ER demands on the rise
Emergency rooms are filling up. CBC offers some advice on not going to the ER. I hadn’t realized that there are some who overdo food and drink over Christmas so excessively that they need to drag themselves to the ER for help. Imagine the shame of having “surfeit of turkey” written in your medical record.
Shelters are also said to be over capacity.
Mozai 13:32 on 2025-01-01 Permalink
If there were alternatives to the Emergency Room to get help, I’m certain the overindulgent would use them first. Alas, the ER seems (and I am told by clinic staff) to be the only option if you are ill outside normal business hours.
jeather 00:32 on 2025-01-02 Permalink
I just read the Defector roundup for “what did we do to our penises” and last week “what did we put in our orifices” so “I ate too much turkey” would be much preferable.
carswell 05:24 on 2025-01-02 Permalink
A friend who’s an ER physician at the Glen reports they’re seeing a surge in bad cases of pneumonia.
Kate 09:43 on 2025-01-02 Permalink
jeather, thank you for introducing me to Defector. I am once again glad I do not have vulnerable organs dangling outside my body.
MarcG 09:46 on 2025-01-02 Permalink
The word ‘pneumonia’ is difficult. We tend to think of it as something unto itself like Covid or Influenza but it’s really a description of lung inflammation symptoms that can be caused by an assortment of bacteria, viruses, or fungi. Influenza started late this year and is really surging right now, RSV is worse than last year, and Covid’s baseline is always high, and all 3 of those are common causes. What’s worse, having a viral infection can increase your risk of a bacterial infection. Unfortunately we don’t track the Mycoplasma pneumoniae bacteria (AKA walking pneumonia) in Canada but there’s been a huge increase in the US and UK recently so most likely the same thing is happening here.
Joey 12:44 on 2025-01-02 Permalink
@MarcG that’s precisely it. Our household was sick from early November to Christmas, with multiple people having multiple peaks to their various respiratory illnesses. Fortunately we seem to have avoided full-blown pneumonia, but not by much. I gather this kind of thing has been pretty common.
GC 13:36 on 2025-01-02 Permalink
I can speak from experience, unfortunately. I was pretty sick in mid-October, with what I assumed was a cold or Covid. After two painful weeks, I was mostly better. Except the cough never went away completely and got worse again mid-December. So, I went to my doctor and found out I had pneumonia. Was it Covid that turned into pneumonia or pneumonia the whole time? Hard to say, but it sure was a frustrating two months. It was bacterial, so I was able to take antibiotics. And…I think it’s gone now?
Tee Owe 14:45 on 2025-01-02 Permalink
@GC – how did they determine that it was pneumonia? I ask because a family member has had similar symptoms, was tested negative (in October) for mycoplasma and Covid – would be nice to see it gone
CE 15:17 on 2025-01-02 Permalink
My girlfriend and I came down with some classic mild colds between Christmas and new years. Our symptoms felt kind of quaint.
GC 15:49 on 2025-01-02 Permalink
Tee Owe, after listening to me breathe, my doctor was pretty sure that was what it was. But, we did an x-ray to be sure. In retrospect, I’m not sure how we knew it was bacterial rather than viral. Maybe it looks different on the x-ray?
MarcG 16:43 on 2025-01-02 Permalink
I have an old friend who I chat with every couple of weeks, and he, like most people, stopped taking any disease prevention measures after getting the Covid vaccine, and, also like most people, he and his family have been sick with a variety of ailments basically all of the time since. Around the start of 2023 he caught something that left him with a nasty cough. Some months later I mentioned to him that it was still hanging around. He and his family and friends and workmates had gotten used to it so no longer noticed and he was thankful to me for pointing it out. His doctor diagnosed walking pneumonia and prescribed antibiotics. Since it started two years ago, we’ve had one phone call where he didn’t cough at all. When we spoke today it seemed worse than last time. I don’t have the heart to say anything.