#it's loving weiler hours in this house

[happilyobsessing]

the empress and strength for the rook asks!

Thank you for the prompts! I can't help but feel that these are also personally super relevant for me this evening, so I'll definitely enjoy answering these for Weiler.

Please feel free to send through more Rook Tarot Card Ask prompts. My ask box is open <3

Long responses to be found under the cut. I can't ever write about Weiler in half measures x

The Empress: What does family mean for Rook? TW: mentions of child abuse

When Weiler thinks of her biological family three words come to mind: abandonment, rejection, and resentment. Born to impoverished tenant farmers (who were already struggling to feed their other six children) in Ansburg, her parents were left with little choice than to sell their youngest daughter following injury, a poor harvest, and a cruel winter. Her mother took her to a local market when Weiler was three years old and as she was beginning to give up hope, a stranger from Antiva purchased the six-year-old for a purse almost overflowing with silver. What her mother did not realise, however, was that this man was a Antivan Crow from House Kortez (which, having benefitted from the financial generosity of its new Talon, was flourishing brilliantly). As genial, pleasant, and charming as Emil Kortez presented himself to polite society, behind closed doors his house was run with an unhinged depravity that would shock even the most desensitised Crow. Tortured from a young age, beaten, broken, and haphazardly put back together over and over, Weiler grew up with only one question in her mind: did her family know what hell they had sold their daughter in to? Kortez delighted in recounting how ready her parents were to be rid of her, how a full belly and a fistful of coin was more important to them, and the painful reality of the situation was that it was true. So, as Weiler's body was bruised, torn, branded, and her soul and humanity shattered to the brink of disrepair, her longing for her mother and father twisted and soured into an acidic, burning hatred in her gut. Ultimately rescued by Andarateia Cantori and Viago de Riva as they came to "clean" House Kortez following his grisly demise, Viago adopted her into his house. Distrusting and paranoid - and prone to violent outbursts - Weiler was convinced that her new "father" would abuse her in much the same way as she had been by Kortez. Long months were spent re-socialising and re-habilitating her (Viago torn between tearing out his hair and constantly checking it for new grey strands) until she was at long last ready to complete simple contracts . . . which she still managed to almost fail out of stubbornness and bitterness. Losing patience (and afraid for Weiler's safety) Viago 'allowed' himself to be persuaded by Varric to take her off his hands. It is under Varric (and subsequently with her companions in the Veilguard) that Weiler finds her true family and all that it stands for: support, unconditional love, and commitment.

Strength: What gives your Rook courage? What inspires them to keep fighting?

It's ironic. As ferociously as Weiler fights - launching herself headfirst into the fray, slashing and hacking with her daggers - and as confidently she appears to be as she leads her companions into the unknown, Weiler would never describe herself as courageous. She lives in constant fear of weakness, pain, and death, terrified that there will come a day where she must face an even greater evil than she has already had to endure and that she will not be strong enough to save herself (fuck, she wasn't even strong enough to save herself from Kortez, she believes). She pushes her body and to the breaking point because she is afraid. It is a long lesson that Weiler has to learn that courage doesn't mean physical prowess. It doesn't mean being a charismatic leader who can shoulder the burden of everyone around her, everybody in Thedas. She was to learn that it takes courage to sit amongst friends as they eat and drink, getting louder and louder and forgetting that Weiler needs a good half foot of personal space around her. It takes courage to stay lounging in the communal bathing pool - naked with no weapon in sight - as the others join her exhausted and dirty from battle. It takes courage not to flinch at the touches that occur without thought: a hand held out to help her up, a bump against her back when she stops suddenly whilst scouting, a clap to the shoulder accompanied by laughter when she lets out a rare joke. It takes courage just to wake up each morning and make the choice to live another day, another week, another month, etc. It takes courage to take Emmrich Volkarin's hand in hers and place it on her hip, closing her eyes and accepting his kiss in the peaceful quiet of the Memorial Gardens. And finally, it takes the greatest courage of all to open her heart to him and fall in love, wholly and readily.

[jazzforthecaptain]

FIELD WORK: THE RELEASE

Castiel had been (quietly, stoically) losing his shit over The Last Jedi release for weeks. Sam watched this with growing fond amusement. By the week leading up to, he knew the way Castiel’s whole body went still as he watched a new trailer; flipped through a new illustrated guide to a certain galaxy far, far away.

Of course they went on opening night. All of them went: Charlie, Dorothy, Dean, Castiel and Sam, tricked out in varying levels of fannish gear. Sam felt the way Castiel’s shoulder tensed against his, heard his frustrated growls and sharp inhales. He grinned like a kid on Christmas morning, living the film as much through Castiel’s experience as his own. It was good. Of course it was good. A satisfying installment in a story with still a long road to travel.

They went two more times that weekend together; Sam was pretty sure Castiel went at least once without him. In turn, Sam went with Dean later that week, and sat up at Perkins chewing it over with slices of pie and cinematic insomnia.

