ToeTalks_012_Part Five The Hospital Ovens _ Patient Prisoners

The Toe Talks Podcast discusses the mistreatment of hospitalized patients during the pandemic by the medical community, leading to inhumane practices, discrimination, and medical failures. It highlights how healthcare professionals neglected critical thinking and bodily autonomy, causing harm to patients for various motives. The podcast shares a personal story of a patient's struggles in the hospital, detailing neglect, weight loss, and emotional toll during the stay. It concludes with the challenges of recovering physically and emotionally post-discharge. You're listening to the Toe Talks Podcast. Today, we bring awareness to the atrocities that hospitalized patients endured during this pandemic, the inhumane practices, egos, discrimination, and medical failures that were perpetrated on patients by the medical community itself. Today, we will spotlight how healthcare professionals stopped critically thinking, stopped practicing evidence-based medicine, and stopped allowing for bodily autonomy. Hospital administrators told physicians how to practice medicine while holding their job as residents, and it changed the health of human beings for governmental, pharmaceutical, blood money. Stick around. You're not going to want to miss it. We are the rugged, authentic, savvy, and you're in the right place. Live free. Pursue health. Powerful living starts in 3, 2, 1. So this is how they get them in the hospital, and then they get them to get admitted, and He was worse off for having been in the hospital. When I put the food down in front of you, you began to weep. It's amazing what loving family, natural lighting, comfort, human touch, and good nutrition will do for a human being who is sick. Physicians have more rights to the patients in the hospital right now. Doctors don't free research. They trust the hospital to feed them the information that they need. Big mistake, and it's lazy. I couldn't get in touch with Lee. I could only speak to him through a nurse at the nurse's station. If something happened to Lee, what then? There was no way of knowing what was going on with him. There was no accountability whatsoever. What you are about to hear is a very raw and very personal story about the COVID hospital oven. We must tell our stories, and the world must never forget them. But we won't stop there. We'll chat about the good that can be found in the evil and the important takeaways that can be gleaned from the events that unfolded in the fall of 2021. Welcome to the Toe Talks podcast, episode 12, part 5 of the hospital ovens and patient prisoners. I'm your host, Dr. Toe, and with me, my husband, Lee. Today is the conclusion of our story, and we pick up where we left off, day 16 in the hospital, and Lee is finally about to make his escape from the ovens. Let's jump in. Day 16, 10-28, at about noon, Dr. Price comes in, and he is a great physician with a great bedside manner who is willing to problem-solve with us and help him. I don't know, do you remember this? He actually said this to you. He said, the best part of my day is turning down people's O2. No, I really, obviously we liked him. Yeah, he was really good. He worked at, he was a doctor in another camp, so I worked at a camp. We talked a lot about that, so there was a good connection. Yeah, work connection. In an off topic. Lee worked in a ministry, a camping ministry. I think he was kind of priming you for possibly getting discharged. Remember, this is day 16. He was asking questions about you, and he had asked you, you know, hey, do you smoke? And you're like, no. And he says, does your wife smoke? And this is when I knew Lee. This is when I knew Lee was feeling better. Do you remember what you said? Well, I'm sure I said, you're smoking hot. That is exactly what he said to the doctor. He said, no, she doesn't smoke, but she's smoking hot. And I was like, oh, he's back. He's back. He's starting to feel a little bit better. That was the first time. If you know anything about Lee, he jokes a lot. And that was the first time in a long time where he was joking again. Day 18, 1030, 530 p.m. It is breakout time from Horowitz. Yes, the House of Words. This is what the segment is for this part of the story. Three days after the room change, we are finally getting discharged. You know, my daughter, when we were just talking about this recently, I said, hey, what was that day like, the day that we went to go pick up dad from the hospital because both my children came with me? And she said, I felt like I didn't know him. He seemed so fragile. I looked at her, and I said, he was. He was. Just walked out of a concentration camp. Yes. He was worse off for having been in the hospital. He came out more sick than when he went in. This is the horror of the story is that, you know, Lee was not doing well, and then all of a sudden he started to do well, and then all of a sudden he didn't, and now he's got a worsening of the infiltrates in his lungs. Now he has an addition of pulmonary emboli in his lungs, and this is why we say that he really was in a concentration camp, because when I saw him when I picked him up, he looked like a concentration camp victim. He had lost so much weight. We picked him up yesterday. He basically made a comment that he was in a concentration camp, and I have to say that that