Storm

Read up about heart attack in medical textbooks and, chances are, you will learn about the plaque that clogs the arteries, the lipid-rich core of vulnerable plaque covered by a thin fibrous cap - as thin as half of our hair diameter. Think of it as a trash bin secured barely with a foil instead of a sturdy lid: when things has gone haywire (as they always did), that fibrous cap or foil breaks suddenly and erupts like the deadliest volcano, with all the junk suddenly bursting like lava to cause blockade of the artery.

Heart attack or acute coronary syndrome is serious, that much is clear. Remarkably little is known about the lung attack by the new coronavirus. If the devastating attack of this virus sounds completely mind-blowing, I'm with you. The blitz or ambush by this ever-changing-from-delta-to-omicron virus can be worse than a volcano eruption - ask anyone who has looked after an infected patient. It's practically called a storm. The virus simply kicks off a lid and spews out powerful drivers of inflammation, setting up a cascade of bushfire spreading everywhere, faster than you can imagine.

Every time I came across such a patient, I had that same precarious feeling I'd met him or her too late, like there would have been a better and earlier time window to find a trash can lid lock. Every time I thought I should have control, the bushfire bounced back like a boomerang. So it lingered. On and on. And on.

I seemed to tame the fire in one of the worst patients more than one month ago. Initially, she struggled to breathe when the hyperarousal state of immune system shut down her lungs. With time, she was getting rid of the coronavirus but still needed high flow moistened oxygen delivered through tubes into the nose. I told her I would go back to see her every day. I did. Day after day.

I told myself, as with anything, if you don't try then you will never know. I was carried on a wave of enthusiasm through that nasty wild bushfire fighting, here and there, week after week.

She didn't make it at the end.

Looking back, what do I remember?

If it doesn't set your soul on fire, it's not worth the burn.