for the whole family.

Salas, 52, will remember Morales as the light of the party, with her "sparkling smile" while dancing to Romeo Santos' bachata. "She loved to dance, and she danced good," she said.

Salas also highlighted her niece's generous spirit, saying that she lived for others. "She liked to stand up for people that couldn't, and help them," she said.

Morales was close to her grandmother. As the youngest of nine grandchildren, she was the favorite, according to Salas. She'd show up randomly during the week with gifts for her grandmother, even if there was no holiday.

Her grandmother, Morales' favorite cook, lives on the top of a high hill. The only way to get there is by walking up a set of stairs, a total of 102 steps, that she very often walked with her stylish stilettos to enjoy her favorite dish, "arroz con habichuelas y bistec encebollado con tostones," or rice and beans with steak, onions and green fried plantains.

That close tie between Morales and her grandmother made it difficult for Salas to tell her about the death of their "dear Jeimily."

"It was devastating [...] She fainted and couldn't stop crying," Salas said. "A cold shiver ran down our spines. It's been very difficult."

Like Soto, Salas is worried about the 4-year-old who'll have to live without his mother.

"I'd tell him that mamá is up in heaven, but while she was here on Earth she was the best mom in the world," she said.

For Soto, Morales was "the best person" in his life.

"We felt in good company. We were always together," he said.

Soto was recently promoted and "that would've been something to celebrate together. Now, it doesn't mean much. It's not the same," he said.

The family's grieving has been made worse due to inaccurate local media coverage, he said.

Soto referred to outlets in Puerto Rico that seemed to tie her death with their visit to the Dominican Republican without providing other details.

“I don’t know where were they getting that information,” he said.

He said he felt "harassed" by reporters showing up at his home, her workplace and her grandmother's house.

For Carmen Guzmán, Morales’ cousin, the young woman was a “loving and caring mother and daughter.” She hopes authorities “investigate and shed light on what happened to her.”

As for Soto and Salas, nothing can be ruled out, but the possibility that Morales' may have been a victim of an inadequate medical intervention “is present in our minds.”

"I think the protocol failed. They (hospitals) didn't dig deeper, because she didn't have a spasm," Salas said.

For now, Soto says he has to somehow carry on because of his two kids and Morales' 4-year-old boy.

“I told her everything I felt for her. We expressed our feelings all the time," he said. "I had the person I always wanted by my side.” 

Photo Credit: NBC This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. Warning Signs Missed? 23-Year-Old Mom Dies Days After Returning From Vacation With Back Pain published first on Miami News

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Jindal IVF Hospital Chandigarh | Best Surrogacy Centres In Chandigarh | ElaWoman

What is surrogacy?

Surrogacy is when a girl consents to carry and give delivery to a toddler for another couple. Surrogacy treatment is specifically sought via couples in whom the female partner is unable or unwilling to deliver a child adequately. This can be because of illness or a problem with the uterus. In latest years, surrogacy has grow to be increasingly more famous with homosexual men wishing to begin a circle of relatives with the assist of a surrogate and every now and then an extra egg donor too.

How it really works

There are sorts of surrogacy to be had. Host surrogacy includes the patient-couple (supposed parents) supplying an embryo through IVF both using the woman partner’s eggs, the surrogate’s eggs or the eggs of an egg donor that is then transferred to the surrogate mother for being pregnant and shipping. The second much less not unusual kind wherein the surrogate herself offers the egg that's fertilised via a semen pattern through intrauterine insemination.

How can I find a surrogate?

Many couples may additionally ask a member of the family or buddy to come to be a surrogate for them as there may already be a level of accept as true with and an established dating. If this isn't an option, the couple have to then find a surrogate themselves. Unfortunately, the London Women’s Clinic can't help you to find a surrogate, but, there are several surrogacy agencies who may be able to do this and facilitate the legal matters regarding all events concerned.

No depend which direction you pick to head down it is crucial which you are clean approximately the method as surrogacy is a completely complex method with many legal troubles concerned.

How successful is surrogacy?

The fulfillment of a surrogacy arrangement is depending on numerous elements including the surrogate’s capacity to carry a being pregnant and the quality of the eggs and sperm which might be being used. The first step is to set up a preliminary consultation at your selected LWC health center for both the commissioning couple and the surrogate. At this factor all events’ clinical histories can be discussed and any in addition investigations will take region. Following the outcome of these investigations, a fertility specialist may be capable of propose on the various treatment options that are available and speak the character success costs for every.