is correct because he is so emaciated. He looks like a concentration camp survivor. This is partly why I was crying when I saw him. I was crying because I was happy and because I was disgusted at how thin he was. I feel his backbone. His shoulder blades are popping out. I can see his, basically his bicep, the anatomy of his bicep muscle and the humeral head of his shoulders. I mean, it's ridiculous. And when it was all said and done, you lost almost a pound a day, almost, not quite, but he was already down. So his normal weight was like around, what, 140? Yeah, 144, something like that. And I went to 117. That's when I weighed myself when I got home. Yes, and so we did. We weighed you the day after we got you home. You had lost a significant amount of weight. I mean, you had no butt. He couldn't stand for only so long. I think it was the next day we actually gave you a shower. Sorry, a bath, but I had to buy a bath mat for you that was cushioned because your butt bones were so uncomfortable. There was no cushion. There was no cushion. I could see the skin hanging off of you. You had lost muscle. It was really, truly astonishing how transformed your body was in just 18 days. I don't know that they ever weighed you. I'm certain they probably weighed you in the beginning when you first got into the emergency room in the first hospital, but had they been weighing you, they would have known that you were losing weight. They didn't care, and they didn't have you on any fluids, and they had you on Lasix. The list goes on and on. And most people, when they're on steroids, they gain weight, usually because they're eating everything you say, but I don't think they were giving you enough food. It is interesting because from my memory, I was eating three good meals a day, and I was still losing weight and didn't know it. So that was too bad that I just didn't know I could eat more. I think you're just grateful for what you were getting, but it was obviously not enough. Maybe one positive note that I want to eat healthy, and so they didn't give me the normal food. They gave me salmon, and they gave me more vegetables. Which is more calories in general. But had they been weighing you, they would have known that you weren't getting enough calories, and they could have supplemented with IV nutrition or something to help you. So regardless of how much you were eating, and I think you were eating everything that they gave you, it just wasn't enough. And they were obviously not keeping track or didn't care to notice and therefore do something about the weight loss. So it's discharge day. We picked you up. Do you remember what it was like being wheeled out to come to the car? Do you remember that day? Very little. I mean, I remember it. I remember being in the wheelchair. I remember being cold. I remember being in shorts. It was cold. And I remember the looks that I got from you all. That got me. I'm like, uh-oh, something's wrong. Oh, gosh, yeah. I didn't even know. I really didn't know I had lost that much weight. Yeah, and then on top of that, you hadn't showered for 18 days. Or shaved. Or shaved, yeah. It was neglect at its finest. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Look how thin you are. Oh, my gosh. It took me to Auschwitz. Oh, gosh. Okay, let's get you in the car. Thank you. Thank you. No way. Yeah, when I think back on that discharge, this is what I think of. I think he survived the hospital. He didn't survive COVID. The next day was Halloween, and we weighed you. And I remember thinking, oh, you're a skeleton for Halloween. You know what I mean? Oh, it was just terrible. I did weigh him this morning, and he has lost, as of today, 16 pounds. Now, I don't know what he was when he first came home. Lord knows. I shudder to think. Probably worse than that. So, anyway, 16 pounds. Oh. And the scale this morning, you know, it showed what his weight was, but it wouldn't register anything else. Now we're going to fast forward. What was life like when we got home? And it was really about getting Lee back, you know, getting him back physically and emotionally because he was, I was just going to say it, you were abused both ways, physically and emotionally. You were in solitary confinement for 18 days, and it took a toll on you. I knew that this was going to be a struggle to get back, and not just so much just the physical, because I knew we had to get you back physically, but emotionally. The scary part is when we put you on that scale the next day, the scale that we have tells you how much body fat you have, how much you weigh, how much water is in your body, and how much muscle you have. When he stepped on it, it's got this electrical current that goes through your feet. When you step on it on bare feet, it wouldn't register. It would register his weight, but it wouldn't register anything else. He's either so dehydrated that the electrical current is not registering, or he's too light for the scale to register, which is what would happen when my kids were younger and they'd get on the scale. It would just simply tell them their weight. You know, so I think we ate, and then we put you back on the scale, and you had your drink, and then it finally registered. And the scary part was, do you remember what your percentage for body fat was? I don't remember. It was 6%. Ten percent is dangerously low for