“There’s an X-Wing at the Fox,” Dean said, “Saw it online. Somebody made it. For opening night.”

“Seriously?”

In two minutes, Dean found photographic evidence of the thing. He turned the phone around, displaying a long line of people waiting under the Fox theater marquee, a spacecraft parked on the curb nearby. Neon painted its slanting wings pink.

An hour later, Sam was barelling home, humming an off-key version of the end credits theme. He picked up Castiel, who waited next to the mailbox at the end of Charlie’s driveway with a mix of curiosity and concern.

“It’s almost one in the morning,” Castiel complained, “I have an appointment in less than six hours.”

“So stop scheduling appointments at five thirty,” Sam scoffed, “get in the truck. I’ll buy you coffee tomorrow.”

“It already is ‘tomorrow.’”

“Shush.”

They drove through the night, merging onto Highway Sixty One where its striped back curved into the west like a garter snake. Christmas lights outlined houses and trees in primary colors. Sam bit his lip, the sleek secret threatening to burst out of him.

The highway collided with Fort Madison in a slow-motion arc, depositing them almost without meaning to in the middle of downtown. Bravely decaying brick buildings lined the two-lane road, their storefronts and rooflines limned in white lights.

And there, under the glowing red beacon of the Fox marquee, was the X-Wing.

Beside him, Sam heard the sharp gasp, and beamed at his own reflection. “Yeah.”

Castiel was out of the truck before Sam threw the transmission in park. He, on the other hand, took his time about getting out. Gave Castiel the time to be still, to do that weird internal dance of joy and grief that seemed twined around this franchise and these movies.

“How did you find this?” Castiel asked, voice thick. He caught Sam’s fingers and tugged him in, using him as an anchor. With a hand to haul him back, he felt safe to put a palm on the thick, plywood wings.

“Dean,” Sam said with a pleased shrug.

Castiel shook his head a little. “Of course he did.”

They toured the model, savored it; lovers sharing an oversized ice cream sundae.

“You know, when I met you I wouldn’t have guessed you were into Star Wars,” Sam laughed, on the way home. Castiel - still taken up by the moment and with a few layers of self-containment peeled away - was belted in the middle of the bench seat, pressed against his side.

“When I met you, I wouldn’t have let you know that,” Castiel replied, “to be honest, I watched it because Charlie insisted. And that one time, just,” he shook his head. “It only took one time.”

“What is it?” Sam asked, “about that. About all this.”

“Luke always wanted to do more,” Castiel said, “see more, learn more. Be a part of something bigger.”

“So you saw yourself?”

“I’m flattered, but not really.” Castiel’s head dropped back against the glass. “I wanted to be Luke; get away from my life, join the Resistance and disappear into space. I never felt like I was where I’m supposed to be.” His hand found Sam’s thigh and stroked it, excluding Sam from the parts that didn’t fit without a word.

A few months ago, Sam thought, he wouldn’t have trusted that feeling. But he was ready to take a few things on faith.

“I get it,” Sam said, “I wanted to be Luke when I was a kid. I wanted to have superpowers and be the hero everyone looked up to. And then I got older and wanted to be Leia.”

Now Castiel sat up a little. Sam felt his eyes in the dark. “Leia?”

Sam’s grin went a little sheepish. “Han.”

“Oh.” There was a smile in the syllable, before Castiel went silent and thoughtful against Sam’s shoulder.

“Well, more than that,” Sam added, “but yeah. Han.”

Castiel ruminated on this, pressing kisses to Sam’s skin a little at a time. They were nearly back to Lomax before he spoke.

“Two things,” Castiel said, low and promising, “one: grumpy, insubordinate emotional moron with an ego like a small sun? I think you have a type.”

Sam threw back his head with the force of his laugh, and the force snapped his skull against the window hard enough to hurt.

“Two: you say this like you’ve never considered the possibility of Han and Luke fucking.”

…Sam had not.

Sam wondered how he could have missed it, all things considered. Given the promissory gleam in Castiel’s eyes at the admission, though, he couldn’t quite regret it.

“I am going to bed, or Frank Weiler’s Halflinger will end me,” Castiel declared, as Sam’s headlights picked out the ribs of Charlie’s two-story farmhouse, “but I have research material for you tomorrow.”

“It’s already tomorrow,” Sam laughed, as Castiel got out of the truck. He came around to the driver’s side window, and leaned over the sill for a slow kiss.

“I love you,” Sam murmured afterward, leaving the metaphorical door wide open.

Castiel only smiled, and kissed him again. “Try harder, you must,” he said, “goodnight, Sam. Thank you.”

@bendoverandbiteyourgag @under-the-silk-tree @sammyatstanford @awabubbles

[larryportera]

Life and Death in the ‘Hot Zone’

By Nicholas Kristof

“If people saw this, they would stay home.” What the war against the coronavirus looks like inside two Bronx hospitals.