Does the age of the surrogate rely?

The opportunity of a surrogate being frequent is dependent on several elements along with her age. If the surrogate will be required to use her very own eggs, extra exams can be required to assess her egg reserve. Depending on the surrogates age and her outcomes, a fertility expert will be in a position to talk about the achievement costs you must expect from your treatment. As with any form of fertility treatment, fulfillment fees decline with the age of the lady supplying the eggs, especially after the age of 35.

Legal advice

Surrogacy is a very complex treatment, with so many capacity demanding situations that maximum preparations are actually coordinated thru a surrogate company. However, it's miles important to observe that 'business' surrogacy in the UK - in which the gestational carrier receives price - isn't always allowed.

The treatment is complex, with many capacity problems over parenthood and citizenship (specifically while the surrogacy arrangement is performed overseas). Most successful preparations require the involvement of a lawyer and really strict counselling. All surrogacy cases undertaken on the London Women's Clinic should have the approval of the medical institution's ethics committee.

Jindal IVF Hospital Chandigarh

The Jindal IVF Hospital Chandigarh changed into installed Jindal IVF Hospital Chandigarh in Sector 20d has hooked up the sanatorium and has gained a devoted consumers over the past few years and is also frequently visited with the aid of numerous celebrities, aspiring fashions and other honourable clients and worldwide patients as nicely.

They additionally plan on increasing their enterprise further and presenting offerings to several greater sufferers due to its achievement over the past few years and it is one of the Best Surrogacy Centres in Chandigarh.

Dr. Umesh N. Jindal

Dr. Umesh N. Jindal is a dynamic and innovative leader with over three decades of enjoy within the area of infertility. She turned into the primary to begin specialized infertility offerings in Chandigarh consisting of Assisted Reproduction Techniques including IUI, IVF and ICSI. She has understanding in IVF, In Vitro Fertilization, Embryo Freezing, Sperm Banking, Endoscopy, Infertility Evaluation/ treatment and IUI. She attained her MBBS diploma from Government Medical College & Rajendra Hospital below Punjabi University, Patiala, in 1978.

Dr. Umesh N. Jindal become an extremely good student so she keeps to pursue MD in Obstetrics & Gynaecology from PGIMER, Chandigarh, India in 1981. She is a pretty valued member of Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecological Societies of India (FOGSI). She became the founding fathers of the Chandigarh Obstetrics and Gynaecology Society and Greater Chandigarh Chapter of IFS. She stood because the vice chairman of IFS shape 2013 to 2015 and has held vital places of work in regional and national societies.

Dr. Sheetal Jindal

Dr. Sheetal Jindal is a Gynecologist and Infertility Specialist at Jindal IVF and Sant Memorial Nursing Home in Chandigarh. She acquired her academic revel in from various recognized establishments. She attained her MBBS and MD tiers from elite establishments and passes out with top ranking outcomes. She has a special hobby in reproductive endocrinology, infertility control and fetal medicinal drug. In addition, she has sizable revel in within the subject of laparoscopic surgical procedure.

The offerings supplied by using her are Gynae Problems, Reproductive Medicine and IVF Treatment, High-Risk Pregnancy Care, Infertility Evaluation and Treatment. She is a member of numerous countrywide and worldwide societies and has contributed her research to diverse companies. Dr. Sheetal Jindal attended the ISAR 2007, 10th Annual National Conference of Indian Fertility Society and International live operative workshop & academic course on excellent exercise of Urogynecology. Currently, she is enrolled in the prestigious fellowship programme of the Indian Fertility Society offered by Jindal IVF and Sant Memorial Nursing Home.

Doctor Square Multispeciality Hospital

Doctor Square Multispeciality Hospital is located in Zirakpur, Chandigarh. They have made the state of the artwork Operative Rooms, ICU, Labor Rooms and Laparoscopic Surgery rooms where they behavior methods like In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF), Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) and IntraCytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI). It is an Infertility Specialty clinic. It has a panel of the high-quality medical doctors and informed helping staff to serve to the wishes of humans. They also offer counseling sessions and preventive fitness checkups sometimes. Doctor Square Multispecialty Hospital became established in 1998. Dr. Ritu Chhabra, an Infertility Specialist is the principle consulting medical doctor at Doctor Square Multispecialty Hospital and it is one of the Best Surrogacy Centres in Chandigarh.