males. And I can't say for sure how accurate that scale is, but it was close. It was the best. I knew. I was like, oh, my goodness, we need to pack it on. I knew emotionally that you had some healing to do, because I don't know if you remember this. I'm going to show you a picture. Do you know what that is? Oh, yeah. I remember the good eating I was partook of. You fed me like a king. Okay. So the picture that I just showed Lee is basically a picture of an empty plate. But that particular picture, the next morning when you woke up, I, you know, asked you what you wanted to eat, and you were like, eh, a couple of pancakes, an egg, maybe some food or something like that. And I was like, I'm going to pack the food on his plate. I'm going to give him three times what he would normally eat, because I knew we had to pack it on you. And I was like, I don't care. I have to save it for later, whatever. I bring it upstairs because, you know, he's in bed. He's pretty much bedridden at this point in time. Which is a side note that, you know, we thought I have to be downstairs because I couldn't do the stairs. And so I'm like, nope, I'm doing the stairs. You did it. You did it going up backwards. You'd walk up, you know, slide up backwards, take a rest halfway. Yeah, that was a feat. You're determined to get upstairs. And I didn't blame you. When I set the food down in front of you, you began to weep. What's wrong? And you were just so thankful for the food that was in front of you. I am so heartbroken. What did they do to you? You know, it was just terrible. It was just terrible but beautiful at the same time because you were so thankful and so was I. So that plate, that empty end, you ate every single thing I put on that plate, everything. And I was so grateful for that. Anyway, it was just, you know, a picture of just how poorly treated you were and how thankful you were, you know, we both were, for you to be home. So you had a decent night. It wasn't, you know, it was interrupted sleep, but probably less interrupted than what the hospital would have been. It has had a great day today. It's amazing what loving family, natural lighting, comfort, human touch, and good nutrition will do for a human being who is sick. Unbelievable. Prisoners have more rights than COVID patients in the hospital right now. So then I made him breakfast and ate. You know, he's like, I just, you know, maybe two pancakes and an egg and a little bit of fruit. I'm going to give you a full plate. I gave him at least three times as much food as he asked for, and he ate it all. He ate every single thing, all of it. I came upstairs. I was expecting him to have left half the food. And let me tell you, when I put it in front of him, he started crying. Oh, God. What a nightmare. He has been scarred. I'm not kidding psychologically. Oh, Jesus. This part of the interview is now called the 30,000-foot view from these past events. What was the hardest part of this entire experience for you, Lee, as a patient in the hospital ovens? I'd have to say separation from you especially, but from our children and friends who would, you know, come by or wanted to come by and couldn't. Yeah, that's the worst part is just encouragement and wisdom that I can get from you, that I could have gotten from you except over the phone and from other folks. That's why those three male nurses that I mentioned were, you know, beneficial because they encouraged my soul not just to, you know, not just to. It wasn't just a job for them. They actually saw you as a person instead of just a patient. Absolutely. I would agree that the separation, the inability for me to advocate and care for you physically, actually to be physically there, you know, somebody who loves you, somebody who knows you, somebody who can say, hey, he needs this or I can go get it for you. Just human touch, you know, the thing that I learned first class in my physical therapy degree was taught by my dean, and he basically said, I can still remember the lecture. He basically said patients will get, research has said that patients will get 30% better simply by you touching them. Is that not God or what? We are, human beings are meant for human touch, and when they don't get it, they don't thrive. Being known is so important as well for, you know, mental health, reducing stress. I would tell you that that's probably the hardest part for me too was unable to do what I know what I would have been doing for you had I been there physically. Well, then you could use your skills too. Right, yes. I'd also have to add to that that it was a very lonely time for me. Not only were you in isolation, but I was in isolation too. It was just a different type of isolation, and I'm sure there are a lot of people out there that can relate. You got to remember that I had COVID, and so did our son. Nobody wanted to come to our house. You know, there was, like I said, my mom and a handful of friends across the country were my confidence. They were my support, but outside of that, it was God. It was just really just me talking to God a lot of the time, and I had to hold the house together. You know, I still had two teenagers to be carting around and trying to do life as if it's as normal as possible. Yeah, shout out to the people I work with who bought some great food. Yes, there was one specific family, I would say, that came inside