April 11, 2020

Heartache in the Hot Zone: The Front Line Against Covid-19

Stretchers, row after row, comatose patients in isolation rooms. Every surface is dangerous and so is the air, especially during an intubation. “Every day, you’re thinking, am I going to get really sick? Am I going to recover? Am I going to be one of those young people that, for whatever reason, dies from this?” The history of this pandemic will be remembered not for briefings at the White House. But for the heartache in the hot zone. We journalists haven’t been able to cover coronavirus the way we normally cover wars from the front lines. “Good morning.” “Good morning.” But I was able to spend two days inside two hard-hit hospitals in the Bronx. To witness the toll on frontline workers trying to keep Americans alive. “So we’re entering a Covid area. And so everybody who goes in wears these protective gowns. And this gentleman is helping me get it on correctly.” Because I don’t know what I’m doing. “I’m the P.P.E. monitor.” “They’re pulling out another one.” “Find that patient now.” “We need the patient to go upstairs please.” Dr. Deborah White reminds me of a general commanding a battlefield. “I mean, this is what we train for. This is the moment in our career because it’s a once in a lifetime thing.” She’s trying to save lives, “Yeah, for upstairs, for upstairs.” while also keeping up morale. On this day almost 800 New Yorkers died. “Many of the people here are clearly in their 70s or 80s, but they’re also, I’m struck that there are a lot of young and middle aged adults here.” “Yeah, absolutely.” “We range from 26 all the way up to 59.” She’s constantly counting beds keeping track of every patient. “We’re just rounding want to know how you’re feeling.” “Sometimes, you know, that human interaction helps them. So the bus is here? Oh so let’s go upstairs quickly because the M.E.T.U. bus is here. Let’s walk rapidly.” Dr. White has a problem. Too many patients, not enough beds. Unless they make room, more people will die. “This is a medical evacuation bus to take people from this hospital to make some space here. The bus is unlike any bus you’ve ever seen. It has oxygen. It has E.M.T. people there to support the patients as they make that ride.” But as this bus frantically shuttles overflow to a nearby hospital, new patients continue to pour in. The red phone rings constantly signaling the arrival of yet another critical patient. So many that there is a traffic jam of stretchers leading to a small army of doctors and nurses. They are about to attempt a last desperate step. An intubation. “I need a vent. I need a vent.” “I need a ventilator.” “So what we’re going to do is intubate her right now to support her oxygen level so that we can improve the oxygen exchange.” This procedure spews virus into the air leaving staff at enormous risk as they try to save the patient’s life. “Take some deep breaths. You’re okay.” “She’s attached to the vent.” While intubated patients can’t speak and what everybody knows is that they probably will never speak again. Ventilators may be lifesaving but most patients still die. Death here has no dignity. Patients can’t have visitors. They’re scared. They can’t even see their nurse’s eyes. I’ve reported on lots of deaths in my career. And this feels particularly brutal. “Someone codes, someones dies. You go onto the next patient. Someone codes, someone dies, you got onto the next patient. And you don’t have time to process those emotions before you go home. I like, I have cried just, at home thinking about it all. Or just, when you get home, you finally take a breather and that’s when you let it all out. Because you don’t have time to process those emotions here.” These doctors and nurses are risking their lives and we’re failing them. Some told me of their deep frustration with the government’s response. We catastrophically bungled testing. The president dithered. Americans kept on partying. The result, thousands of needless deaths. “I was in the Intensive Care Unit, the second patient who came in was tested positive, was a 27-year-old. I’m 29 right now. I’m just as healthy as this patient. It just often times feels like a roll of the dice.” “I spent twelve hours by his bedside with all my P.P.E. on. He would grab my hand and I just kept telling him everything is going to be okay, that we’re doing the best we could, but I could see the fear in his eyes. It was heartbreaking. Because this is still so new to us that we’re just doing what we can and we don’t know what’s going to happen.” As I see it, the triumph here lies in the courage and humanity of the health workers. This may not be enough to defeat the virus, but it’s magnificent to witness.

This is not a time to die.

Terror, pain and loneliness mingle in the air with the coronavirus in the “hot zone” of the emergency department at Jack D. Weiler Hospital in the Bronx. The room is jammed with patients whose frightened eyes peer above their oxygen masks as they struggle to breathe, feel that they are drowning, wonder if they will ever again see loved ones.

No family members are allowed here, yet the space is more than twice as crowded as normal. About 80 coronavirus patients, ranging in age from 31 to 97, are squeezed into the room, bed-to-bed, some near death. A group of newly arrived patients sit in chairs in a corner to await stretchers, and they look around in alarm. Doctors and nurses hurry about so sheathed in protective garb — some of it makeshift, such as welding helmets over ski goggles — that even co-workers cannot recognize them.

The truth is that the doctors too are frightened and exhausted, overwhelmed by death and their own helplessness. Dr. Nicole Del Valle, 29, told me that what shattered her was treating a 30-year-old woman with Covid-19 whose 23-year-old sister had just died of it; Dr. Del Valle called her own younger sister and ordered her not to leave her home.