Doctor Square Multispeciality Hospital is an identified name in affected person care. It become incepted in the year 1998. They are one of the famous Hospitals in High Street, Vip Road. Backed with an imaginative and prescient to provide the great in affected person care and geared up with technologically advanced healthcare centers, they're certainly one of the upcoming names in the healthcare industry. Located in , this health facility is easily handy via various manner of transport.

Dr. Ritu Chhabra

Dr. Ritu Chhabra is an infertility professional, gynecologist and hysteroscopy health practitioner. Dr. Ritu Chhabra finished MBBS from Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Ajmer in 2002 and DGO from Rabindranath Tagore Medical College in 2006. Later on she pursued DNB in Obstetrics and Gynecology from GMSH, Chandigarh in 2011. Dr. Ritu Chhabra focuses on Infertility assessment, Gynecology Laparoscopy, Hysteroscopy treatment at Doctor Square Multispecialty Hospital, Chandigarh. Visit Elawoman.Com and locate extra facts about Dr. Ritu Chhabra.

Elawoman gives you options to Book Your First Appointment FREE. Check Reviews, IVF Cost, IVF Success rates, Fees, Address, Contact Number for all treatments Elawoman offers.

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Best IVF Doctors in Jaipur at Elawoman

Dr. Renu Jain is one of the first-rate an Obstetrician and Gynecologist in Vidhyadhar Nagar, Jaipur. Some of the offerings provided by means of the doctor are High-Risk Pregnancy Care, Laparoscopic Surgery (Obs and Gyn), In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and Pregnancy delivery.

She is dedicated to supporting infertile couples and women through her Treatment. Many of the patients inside the kingdom discover her very dependable as she makes use of advanced tools and generation at some stage in the procedures. She attained MBBS diploma and Diploma in Gynecology and Obstetrics from Lala Lajpat Rai Memorial Medical College, Meerut in 1989 and 1992, respectively. She excelled her teachers with top ranking consequences and went directly to educate inside the nice institutions and hospitals within the united states of america. She labored as an Obstetrician & Gynaecologist at Vardhman Maternity Hospital for multiple years.

Best IVF Doctors in Jaipur Owing to her great understanding in the subject of Gynecology, she acquired lifetime club of Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India (FOGSI). She changed into also appointed as President of Roorkee OBS & GYNAE Society in 2016.

She is registered below 1082 of Uttarakhand Medical Council, 2007. She is working towards as a Consultant Gynecologist and Obstetrician at Shekhawati Hospital and Research Centre.

Shekhawati Hospital and Research Centre are a famous Multi-Speciality Hospital positioned in Vidhya Nagar, Jaipur. The Hospital is thoroughly ready with all extremely modern-day facilities consisting of ICU, NICU, PICU and Dialysis Unit with CRRT. The centers for Causalities & Trauma Management, Delivery, Ambulance, Radiology & Lab are to be had at all hours of the day. The centre caters to the clinical needs of the patient with complete determination, precision, and care. The clinic also offers centered care for situations consisting of high-hazard pregnancies. It also contains of state-of-the-art exertions rooms, that are controlled by certified and skilled scientific specialists, nurses and paramedics. Moreover, they offer complete and fruitful control of infertility together with 24-hour help and counseling offerings.

Services:- IVF,IUI

Location:- Pravasi Nagar, Vidhyadhar Nagar, Jaipur

Rating :- 4.4 / 5

Dr. M L Swarankar is a Gynaecologist, Obstetrician, Infertility Specialist and IVF Expert with an revel in almost three decades in Bani Park, Jaipur, Rajasthan. Dr ML Swarankar practices at Jaipur Fertility Centre in Bani Park, Jaipur. He completed MBBS from University of Rajasthan in 1978. He additionally did MD and MS in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. He is likewise the chairman and Managing Trustee of the primary recognized private Medical College in Rajasthan named Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Hospital, Jaipur. He is a gold medalist in Obstetrics and Gynaecology from the University of Rajasthan.

Services:- IVF,IUI

Location:- Bani Park, Jaipur

Rating :- 4.4 / 5

Dr. Vikas Swarnkar is a well-recognized infertility professional in Jaipur. He completed his MBBS and MS in Obstetrics and Gynecology from Mahatma Gandhi University of Medical Sciences and Technology in 2012.