the house and sat and talked and ministered to us. For those of the people out there that did bring us food, I was so grateful for the food. One less thing that I had to do, but honestly, what I really needed was somebody to talk to me, somebody to pray with me, somebody to hug me, encourage me. I mean, food was good, but this is really what my soul needed was encouragement. I was so isolated. I felt like I was in isolation as well, you know, but there was this one family that they didn't care, came right in, and I was like, I love you. I have to say that COVID, really Satan, was successful in separating people and isolating people physically, spiritually, and emotionally, and it was devastating. With God's help and blessing, because I could see that God was showing up, those nurses were showing up for you, and there were some people that were very close to me who I was voice texting with very often that were incredibly helpful and supportive as well. So what did you learn? This is what I learned from this whole thing, that doctors don't read research. They trust the hospital will feed them the information that they need. Big mistake, and I have to say, this is not meant to be mean to physicians, but it's lazy, and I can say that because as a physical therapist, I'm required to have an evidence-based practice, and the only way you can do that is by reading research, and if more physicians had done it, they would have seen the atrocities that were happening, and they would have a choice to make, either continue on or move away from the hospital, and I realize that's not an easy decision at all because you're talking about your career. We're also talking about human lives. Yeah, the thing, it blew me away that it seemed like there was no other answers, but it's just COVID. It's COVID. It's COVID. It's COVID. It's COVID. It's COVID. There's nothing else we can do but stand here and wait for you to get better. Symptoms are so similar to other things in the medical field. It just seemed like we, well, not we, but doctors just stopped thinking. They did. And then our primary care doctor, you know, freaking out over some protocols that we were doing to help. Oh, yeah. We're going to talk about that in another interview. Yes, it was obvious that physicians were afraid to lose their license to practice medicine as well as their jobs, but I asked you, were you really practicing medicine? I don't know that you were. I think you were practicing what people told you to practice, and those people didn't go to medical school. You did, and that's not why you became a doctor or a nurse or a physical therapist or a respiratory therapist, wherever you were in the medical community. This is the other thing I learned, that you should not be bullied by anybody in the healthcare industry. You should critically think, process everything that is being told to you, and do not be afraid to ask the hard questions of doctors, nurses, anybody who walks in the room to give you a treatment or to assess you. Don't be afraid to challenge doctors on their practice of medicine. Know your rights as a patient and what the U.S. law says about what your rights are. Was there any good that came from this experience? Lee is shaking his head right now. He's shaking his head. I have to say, there is some good. There is a silver lining in all of this, and Lee's going to be like, oh, well, that's kind of reaching. It's that his chemotherapy treatment was delayed. Lee was definitely headed towards getting treated for sure before he went into the hospital. I can only assume, and this would be an interesting case review that somebody should do on our case report, is why was it that your lymph nodes were highly inflamed? Your neck was almost three times the size it should be, which means all the other lymph nodes in your body were probably doing the same thing, and yet you came out of the hospital with no signs of progressing CLL. Your neck was completely back to normal, zero signs of any lymph node swelling. For eight months, you avoided chemotherapy. So I would say, well, we died. Something happened that was good. Yeah. I can't tell you why, but there's a reason, and that God protectively is so very evident, so many ways that I think God was protecting you from harm, even though harm was still done to you. You walked out. Well, you didn't walk out, but you left the hospital with your life intact, and unfortunately, there are many, many people that didn't, and it had nothing to do with COVID and everything to do with the hospital protocols, hence the reason why I like to call them the hospital ovens, and it's very, very sad, because had Lee not had somebody who was advocating, who was educated, people, what other choice would they have but to listen and trust? Is there anything else that you'd like to add to this conversation or story or anything that we didn't cover that you'd want people to know? I would have to say it is repetitious a little. Just the advocacy, just to have someone in your corner, which we did on the phone, and we did it with some personnel at the hospital, was the reason I got out, I believe. And so just encourage you to have some people on your team, no matter what the situation, it doesn't have to be COVID, just anything, just have somebody, and if you don't know anybody, ask a friend. Who do they know that can be in your