All day in the hospital, Dr. Del Valle maintains her reassuring manner as she intubates patients, holds their hands, fights for their lives — and then, she acknowledged, she goes home and cries.

To spend time in New York City hospitals today is to see how wrenching the practice of medicine becomes in a time of plague. Two hard-hit Bronx hospitals, Weiler and Montefiore Medical Center Moses Division, each allowed me and a video journalist into their emergency departments for a day, into the hot zones where contagious patients are treated. We also produced the short video above: The hope is that the more Americans understand Covid-19, the more committed they will be to maintain social distancing, thus saving doctors’ lives and their own as well.

Journalists have rarely been allowed into hospitals in this crisis; reporters and photographers found it much easier to be embedded in Army units in Iraq or Afghanistan than to embed with doctors fighting Covid-19. Hospitals worry about HIPAA privacy rules, the dangers of infection and the possibility of embarrassing stories. Unfortunately, the shortage of gritty on-the-ground coverage means that to many Americans, the coronavirus remains distant and unreal — so they plan a large Easter dinner or gather friends for a game in the park. 

The best way to understand the coronavirus is not by tuning into White House briefings but by tuning into the distress on the front line. The Bronx is one of the most diverse places in the country, and the patients I saw this past week were of all races and backgrounds but tended disproportionately to be black and brown. They were mostly feverish, drained — too sick to be interviewed. But there was no mistaking their anguish.

“I hate it,” said Chelsea Gifford, 29, a physician assistant at Montefiore Moses. “You have this horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach when patients say they’re scared and you don’t have any treatment.”

Ms. Gifford recalled a patient who had come from an assisted-living center. “I’m really scared,” he told her. “I don’t want to have Covid. I’m in a facility and there are people dying there.”

She looked into his eyes and held his hands. “We’re going to do our best to make you comfortable,” she told him. “We understand it’s scary. But we’re here with you. We’re going to help you.”

Ms. Gifford struggles to sleep at night and has nightmares — not of catching the coronavirus herself, but of infecting her parents. She lives with them but stays in her room and uses her own plate and silverware; she talks to them only through a closed door. She washes her hands so much that angry red sores have broken out on her palms and wrists.

Then she drives to work and sees New Yorkers mingling in the parks, treating the pandemic lightly — and she seethes. “If people saw this,” she said, gesturing to the frightened people gasping for breath around us, “they would stay home.”

II.

The emblematic procedure of this pandemic is intubation, a last-ditch effort to connect a patient who cannot breathe to a ventilator. It is both lifesaving and terrifying — and unfortunately, for most Covid-19 patients, it doesn’t succeed. There’s no large-scale data, but in New York City as many as four out of five Covid-19 patients who are intubated may not survive.

For that reason, doctors and nurses try to give Covid-19 patients a chance to telephone loved ones before intubation, knowing that this may be their last chance to speak. But sometimes there isn’t time. At Weiler hospital, I saw a 68-year-old woman deteriorate rapidly, her oxygen level plummeting. A team of a doctor, a nurse-anesthetist, an emergency nurse and a respiratory therapist urgently gathered in full protective gear.

For health workers, intubation is nerve-racking because it causes the virus to spray out from the lungs into the air. In this case, the procedure was performed in a room on the edge of the hot zone with negative air pressure, so that the virus would remain in the room. A plastic box was placed over the patient’s head, and the nurse-anesthetist put her arms through holes in the box to perform the intubation.

The patient was put to sleep and paralyzed, and a device was inserted into her mouth to lift the epiglottis and make way for a tube that was passed through her vocal cords about 10 inches down to her lungs. The outside end was then connected to a ventilator, which pumped oxygen in.

Because it would be ghastly to wake up unable to speak with a tube down one’s throat, patients are sedated so that they do not rip out the tube; doctors say that for some reason, Covid-19 patients seem to require more sedation than other patients. To be safe, their hands are also tied down.

Next to the woman was an elderly man who had been intubated earlier in the day, and he was declining quickly. For Covid-19 patients, ventilators are sometimes the only hope — but they aren’t much hope.

Neither, perhaps, is hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria medication that President Trump has hailed as a possible “game changer.” Most patients at both hospitals I visited have been receiving hydroxychloroquine, sometimes combined with the drug azithromycin, but people are still dying in large numbers. Some doctors think that these drugs help if administered early, but I spoke to no one on the front lines who believed they were a game changer.

III.

What is most impressive in the hospitals is not the ventilators, CT scanners or other high-tech wizardry. It’s the compassion and courage of health workers, and the intervention that struck me the most was decidedly low-tech — the hand-holding.

Katherine Chavez, a nurse at Montefiore Moses, recalled a man in his early 40s with no medical history. He was intubated, and she spent 12 hours by his bedside as he struggled for life. “He would grab my hand, and I just kept telling him that everything is going to be OK,” she said.