He trained in reputed hospitals before being the founder director of Jaipur Fertility Centre. Vikas Chandra Swarankar is also the director of Mahatma Gandhi University of Medical Sciences & Technology, Jaipur. He is the most reliable infertility professional in Jaipur and has helped many couples grow to be mother and father thru ART Treatment. He has earned a gold medal in Master of Surgery from Mahatma Gandhi University of Medical Sciences & Technology and is a proud member of Fellowship of International College of Robotic Surgeons and F.MAS - Fellowship in Minimal Access Surgery.

He has accumulated nearly a decade of revel in in infertility Treatment including, Infertility Evaluation and Treatment, Reproductive Medicine, IVF, ICSI, Sperm Freezing, Gynae Problems and IUI. Dr. Vikas Swarankar is registered under 27886 Rajasthan Medical Council, 2009 and is notably valued inside the enterprise. He presently practices at Jaipur Fertility Centre in Bani Park, Jaipur. Jaipur Fertility Centre is among the primary facilities in Rajasthan and North India to deliver the primary IVF and ICSI baby. The centre has  branches in Jaipur one is situated in Main Sahkar Marg, Jaipur and the alternative in Sindhi Colony, Bani Park, Jaipur.

Services:- IVF,IUI

Location:- Bani Park, Sahakar Marg, Jaipur

Rating :- 4.4 / 5

Dr. Shilpa Sharma is an skilled Gynecologist specialized in infertility Treatment. She is famous for her knowledge in IUI, IVF, Normal Vaginal Delivery and High-danger pregnancy care. After she completed her MBBS from Lady Hardinge Medical College & Associated Hospitals in Delhi in 2002, she similarly did DGO-Diploma in Gynecology and Obstetrics and DNB in Obstetrics and Gynaecology from Hindu Rao Hospital, Delhi in 2010. She got Fellowship in Reproductive Medicine and additionally have become the proud Member of National Academy of Medical Sciences(MNAMS).

Dr. Shilpa Sharma has received almost a decade of experience and has finished greater than a thousand IVF cycles. She changed into additionally a founding member and Joint Treasurer of Fertility Preservation Society of India. Dr. Shilpa is presently training her knowledge at Phoenix Hospitals, in Greater Kailash, Delhi and Aveya IVF in Sector 18, Noida.

Phoenix Hospitals is a reputed Birthing, Neonatal care and Fertility centre placed in Greater Kailash, Delhi. The facility is nicely-constructed with spacious rooms, brilliant accommodation facilities and ready with cutting-edge era. The health facility is specialised in imparting fertility Treatment which includes Infertility Assessment & Treatment, Surrogacy, Blastocysts Culture, Laparoscopy and Hysteroscopy, Laser Assisted Hatching, IVF, IUI, ICSI and Normal Vaginal Delivery (NVD).

Services:- IVF,IUI,Gyn Laparoscopy

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[healthandfitnessrecipes-blog]

The Trauma of Having a Newborn in the NICU

https://healthandfitnessrecipes.com/?p=956

When Kelli Kelley awoke from her C-section 17 years ago, having delivered her son after just 24 weeks of pregnancy, her husband gave her a Polaroid of their baby. He was tiny, underdeveloped, eyes still fused shut, with translucent skin covered in fine hair, and lying in a sea of medical equipment and lines. To Kelley, he looked like a baby bird. Cut to her first visit to the neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU) to meet him: a cacophony of beeping machines, harsh lighting, “space-age-looking equipment,” and hospital smells, with 40 “tiny, alien babies in boxes.” Her son had a whole team of doctors and nurses working to keep him alive, but Kelley felt frightened and alone. Kelley remembers just one support group for parents, with a chaplain. “Sitting with a man in a collar felt more like a memorial service,” she recalls.

Four months later Kelley and her husband brought their son home. He was on a heart monitor and still unable to breastfeed. They lived under a crush of medical bills, and in his first year, their baby underwent three surgeries. Kelley didn’t recognize the toll her son’s ordeal had taken on her until two years later when their daughter was born at 34 weeks with a blood disorder. The family returned to the NICU, and for Kelley, the trauma from both births collided. Kelley was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder; but her son was already five before Kelley finally received a post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis.

