Struggling at Mt. Sinai Hospital

It had to come.  A surgeon from Mt. Sinai died the week of April 12th and a radiologist.  A good friend is 35, and she is struggling at home with it.  She has three relatives on ventilators.  Another good friend’s parents both have it.  One of our ICU docs has it.

The slog of tracheostomies we do every day on these patients on life support often crowded in the same room with another patient, limited contact with the staff and none with their family.  Horrible.

Did a tracheostomy on a 35 year old woman with a one week old and a three year old.  That was like a kick in the gut.  And the foot hasn’t come out yet.

Talking to myself.  Keep your head up.  One foot in front of the other.  One patient at a time.  Do your best.  Stay at the top of your game.  Don’t let down your guard so the patients get your best.  Focus.  Concentrate.  Be consistent.  Don’t let down your guard so you don’t get exposed. 

Don’t take on too much responsibility.  You didn’t cause this disease.  You’re not God.  You don’t have the infinite perspective that God does.  Who knows what spirit world wars are going on right now?

My favorite cafe was closed for a couple of days.  Why?  Did an employee have it?  The two Chinese restaurants and the sushi restaurant I go to are all closed.  The top ramen and three day old bread I made tonight was not too bad though 🙂.

Toby Mac helped.  Speak Life.  Scars–cool song with a great line “keep your head UP!” Love Broke Through.

Praying on my knees.  God stop this awful plague.

Cool encouragement through Facebook.  Lots of people praying.

One day at a time.  Keep my head up.  God may your spirit cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.  And drown this virus.

The truth is there are two parallel rails we travel down in life.  Joy and suffering. 

I remember in younger years thinking that joy occurred when things were good AND when suffering was absent.  But later, I learned that if we are always waiting for the suffering to go away in order to experience joy, we live in uncertainty and are always waiting for the next bad news to break.  I remember one of the subtitles for a chapter of Reverend Tim Keller’s book on suffering said something like, “The one who figures out living with suffering figures out life.”

And yet, it does take something supernatural to enjoy the rail of joy at the same time the other wheels are riding down the rail of suffering.  And that is a mystery.  I know my faith helps me here and I ask God to continue to allow me to suffer with the suffering and yet sense the joy of His presence.

Thanks for all your kind messages and prayers on Facebook. Feeling better. I guess it’s the ebb and flow of the crisis. I had a regular operation to do the other day–which was refreshing–and while I was doing that my four partners in two teams did five tracheostomies. It’s very satisfying to have a great team of partners to work with. We don’t always win but we do our very best and pray that it’s blessed (remember Keith Green?). Leaving it in God’s hands is not always easy to do. But when He sends great teammates and intermittent victories, we acknowledge and are grateful and press on.

I had one really great call this week from a colleague about a 40 year old woman on whom I had done a tracheostomy three weeks before. She said that she was off the ventilator, wide awake and even eating. She asked me to stop by to downsize the tracheostomy tube which I did and the patient looked great. We had a nice little conversation. Somebody who really made it back from the brink. Awesome. Praise God for that! There are victories. 

Overall, its very encouraging to see the hospital so much less busy. Mt. Sinai has gone from a peak of 2600 inpatients and 450 ICU patients down to 960 inpatients and 260 ICU patients. Something like 4800 patients discharged from the hospital alive. That’s some good work.

I visited with my colleague Dr. Jim Brown who has been leading the ICU at the Samaritan’s Purse tent hospital and he has also seen encouraging trends there. Thanks to Jim and all the volunteers at Sam’s Purse for their awesome sacrificial love. 

Randy Owen wrote this as his personal response to the crisis. He is also Surgeon and Associate Professor at Mt. Sinai Medical Center and Medical School. He volunteered to do duty in center of the pandemic storm at the Queens hospital and now has returned to doing most of his work at the medical center in Manhattan.