Dr. Michael P. Jones, who runs the physician resident program for the emergency departments at both hospitals I visited, sent his young doctors an email last month asking them to go out of their way to comfort the Covid-19 patients:

Take a few moments if you can to talk about patient’s families, their lives, their dreams. Ask if there is a loved one you can call. And lastly, two very difficult things: Hold your patient’s hand for a minute as they near death or pass, and ask your entire team to stop for five or 10 seconds, bow your heads, state the patient’s name, and ask for silence.

This helps us retain our humanity in times of such crisis and gives our patients’ families some solace that they were treated with dignity.

Doctors and nurses are supposed to have a confident bedside manner, but that’s hard to maintain when they themselves are afraid.

“I could see the fear in his eyes,” Ms. Chavez told me about the patient whose hand she held. But there was also fear in her own eyes. “I don’t know whether the virus is airborne, and I was in the room 12 hours straight,” she said. “What did it do to me?”

Health workers are particularly at risk of infection and death, perhaps because they absorb such large quantities of the virus. Several of the young physicians at the hospitals I visited have Covid-19, and one is in the intensive-care unit.

Dr. Michael Tarr, 29, was particularly shaken after he treated a 27-year-old woman who came in severely ill with Covid-19. “We ran every test on her,” he said. “There had to be something underlying that would make her so vulnerable. And we found nothing.” The patient is still alive on a ventilator in the I.C.U., he said, but doing poorly.

“It oftentimes feels like a roll of the dice,” he said. “Every day you’re thinking, ‘Am I going to get really sick? Am I going to be able to recover? Am I going to be one of those young people that, for whatever reason, dies?’”

Dr. Tarr said he has nightmares because of the coronavirus. His fiancée, Dr. Sara Rezai, who is also doing intubations, told me that she understands entirely because she has similar nightmares.

Courage is not fearlessness; courage is what soldiers exhibit when they charge into battle despite their fears. And it’s what apprehensive physicians like Dr. Tarr, or worried nurses like Ms. Chavez, display when they walk into the hot zone each day. The same is true of physician assistants, technicians, respiratory therapists and cleaners (who face similar peril but get less credit and pay). These front-line workers take great risk, yet we’ve let them down.

“There’s a lot of frustration,” Dr. Tarr acknowledged. “You’d like a country as advanced as the U.S. to act like a first-world country. But you see the U.S. struggling to have enough ventilators, running out of supplies we never thought we could run out of.”

President Trump squandered two months that could have been spent assembling personal protective equipment, or P.P.E., rolling out mass testing and manufacturing ventilators. Many states and cities (including New York) were also too lackadaisical at first. That’s one reason the death rate from Covid-19 has been more than 50 per million inhabitants in the United States, versus four per million in South Korea, one in Singapore and 0.2 in Taiwan. Doctors and patients have died unnecessarily.

“Washington failed us, and now patients and health care workers alike are getting ill and dying,” Dr. Jones said. “We could have avoided this whole situation if we had listened to the doctors and scientists and not worried about politics and ratings.”

P.P.E. is short at most hospitals, but those I visited seemed for now to be getting by and also to have enough ventilators. But while I was at Weiler, staff members suddenly realized that they were almost out of bag valve masks, which are needed for intubations, and that they would not be available from a supplier for weeks. A frantic search turned up enough for the time being, and they are now locked up and doled out only as needed.

Weiler and Montefiore Moses hospitals, unlike some others, allow staff members to bring their own P.P.E. Dr. Tarr bought a welding mask on Amazon to put over his donated ski goggles. Some 23,000 ski goggles have been given to hospitals by skiers through a group called Goggles for Docs and are hugely appreciated because they are both very comfortable and very protective.

Everyone I spoke to was grateful for the public’s donations of P.P.E., food and other assistance — but also acknowledged that the emotional toll is almost unbearable.

“I listen to the residents,” Dr. Jones said, speaking of the 84 physician residents he supervises. “They’re fatigued, they’re emotionally drained, they’re frustrated that facts aren’t being listened to, that there’s misinformation.”

“Can we keep going for another two weeks?” he asked. “Yes. Then can we go for another two more weeks? Maybe. Can we do two more after that? I don’t know.”

IV.

Hospital emergency departments are transformed in the age of Covid-19. The eeriest change is that bedside alarms chime constantly: In just one wing of the emergency department at Montefiore Moses, 20 alarms were howling simultaneously.

Doctors explained that most are false alarms, and patient vital signs can be monitored through displays at the nurses’ station. To turn the alarms off requires someone putting on P.P.E. and walking to the patient’s bed.

“You want to use P.P.E. wisely,” noted Dr. David Esses, the head of the emergency department. “You can’t burn a gown every time an alarm goes off.”

So they let them ring.

CPR has sometimes become more perfunctory. In the past, doctors might have spent 30 minutes trying to revive an elderly patient, but today each chest compression can unleash a toxic brew of virus that could kill someone else. So when it’s unlikely to succeed, CPR may now stop after a few minutes.

There is also today a greater willingness to have blunt conversations about death, something that medical systems have never been good at. With resources scarce, health workers are thinking through what happens if they must ration ventilators: Who will get one, and who will be left to die?