“The experience of the neonatal intensive-care unit, the birth of a premature baby—it’s a very different kind of trauma from what we call single-incident trauma, like someone in a car accident or even a sexual assault,” explains Richard J. Shaw, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. In the NICU, traumatic, stressful events are continuous: your baby’s fragile health, other babies coding, a flow of bad news about your baby’s current health and future prognosis. Mothers—themselves still recovering from childbirth—commonly describe guilt, feeling as though they’d somehow failed their children by giving birth early (even though, of course, they couldn’t help it), and a sense of uselessness in the shadow of a medical team of experts. Only in recent years have researchers begun recognizing that the fear, stress, and anxiety parents carry with them out of the NICU can manifest later as PTSD.

Shaw, who has researched PTSD in mothers of premature babies, notes that very few NICUs have dedicated psychiatrists on staff. While screening for postpartum depression has become common—and rates of PPD in mothers of premature infants can be as high as 40 percent—PTSD screenings for NICU parents are still rare. Even among fathers of preemies who did not meet the criteria for PTSD shortly after the birth, one study found that many did experience PTSD symptoms after about four months (once the baby was home).

When Kelley needed help and began searching for it, she found little. So she started a program to train people she calls “NICU graduate parents” to support other families with children in the NICU in her hometown of Austin, Texas. That program eventually became a stand-alone nonprofit, Hand to Hold, and has grown to comprise a network of up to 200 peer-support volunteers (dubbed Helping Hands) across the United States, England, South Africa, Canada, the Virgin Islands, Japan, and Puerto Rico. Those Helping Hands undergo intake screening to help ensure they are ready to reenter the NICU; are given a background check; must complete a four-part, online training on effective listening, bereavement, and trauma-informed care; have an interview with Hand to Hold’s peer-support team; and also receive ongoing support from Hand to Hold’s staff of social workers. Helping Hands are paired with current NICU parents based on the similarity of their babies’ conditions and their experiences in the NICU. (Parents of 23-weekers are matched with other parents of 23-weekers, for example.) This free program offers parents a person to call, text, and email who knows what it’s like to navigate life in the NICU. A separate Hand to Hold “ambassadors” program places paid staff in person in the NICU to go on rounds with medical teams and lead parent and sibling support groups at three Texas medical centers.*

Peer support is a useful method for treating PTSD. “Speaking to a parent who’s been through something similar and learned how to cope with it is tremendously powerful,” Shaw says. Writing a trauma narrative is also common practice, which in a clinical setting might include writing out a full story of the traumatic event, and going through paragraph by paragraph to consider the feelings those memories arouse—perhaps two or three times. When such a therapeutic setting is unavailable, there’s evidence that writing for 20 minutes a day about one’s trauma can relieve distress, anger, and anxiety, and somewhat reduce PTSD symptoms.

A core element of Hand to Hold’s programming is the opportunity for parents to write for the organization’s blog—which can help the writer process, but is also beneficial as a resource for other NICU parents. Kayla Aimee delivered her daughter at 25 weeks and found Hand to Hold during a search for micro-preemie support groups. She started blogging and eventually published the book Anchored: Finding Hope in the Unexpected.

Andrea Mullenmeister was 23 weeks pregnant and on vacation in northern Minnesota when her contractions started. After a rush to the nearest hospital, Mullenmeister was so dilated that her baby’s foot was visible by vaginal exam. So Mullenmeister was airlifted by helicopter to the nearest hospital with a NICU. She could hardly breathe as lakes, cityscapes, and countryside flicked past the windows. Her husband followed in their car below. Mullenmeister’s son was born bruised, small, and battered, foot-first, not breathing. Once doctors got him breathing, “I heard this tiny mew,” she says. But his traumatic birth and the subsequent 93 days in the NICU left a firm impression, giving Mullenmeister a fear of heights and flashbacks for years when she heard helicopters. It was two years before Mullenmeister was diagnosed with late-onset postpartum depression and PTSD. Around that time she found Hand to Hold and started writing about her experience on the organization’s blog. In addition to therapy, she explained, that habit of writing remained crucial as her son, now six, grew up with a mix of chronic health concerns, ranging from autism to a brain tumor.

Mullenmeister’s experience of dealing with long-term trauma and navigating additional health concerns is common. Hand to Hold offers ongoing support to families as their kids age via forums and Facebook groups. Hand to Hold also recently launched a podcast series, NICU Now, that explores life in the NICU, with a new series to come (in English and Spanish) for bereaved parents whose babies passed away in the NICU. The organization is also soon releasing a continuing education podcast series for NICU nurses. The podcast has been downloaded more than 15,000 times internationally.