corner? Some medical background, yeah. You know, the one thing I forgot to say, and I was just reminded of it because of your comment about having somebody on the phone because we weren't allowed to, I was not allowed to be there physically. It just reminded me of an instance that I meant to mention. There was one point, so because the only reason why Lee and I were able to communicate was because he had a cell phone. This was really a terrifying part of the story for me, that there was one day where I couldn't get in touch with Lee. It was in the morning, it was our routine, it was several days into him being in this new hospital. I had texted him, and then I called him, and I called him 10 times in an hour and could not get in touch with him. So my only fallback was to call the hospital and ring through, but you have to know that there was no phone in his room. I could only speak to Lee through a nurse at the nurse's station. I get the nurse, and I say, hey, you know, he hasn't responded. Can you just go check on him for me? And if he's sleeping, please don't wake him up. If he isn't, can you ask him to call me? I'll wait. You can come back and let me know. Well, the nurse hangs up on me. And I was like, oh, my goodness. She did not just hang up on me. And then fortunately, I was like, okay, I'm going to let it simmer here. I'm going to see what she's obviously going to go check on him. I called him again, and he picked up, and he was sleeping. And the nurse woke him up and told him to call me. I'm like, dang, I just told you not to do that, but the nurse could have simply come back and told me. Of course, she didn't. The point being, if something happened to Lee, what then? There was no way of knowing what was going on with him. There was no accountability whatsoever. And that is a very important thing. They never asked for it. Well, I'm sure there was only contact. There was probably a contact number. But I don't know if they ever asked that. But, again, there's no accountability, no control whatsoever. What's happening to you? There are no eyes that are fully on your side. All of them are biased on the hospital side. You see what I'm saying? And this is a very dangerous position for anybody to be in. It should have never happened. But it was especially dangerous during COVID because nobody, no one was allowed inside the hospital except for hospital workers and COVID patients who were isolated. Prisoners had more rights than COVID patients in the hospital. And, dare I say, if you were unvaccinated and had COVID, you had even less rights. Your treatment was different than somebody who was vaccinated and sick with COVID. Like it or not, there was an unwritten bias, and it was pervasive among healthcare workers. A very difficult environment for anybody to navigate, but especially somebody who had a loved one in the hospital. Extremely terrifying. I was terrified. I freaked out for probably about an hour because I could not get in touch with you. It was not a good place for me to be. That's the other thing I would tell you too is from here on in, people, and they are going to try this again, is you fight tooth and nail to never leave your loved one in the hospital by themselves. And I would tell you that if you take them into the hospital, you do not leave them. And be prepared to stay 18 days in the hospital. So whatever it takes. All right. Well, that's it. Thank you so much, my sweet, for going through this. I know both of us had some PTSD with going back over this. Such a joy. Not a good time in our life, but it's so incredibly important for us to tell our story. And here we come to it. So what? So what is the point of all this, Dr. To? The point is this, that both government and pharmaceutical money must never dictate health care ever again. Politics must never, ever enter the doctor-patient relationship. A patient's health should never change. On agreeing to experimental drugs or accepting poor medical advice, the patient listens to the doctor's advice, but the patient makes the decision, and the doctor must accept that decision, even if it goes against their medical advice. The hospital oven must never be repeated. Only you and I can ensure that happens by standing firm and not bending to the evil, no matter how uncomfortable it becomes. Well, that's a wrap. If you like what you heard, please share. Want to hear more? Please subscribe. And if you're a faithful listener, thank you for all your love and support. Without you, I would not be here. I'm glad you are along on this journey with me. We have each other, and we are not alone. Until next time, everyone, this is Dr. To signing off. Important disclaimer. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I am not a medical doctor, and I do not diagnose, advise, or treat. This podcast is not intended for the substitute of advice from a personal physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. It is not intended to be used or relied upon for any diagnostic or treatment purposes or to be used as a substitute for professional diagnosis, treatment, or conventional medical therapy. None of the statements made in this podcast have been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Please consult your health care provider before making any health care decisions or for guidance about specific medical conditions. Listen responsibly.