Dr. Jones recalled an older patient with long-term dementia who was fading from Covid-19. Normally, the team would have intubated her, but in this case he telephoned her family members: Did they really want to proceed? In the end, the family decided not to intubate, and the woman died peacefully that day.

An enormous change is that emergency departments are almost empty of non-coronavirus cases. People don’t seem to be breaking their legs, having strokes or shooting one another as often as normal. That’s partly because fewer people are outdoors, but it also appears that some families prefer to have an aging parent die quietly at home rather than go to a hospital at this time.

Some patients’ hospital beds are marked “D.N.R.” and “D.N.I.” — “do not resuscitate” and “do not intubate.” If you haven’t already, this is a good time to prepare those medical instructions for yourself and those you love.

V.

With the symphony of alarms, the harried staff and the overhead announcements summoning medical teams to one emergency after another, the atmosphere is already taut. And then the red telephone rings.

It’s the phone that gets calls from ambulances, announcing that a severely ill patient is on the way.

Weiler Hospital tries to make space by transporting patients regularly to Montefiore Moses, but the ambulances bring new patients faster than others can be moved out. There are triage tents outside, but still there are sometimes traffic jams of stretchers at the entrance to the hot zone.

From the emergency department, many patients eventually migrate to the I.C.U. Weiler’s I.C.U. has more than doubled in size since the pandemic hit, and it was calm and still, so different from the emergency department. Most patients lie sedated in beds in negative-pressure rooms; the only motion was in the squiggly lines on the electronic monitors. One patient recovering after 10 days on a ventilator waved to me happily, but she was the exception; many coronavirus patients in the I.C.U. never make it home.

New Yorkers have been dying of Covid-19 at a rate of almost 800 per day, and that’s probably a significant undercount. Upon a death, doctors fill out paperwork for the death certificate, and nurses and technicians prepare the body and attach a toe tag. In the old days, the body would be covered with a sheet and rolled to the morgue; now it is encased first in one body bag and then in a second, and a team takes the body to the hospital morgue, and then because there is no space, to a refrigerated truck outside that is replaced every couple of days.

“We are working with the funeral homes” to claim the bodies, said Linda Berger Spivack, the clinical director of nursing at Weiler. “However, the funeral homes are also extremely overwhelmed.”

Death is often an undignified and wrenching transition, but it’s particularly brutal now. We humans evolved to support one another, but viruses evolved to take advantage of our bonds — and so in a time of plague, people often die alone.

The Covid-19 wave may now be passing over New York — which means it will soon hit other places that were too relaxed about social distancing. “They should learn from New York,” Dr. Esses said. “Because if they don’t learn, then the same thing will happen there. And by the time they realize this, it’s too late.”

Let me give the last word to Nicole Del Valle, the young doctor who bravely reassures patients all day and then goes home to cry. I asked her what message she has for those who live in places not yet battered by the virus, who doubt the calls for masks and social distancing.

“The hospitals are still very overwhelmed,” she said. “It’s really hard as an emergency physician to see people suffer without their families at the bedside. It’s been a very hard time for everyone here.

“We are telling people to please stay home.”

[deniscollins]

People Are Taking Emotional Support Animals Everywhere. States Are Cracking Down

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act service animals must be allowed in restaurants, stores and other public places, even where animals are otherwise barred. Emotional support animals, which provide comfort with their presence but generally have no special training, do not have the same status under the disabilities act. If you were an airline executive, what would you do if a passenger insisted that she needed to be accompanied on the plane by an emotional support dog and she had a certificate stating so: (1) allow the dog on the plane, (2) refuse? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

A 26-year-old Starbucks barista in the suburbs of Tampa known as Vayne Myers has suffered from anxiety ever since he was a child. A co-worker suggested he try an emotional support animal.

So Mr. Myers bought a duck and named it Primadonna. The snow-white bird has worked wonders for his state of mind.

“Whenever I felt like I didn’t matter in the world,” he said, Primadonna would waddle over and remind him that “something does love you.”

But Mr. Myers’s landlord objected, and demanded proof that Primadonna was a medical necessity and not simply a pet. Mr. Myers provided a letter from a therapist in California who spoke to him over a video chat, and then another note from a counselor who met in person with him (and the duck). But neither document satisfied the landlord, who threatened eviction.

Mr. Myers hired a lawyer and filed a complaint of housing discrimination with the Department of Housing and Urban Development using his legal name, Jesse Calfas. His filing was one of more than a thousand similar complaints the agency has received nationwide so far this year.

The number of people claiming they have a right to live with animals for their mental health — as well as to take them onto planes and into restaurants and stores — has been growing rapidly.

In 2011, the National Service Animal Registry, a for-profit company that sells official-looking vests and certificates for owners, had 2,400 service and emotional support animals in its registry. Now the number is nearly 200,000.

But the spread of such animals — the vast majority of them dogs — has also been met by concerns from landlords, airlines and other businesses that many Americans may be abusing the system. Critics say that pet owners are obtaining phony certifications or letters from online therapists to avoid paying fees or to get permission to bring creatures where they wouldn’t normally be allowed.