For all the refreshed trauma Kelley felt years ago upon returning to the NICU with her daughter, now she returns to the NICU on new terms, not grieving, but as an ambassador. She sees babies struggle, and it’s still painful to watch. But now Kelley turns her eyes to the parents—to anxious fathers, and to mothers, standing in shock in their hospital-issued gowns as the medical team encircles an impossibly small baby. “I don’t ever want another NICU parent to feel alone like I felt,” Kelley says, and so, she will walk over to them, and offer them her hand.

* This article originally mischaracterized Hand to Hold's ambassadors as peer volunteers. We regret the error.

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/mt/2018/03/RTXWQJD/lead_960.jpg Credits: Original Content Source

[realcleargoodtimes]

Coronavirus patients are faring worse in rural Georgia than almost anywhere else in America, according to researchers at Emory University in Atlanta.

More than a quarter of people in Terrell County live in poverty, the local hospital shuttered decades ago, and businesses have been closing for years, sending many young and able fleeing for cities. Those left behind are sicker and more vulnerable; even before the virus arrived, the life expectancy for men here was six years shorter than the American average.

Rural people, African Americans and the poor are more likely to work in jobs not conducive to social distancing, like the food processing plant in nearby Mitchell County where four employees died of COVID-19. They have less access to health care and so more often delay treatment for chronic conditions; in southwest Georgia, the diabetes rate of 16 percent is twice as high as in Atlanta. Transportation alone can be a challenge, so that by the time they make it to the hospital, they’re harder to save.

At least 21 people have died from COVID-19 in this county, and dozens more in the neighboring rural communities. For weeks, Weston’s phone would not stop ringing: another person in the hospital, another person dead. An hour before this funeral, Weston’s phone rang again, and this time it was news that another had succumbed to the virus—his own first cousin, as close to him as a brother.

Some here had thought that their isolation might spare them, but instead it made the pandemic particularly cruel. In Terrell County, population 8,500, everyone knows everyone and every death is personal. As the mourners arrived at the cemetery, just the handful allowed, each knew others suffering and dying.

The couple’s son, Desmond Tolbert, sat stunned. After caring for his parents, he’d also rushed his aunt, his mother’s sister, to a hospital an hour away, and there she remained on a ventilator. Her daughter, Latasha Taylor, wept thinking that if her mother survived, she would have to find a way to tell her that her sister was dead and buried.

“It’s just gone haywire, I mean haywire,” thought Eddie Keith, a 65-year-old funeral home attendant standing in the back who was familiar with all the faces on the funeral programs piling up. “People dying left and right.”

Usually, on hard days like this, he would call his friend of 30 years, who was a pastor at a country church and could always convince him that God would not give more than he could endure.

But a couple weeks earlier, that pastor had started coughing, too.

___

As Georgia and other states rush to reopen, some out-of-the way places might believe that the virus won’t find them. Many here thought that, too. But it arrived, quietly at first then with breathtaking savagery.

The cemetery on the edge of town staggered graveside services, one an hour, all day. The county coroner typically works between 38 and 50 deaths a year; they reached No. 41 by mid-April. They ordered an emergency morgue.

Of the 10 counties with the highest death rate per capita in America, half are in rural southwest Georgia, where there are no packed skyscraper apartment buildings or subways. Ambulances rush along country roads, just fields and farms in either direction, carrying COVID-19 patients to the nearest hospital, for some an hour away. The small county seats are mostly quiet, the storefronts shuttered, some long ago because of the struggling economy, and some only now because owners are too afraid to reopen.

These counties circle the city of Albany, which is where authorities believe the outbreak began at a pair of funerals in February. Albany is also home to the main hospital in the region, Phoebe Putney Memorial, which serves an area of 800,000 people spanning more than 50 miles in every direction, many of them with little other access to care.

The hospital saw its first known coronavirus patient on March 10; within a few days, it had 60 and the ICU was full. Two weeks later, patients began flooding in from farther-flung rural communities. Helicopters buzzed from the top of the parking garage, flying patients to other hospitals that still had room to take them. They burned through six months of masks and gowns in six days, said Phoebe Putney president Scott Steiner. Then they were competing for supplies against wealthier, more politically powerful places; they paid $1 each for surgical masks that typically cost a nickel and were losing about $1 million each day.

