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Deadliest Day in NYC -- But a Ray of Hope?

<ѻý class="mpt-content-deck">— New York emergency physician on the front lines shares his daily journal
MedpageToday
A photo of Cleavon Gilman, MD in front of a hospital

What's it like to be in the emergency department in one of the places hit hardest by COVID-19? , an emergency physician and military veteran in New York City, shares his journal.

April 7, 2020

78,876 cases in NYC -- 4,009 deaths.

Today marks the deadliest day to date in NYC for the coronavirus pandemic. When I wrote my last journal entry last night at 11 pm there were 2,738 deaths. In less than 24 hours there are now 4,009 deaths.

When I began this journal, I didn't really know where it was going to go. Writing every day after my shift, hoping to find a ray of hope. But as we get deeper and deeper into the pandemic, there is little hope. There are only more and more deaths. I would like to say that I am saving lives, but that's hard to say when so many people die around you every day.

Three days ago, after my shift, I developed a cough and was extremely tired. At first, I said, "Did I just cough?" Having seen so many patients with the coronavirus it was only inevitable that I finally contract the virus. The first thing I thought about was, "Did I infect my family?" So I began damage control and self-quarantined in our bedroom.

I live in an apartment in Washington Heights and it's really hard to self-quarantine. At some point, I'm going to have to eat, and then open the cabinet or the refrigerator door. I also have to use the bathroom at some time so I will touch the doorknob or the sink faucet. All of these surfaces provide a route for the virus to be easily transmitted among household members.

I'm very fortunate to live in a walk-up apartment, but what if I was on the 20th floor of an apartment building and the elevator was the only means to exit the building? I would likely infect everyone in the elevator with me.

"Ahchoo," as I uncontrollably let out a sneeze of coronavirus droplets infecting everyone in the elevator.

I wanted to check if I had the coronavirus, so I looked for CDC testing sites and since I'm a health care worker I qualified for testing. However, my hospital began testing employees yesterday for the coronavirus so that was the easier option.

Let me tell you, they shove a Q-tip deep into the back of your nose and twist it around for five seconds. It feels like they're drilling into your brain for a biopsy.

I never want to experience that pain again!!

Three weeks ago, a close mentor of mine, Dr. Farzaneh Ghobadi, was hospitalized with the coronavirus. I had worked with her on a shift a few weeks prior and we always talked about the future.

"Cleavon, where are you going after you graduate?" she would say.

"Yuma, Arizona," I replied, "Only a few more months, I'm in the home stretch now!"

"That's excellent, Cleavon," she said with a smile, "They are lucky to have you."

She would always arrive to work very stylish! Designer bags, Gucci sunglasses, lip gloss, and fancy shoes. I even took the stylish photo that she used for her Facebook profile – every time I go to her Facebook page, I'm reminded of the fun time all of us had that day.

When she rolled into our emergency room as a patient in respiratory distress it shook the morale of the residency. It's extremely rare that a colleague is intubated in the same emergency room they work in. Word spread like wildfire.

There's a point in the coronavirus pandemic when it affects a close friend or loved one -- this is when it becomes real and people get scared!

"Did you hear about...?"

"I don't think she's going to make it."

"How did she get it?"

"Do you think our PPE is good enough?"

For three weeks on the ventilator, she fought her hardest against acute respiratory distress syndrome. The innumerable deaths over the past weeks have taken an emotional toll on all of us. As a resident, losing this energetic passionate loving emergency room doctor to the coronavirus would crush us!

For the past three weeks, she was on and off the ventilator three times.

And then this morning....

I got a notice on Facebook. It was a picture of her smiling in a hospital bed and she wrote:

"We are all in this together.. let's beat COVID-19 together. You kicked me for 3 weeks, on ventilators, you kicked me in my right lung, I gave you the left, you kicked me in my kidneys and heart, I gave you more lung... you bitch, you didn't know I prepared [an] elastic lung by living right for the last decades, you never knew [that] existed!"

OMG, I can't even articulate how happy I am. Finally, someone that makes it off the ventilator! Definitely the strongest woman ever! To think, the first thing she did once she was stable was write her friends to let us know that she was okay! Now that's a BAFERD*!

We needed this win as a community, as a city, as a nation!

Later that evening, I got my coronavirus test back, and it was negative.

I can't wait to get back into the emergency room!

Let's beat COVID-19 together.

*BAFERD: Bad-Ass F -- -ing Emergency Room Doctor