“We’ve seen everything from reptiles to insects,” said Amanda Gill, government affairs director for the Florida Apartment Association, which represents landlords.

“Obviously, you want to accommodate people with legitimate requests, but that’s harder to do when you have so many bogus requests,” Ms. Gill said. “Everyone is recognizing that this is a growing problem right now.”

More than two dozen state legislatures have enacted new laws to crack down on fraud.

A law passed in Utah this year makes it a misdemeanor to lie about a pet being an emotional support animal, or E.S.A., expanding a law already on the books that made it a crime to misrepresent a pet as a Seeing Eye dog.

Oklahoma just passed a law clarifying that restaurants and stores have a right to keep support animals out. Virginia’s law cracks down on websites that promise to provide E.S.A. verification letters for a fee, without having any therapeutic relationship with the animal’s owner.

“A true service animal is a highly trained dog,” said Tammy Townley, a state representative in Oklahoma who supports her state’s new law. “When someone comes in with an emotional support animal, they are saying, ‘It’s my service animal.’ No — it’s something you bought a vest for.”

Advocates point out that therapy animals are protected by the Fair Housing Act, which requires landlords to make “reasonable accommodations” for people with disabilities, like a wheelchair-accessible parking space. They worry that the new laws will embolden landlords to deny animals to tenants who need them.

Even some supporters of the new measures struggle over how to distinguish a legitimate need from a fraud.

“It’s really hard to draw a bright line,” said Todd Weiler, a state senator in Utah who said that an old high school classmate of his keeps an emotional support pig. “To a large extent, everybody could benefit from having a pet,” Mr. Weiler said. “When is it an emotional support animal and when it is a pet?”

Sam Killebrew, a Florida state lawmaker who sponsored a bill to curb emotional support animal claims, said he went online and registered Ophelia, a stuffed baboon in his office, as his “emotional support animal,” even though she’s been frozen, her fang-filled mouth agape, by a taxidermist.

“As long as you pay your money, you’re going to get that card,” he said.

He sponsored a bill this year that would allow landlords to require that tenants who claim a need for an animal obtain a letter from a licensed medical professional based in Florida. Mr. Killibrew later withdrew the bill, but he said he planned to reintroduce it next year.

Sara Pratt, former assistant secretary for fair housing at HUD, agreed that the certificates sold online can be a problem. “They are useless,” she said. But she warned that state lawmakers who rush to criminalize people for seeking documentation of a need for a support animal are sending the wrong message to landlords, who are at risk of getting slapped with hefty federal fines.

The Americans with Disabilities Act defines service animals as dogs or small horses that are trained to perform specialized tasks, like leading a blind person or detecting seizures. Service animals must be allowed in restaurants, stores and other public places, even where animals are otherwise barred.

Emotional support animals, which provide comfort with their presence but generally have no special training, do not have the same status under the disabilities act. But when it comes to keeping an animal at home in a rental unit, federal law has been interpreted to give tenants a right to live with an animal if it helps treat depression or anxiety.

Skepticism surrounding emotional support animals has increased with their rising numbers, especially at airports, where another law — the Air Carrier Access Act — gives airlines wide latitude over how various creatures are handled. Some airlines refuse to allow hedgehogs, snakes and rodents, along with dogs, into the passenger cabin for flights longer than eight hours. A number of widely publicized incidents — a dog allegedly mauling a passengerand an emotional support squirrel causing an entire flight to deplane — have added to the anxiety over anxiety-soothing animals.

Some people who require Seeing Eye dogs have complained that their animals have been attacked in airports or restaurants by untrained emotional support dogs, and that the explosion in support animals has led to more skepticism of true service dogs.

Mr. Myers, who says his anxiety stems from being abused as a child by his mother’s boyfriend, bought his duck from a farm around Easter, when he was just a fuzzy duckling a few days old. He knew he wanted Primadonna when the duckling snuggled in his open hand.

They quickly grew attached to one another.

“I take him in the shower, in the bath, and outside,” he said, adding that the duck wears a diaper inside the house to avoid messes. “He will follow me wherever I go.”

Mr. Myers said that Primadonna mostly stays in a private yard, and that his neighbors have been unaware of the feathered creature in their midst. The duck’s presence was discovered during an unrelated maintenance visit. His landlord, who charges a fee for tenants who keep cats, said that ducks were not allowed, and demanded proof that the duck had been prescribed by a doctor before making an exception.

After Mr. Myers was threatened with eviction, he found Matthew Dietz, litigation director of the Disability Independence Group, a nonprofit legal advocacy center in Florida.

Mr. Dietz does not deny that some people pretend to need an animal when they merely want one. But that does not worry him nearly as much, he said, as situations like the one confronting a homeless veteran he has been helping recently. The veteran had finally found housing, he said, but was now being asked to give up two dogs that had lived with him throughout his years on the street.