The patients were very sick. Some died within hours. Some died on the way, in the back of ambulances. The region is predominantly black, but still African Americans died disproportionately, Steiner said. African Americans accounted for about 80% of the hospital’s deaths.

Black people have been dying at alarming rates across the country: the latest Associated Press analysis of available data shows that African Americans represent about 14% of the population in the areas covered but nearly one-third of those who have died.

By nearly every measure, coronavirus patients are faring worse in rural Georgia than almost anywhere else in America, according to researchers at Emory University in Atlanta. Although New York City had thousands more deaths, the per capita death rate in these Georgia counties is just as high.

“They are vulnerable people living in vulnerable places, people who are marginalized on a variety of measures, whether we’re talking about race, whether we’re talking about education or employment, in places that have fewer resources,” said Shivani Patel, an epidemiologist at Emory. Then COVID-19 arrived: “It’s like our worst nightmare coming true.”

Dr. James Black, the medical director of emergency services at Phoebe Putney, was born in this hospital, grew up in this region and is proud of how they’ve managed with the odds stacked against them. He hasn’t had a day off in two months. The question now, he believes, is whether society decides, in the wake of the virus, to continue neglecting its most vulnerable people and places.

“I think that history is going to judge us not only on how well we prepared, it’s not going to just judge us on how well we responded,” he said, “but what we learned from it, and what we change.”

Georgia has lost seven rural hospitals in the last decade. Nine counties in rural Georgia don’t even have a doctor, according to the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals; 18 have no family practitioner, 60 have no pediatrician, 77 without a psychiatrist.

Ezekiel Holley, the longtime leader of Terrell County’s NAACP, said health care is what has left him “banging his head against a wall.”

At first Holley thought a virus would be one thing that did not discriminate. He opened the newspaper, scanned the faces in the obituaries and knew every one of them.

“Then I thought, why are low income people and people of color dying more than anyone else? This is the richest nation in the world, why doesn’t it have a level playing field?” he said. “Tell me that.”

___

At first, Benjamin Tolbert just felt a malaise; he had no appetite. Within a couple days, he could barely stand.

His son, Desmond, took him to the hospital in Albany. By then it was full, and he was sent to another hospital an hour south. Benjamin’s wife, Nellie Mae, who everyone called Pollye Ann, got sick the next day. She was routed from the Albany hospital to another an hour north.

Everyone in town knew Benjamin, 58, as a hard worker. He had worked for 28 years at a Tyson Foods plant, and yet he always found more work to do, washing his car, tending the lawn. He and his wife had been together 30 years. He was mild-mannered, but she found a joke in everything. She was a minister, she played the organ, sang gospel and danced, wildly, joyfully.

“Oh my goodness, she was a dancer, and the dances were so hilarious, you would just fall out laughing watching her dance and laugh at herself,” said their niece, Latasha Taylor, whom they loved like a daughter. Benjamin would hang back, but Pollye Ann would pull him up and he’d dance along with her.

Both were diabetic, Pollye Ann had had heart valve surgery, Benjamin had been on dialysis. Pollye Ann’s sister, Katherine Taylor Peters, often got dialysis treatments with him. They were a close-knit family: Peters lived just blocks away.

Shortly after the Tolberts got sick, Peters called her daughter and said she too had an incessant cough and was struggling to breathe. Latasha was working hours away, so she called her cousin, Desmond, and asked him to check on her.

He put her in his car and drove her to another hospital an hour from home. They soon sedated her and put her on a ventilator.

Much of the rest is a blur for Desmond and Latasha: calls from doctors and nurses, driving hours among three hospitals, begging to see their parents but being told it was far too dangerous.

“I couldn’t see them, I couldn’t talk to them,” said Desmond, 29, who had lived with his parents all this life. Suddenly he was alone.

And all around them, neighbors were getting sick.

“So many people, it’s a feeling you can’t even explain. It’s like a churning in your stomach,” said Taylor. “People you’re normally waving at, speaking to in passing, at the pharmacy, you’re never going to see them again.”

Desmond was on the phone with a nurse as his mother took her last breath. Two days later, the call came from his father’s caregivers. Benjamin never knew that his wife got sick. She didn’t know her husband was on his death bed. They were apart, far from home, without their son at their sides.

The only solace he can find is imagining them meeting again on the other side, and that neither had to live without the other one.

___

Eddie Keith had known this couple all his life, he knew their phone number by heart, where they lived, where they worked, their mothers and fathers.

“They knew me real well,” he said, “as well as I knew them.”

He has worked for the funeral home for 35 years, and part of his job is to pick up the bodies. He got a call about Pollye Ann’s passing, and when a hometown person dies someplace else, he considers it his duty to bring them home to Dawson.

Sometimes he talks to them as he drives, sometimes he sings.

When the second call came about her husband, two days later, he wondered if what was happening in his city might be too much to bear. He’s used to death. But now people were dying one right after the next, too quickly to reckon with each in real time.

Keith is a deacon at a country church down a dirt road just outside of town. His pastor, Rev. Alfred Starling, always told him that God doesn’t make mistakes, and Keith wanted to be reminded of that now, because Dawson’s people kept dying, and Keith kept retrieving them. But the next morning he was picking up a body in Tallahassee when the pastor’s wife called. He’d gone to the hospital with a bad cough, and he hadn’t made it.

They’d known each other 30 years. Once, years ago, he’d complimented his pastor’s necktie. After that, every time the pastor bought himself a tie, he bought Keith one too. It became a symbol of their love for each other. “He would always look out for me,” he said.

Keith pulled off the road and sat there a half an hour.

“Why God? Why God? Why God?” he thought, and he caught himself. He was always taught not to question God, so he asked for forgiveness.

There were three funerals the next day, and he left just after to pick up his pastor’s body.

He talked to him: “I didn’t think you’d leave me so early; I thought we were going to grow old together.”

He thought of his pastor’s favorite spiritual. “Good news, good news,” the pastor would sing and walk from behind the pulpit, a little strut in his step. “I’m going to lay down my burden, store up my cross. And I’m going home to live with Jesus, ain’t that good news.”

He sang it to his pastor as he drove him home.

___

By time the Tolberts’ funeral arrived, so many had been lost to COVID-19 that Rev. Willard Weston had gotten used to delivering his eulogies through a mask. Gloves. Hand sanitizer. Don’t touch, don’t embrace, no matter how much you want to.

“At this pace, you don’t get a chance to really take a deep breath from the previous death, and then you’re getting a call about another,” he said. He’d found himself on his knees in his bathroom, trying to scream out the sadness so he could keep going.

He put on his suit and tie.

He walked outside, looked up to the sky and pleaded with God to find the strength to deliver a double funeral.

“Lord, how can I go and do this?”

In normal times, the Tolbert family’s funeral would have drawn a packed house. Pollye Ann was a minister at Weston’s church. She could deliver testimony like no one he’d ever seen: she was like a freight train, he recalled, slow at first then faster, faster, faster. People were drawn to her.

Instead it was just him and a handful of mourners in the cemetery, staring at the two caskets. He read from scripture and told their son, Desmond, that he’d never walk alone.

He worried his instinct to comfort with an embrace would overtake his knowledge that he couldn’t, so he walked away and got in his car. He felt guilty. He prayed for God to take that guilt away. Because there was more to do. The next Saturday, he would have three funerals, back to back.

A couple weeks later, on a Friday afternoon, he was preparing to leave his empty church and head home for the weekend without a single funeral planned for the first time in weeks. It felt hopeful. Then his phone rang again.

“Man, no. Oh, wow,” he said, and his shoulders slumped.

“Some more bad news. Somebody else has passed.”

___

There was some good news too.

Pollye Ann Tolbert’s sister survived weeks on a ventilator. She still tested positive for coronavirus and remained in isolation, so her daughter Latasha could only talk to her by phone.

The first thing she asked when she woke was how her sister and brother-in-law were doing. Latasha paused. Her mother repeated the question. It felt unreal. Mail still arrived in the mailbox for them. Their house was just as it was the day they left for the hospital. She and her cousin had washed the linens and wiped the surfaces to rid it of virus, but were otherwise too paralyzed to move a thing.

“I had to tell her that while she was sleeping, her sister and brother-in-law left us forever,” Latasha said. “They’re already buried, they’re in the ground.”

Peters told her daughter that the last thing she remembered was a doctor on the phone, telling her that her sister wasn’t going to make it. She thought she would die too, if not from COVID-19, then from grief.

She had hoped it was all a bad dream.

Then she woke up.

___

AP writer Katrease Stafford and data editor Meghan Hoyer contributed.

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