“My basic stance is that mental illness is tough,” Mr. Dietz said. “Anything that makes somebody feel better, why not? As long as you don’t hurt anybody else, what’s the big deal?”

Lawyer after lawyer turned down Mr. Myers’s case, but Mr. Dietz took it right away. And with the help of HUD, he successfully negotiated with the landlord for Primadonna to stay.

If a client says he needs a duck, he needs a duck, Mr. Dietz said. “Why would somebody lie about something like that?”

[viralhottopics]

What you missed at SXSW: Must-know info from the interactive conference

Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Thanks to the annual SXSW Conference and Festivals, the brain power emanating from Austin in the middle of March was almost palpable it seems like everywhere you turned in this Southern city there was another insightful talk, intriguing pop-up and exciting development around cutting-edge technology.

The themes surrounding the SXSW Interactive Festival this year were diverse and far-reaching. From talks that explored modern-day activism and how business can be used as a catalyst for social good, to the intersection between science and storytelling and why fashion is poised to be one of the next big disrupters in the tech industry.

Image: Kevin Krejci/Flickr

Big names ranging from political luminaries to leaders in the fields of film, business and technology graced the stage as speakers, extolling words of wisdom and advice on their captive audiences many of which waited for hours in order to snag a seat inside.

Former Vice President Joe Biden implored attendees to use their technological expertise to help solve the cancer crisis for good.

Youre the future. -Joe Biden

“You’re the future, Biden said. Many of you are developing technologies and innovations for purposes large and small, fun and serious, entertaining and life saving. They have nothing to do with cancer, but you can make a gigantic impact.

Cory Booker, a senator from New Jersey and a veritable social media darling, also imparted wise words for the crowd, telling attendees at his opening keynote that love is the way forward during times of political discord.

“Love says I see you. I recognize your dignity, your value, your worth, said Booker.

A woman participates in an activity during the Empathy Lab at SXSW.

Image: Nicole Cammorata/Mashable

EMPATHY + THE INTERNET

Theres something so simple about allowing people to connect with each other. -Lance Weiler

The empathetic vibes spilled over into some of the breakout sessions too. Virtual Reality is quickly becoming a device that can be used to bridge gaps in understanding between cultures, transporting people into situations and locations dissimilar from their own. This need for empathy is greater now than ever before, and was a big buzzword at this years festival.

One session introduced a new endeavor called Empathy Lab, a partnership between Refinery29 and the Columbia University Digital Storytelling Lab. Here attendees witnessed firsthand the power of empathy, via a series of exercises that sought to shift the way they saw the world and each other.

Theres something so simple about allowing people to connect with each other, said Lance Weiler, founder and director of the Columbia University Digital Storytelling Lab.

At the Paper & Package – How Life Unfolds booth during the SXSW trade show.

Image: Nicole Cammorata/Mashable

DEVICES OF THE FUTURE

A visit to the SXSW tradeshow was a peek into all the cool gadgets, tech and games people were obsessing over. From an electronic tattoo by Rotex with biometric sensors embedded inside, to 3D-printed shoes from Feetz and the Neko Electro posture-correcting headband, there was plenty to nerd out about.

Ever dream that you can fly? Birdly by Somniacs brings that childhood wish to life. The VR experience pairs with a full body apparatus that allows you to flap your wings as you soar through the air. Unlike other flying VR experiences, there is no joystick or controller here. Its all you.

A post shared by Mashable (@mashable) on Mar 16, 2017 at 10:38am PDT

FROM ACROSS THE POND…

Historically, the UK has been the largest international delegation to attend SXSW and this year was no exception. At the Great Britain House, a three-story enclave that took over Speakeasy on Congress Avenue, festivalgoers could experience a virtual orchestra, VR activations and displays from a host of tech-savvy UK companies.

There was also a head-to-head Tech Off series like a rap battle for tech enthusiasts where speakers fought it out on the roof and got creative about what the future holds for our world.

…AND BEYOND

Another popular spot at the trade show was the NASA station, where people could learn how to collaborate with the agency as citizen scientists, get the latest information on recent missions like the Juno mission to Jupiter and use a special VR station to experience the Orion spacecraft.

A model of the International Space Station at the NASA booth.

Image: Nicole Cammorata/Mashable

ART + SCIENCE

Museums of the future will seek to create physical experiences in a digital space. By combining design, art and technology, exhibits will be able to immerse visitors in an experience no matter where they are. (No museum required.)

Of course, visiting a museum in person will have its own unique flair too.

Imagine a future where VR can make the animal displays at the Museum of Natural History in New York come to life, or where open source data can inform digital displays at an art museum in real time. Its already starting but were just at the beginning. Art and science are coming together more than ever as leaders seek to create experiences that augment all sorts of experiences museums or otherwise.

Our ideas are waiting for tech to arrive so we can put them in place, said Hlne Alonso, the Director of Digital Experiences at the American Museum of Natural History.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2mMrkGd

from What you missed at SXSW: Must-know info from the interactive conference