Monday, June 28
It was dawn when I was transported to the main hospital. After a short ride to the hospital, A nurse wheeled my bed through hallways and to the COVID treatment area, accessed only through a special elevator with a large red emergency warning sign looming over the door. The nurse had to type in a code to open the elevator door. I saw this and felt uneasy. It seemed like I was entering a prison.
The patient rooms had various names; the one I was placed in was named Salon Tara (I found this out weeks later). These rooms held six patient beds, attached to a bank of attachments with computerized monitors that recorded and displayed the patient’s vital statistics. There was a separate bathroom and shower area. The main sliding glass doors were kept shut. Doctors never entered; only nurses and cleaning personnel completely covered in PPE. The far wall from my bed (no. 96) to the left consisted of a large bank of windows. The windows overlooked building roofs, and two large towers were visible in the distance. I tried to figure out what direction I was looking at, and it appeared to be southwest.
*Note: all conversations were in Spanish unless noted with ENG. I understand more Spanish than I can speak, but the nurses and doctors did not know this. My comprehension of Spanish was vital because I was not exposed to the program’s full impact, and the doctors and nurses would say things thinking I did not understand. I understood more than half of what was said in Spanish.
Because no doctors or nurses wore visible name badges and constantly wore masks, it was hard to remember the names of various nurses or doctors.
General Schedule:
4:30 a.m. Morning nurses came to clean patients and change the bedding.
Male attendants came to empty the trash and biohazard containers.
Blood pressure check/medicine/anticoagulant shot
5:30 a.m. coffee and bread
Morning nurse/doctor rounds
10:45 a.m. breakfast: pinto de gallo, bread, cheese, pineapple or banana, water
1:15 p.m. lunch: chicken, rice, salad, papaya, vegetables, water
4:30 p.m. dinner: meat/fish, rice, beans, bread, salad, tomato, lettuce, water
Blood pressure check/medicine/anticoagulant shot
8:00 p.m. Warm drink, atole.
Night nurse/doctor rounds
Night medications.
Atole, sometimes referred to as atolli or atol de elote in other Latin countries, is a warm drink that is traditionally served in Mexico.
Standard recipes call for a mix of corn flour, corn dough, water, and spices. Milk is often incorporated into this set of ingredients to add sweetness and moisture.
There was a variety of good fresh food. The times are approximate because there was no clock visible from my position. Later I would find out that the date and time were displayed very small on the lower right side of the patient monitor. I could not see the small time displayed well because I did not have my eyeglasses with me
I learned the names of the other patients on the first day. I noticed that all patients had their phones and bags of personal belongings. I was the only one without a phone and personal belongings, and the nurses were not clear about my placing a phone call. They were very unhelpful. I kept asking to call my son and tried to figure out how to contact him once I got access to a phone. I did not have the number memorized, and since I did not have any of my papers, I had no phone numbers memorized. But I remembered the restaurant owned by Alex, the son of Maria and Carlos. Even though it was Monday and the restaurant was closed, Rosita offered to call it after looking it up on Facebook. We rang several times, and finally, Lara’s sister Elizabeth answered! Bingo! We got through, and Rosita gave Elizabeth the telephone number to have my son contact me. I felt better knowing that someone on the outside knew where I was.
Nurses came in with patient medicines and syringes. A nurse grabbed my left arm to give me a shot; I pulled away and asked what it was. She got pissed off and began sounding off at me in Spanish as she gave all the other patients a shot. Then she asked me if I still did not want it – I said ¨No, I don’t want it.¨ I thought her attitude was ridiculous. Leo and I talked about it – how unreasonable she was. Later, we asked another nurse what the shot was, and I found out it was an anticoagulant – Heparina – Leo and I looked it up on his phone, and I read that it was ok. So, I got the afternoon injection.
Patients:
Bed No. 97: Leo. He is married with two sons. He was ill but could talk on his phone ok. He volunteered for a research study on a floor below where we were. A research study paper was put on my tray table instead of his by mistake, and I read it before I realized what it was. Later, I saw an American doctor come in to talk to him. By Thursday morning, he was transferred out and replaced by an older woman.
Bed No. 95: Tina. She was about 50 years old and, during the day, was always in a very sour mood. At first, she was very sick. She slept most of the day and was not breathing well. Her phone lost its charge, and she did not have the proper cable, so Rosita let her use her phone to call home, and she would go on a loud rant about how COVID was the way to get people from doing their evil deeds. She would tell her father to stop drinking and doing nasty things when she spoke to him on the telephone.
Bed No. 98: Aglia was very sick and slept on her side or stomach for the first two days. She did not talk very much to any patients. She would speak with her family on her phone all the time.
Bed No. 99: Jose was very ill; he could barely breathe, he did not eat, he did not talk, he just laid on his back and slept the whole time. Jose was transferred out by Tuesday.
Bed No. 100: Rosita was still coughing a bit but was getting better. She said she had been there for 21 days. Rosita spent her days talking to her large family on her phone. She offered me the use of her phone to call home.
The First Night: The nighttime was very different from the daytime. I was hooked to a large cannula and an oxygen machine because my oxygen level was around 83. Around 8:30 p.m., the nurses gave us medicine and a cup of water. I asked what each pill was. The first night I got a vitamin C, two large white pills for digestion, and a tablet in a blister pack for circulation/oxygen. I began to hear Rosita’s monitor above her bed making a musical-sounding chime. The little light at the top would light up and off. Rosita herself was fast asleep on her side. I thought this was very strange. We were all hooked up to our monitors by a finger pulse monitor. These were special because they also kept track of our oxygen saturation level, which showed up on the monitors above our beds. A beeping alarm would sound if the monitor fell off your finger or if you took it off. So, how and why was Rosita’s monitor making a very relaxing musical chime? I listened and gradually fell asleep.
I began to fall asleep and felt a ¨glitch¨ (The only way to describe it – I felt my body twitch, my heart jumped a beat, and I was over and into what I will call a program.) First, I was walking in the hospital, and fantastic machines ran the whole building in the basement under the emergency Covid section. Down a dark hallway, I saw the machines replicating themselves by using women as surrogates for creating human/machine beings. I saw a pregnant woman screaming as a machine sliced her open to reveal a strange round armadillo-shaped mechanical ¨baby¨. Some human nurses nearby marveled at it, and I left quickly down another hallway and then saw a flash of a document in a sepia tone. It looked like a patent document. On it was the Title DOD Department of Defense, bar code, and patent number – similar to this example:
There was a list of subscriptions in numerical order that one could choose. I just accepted the first one, which led me to a night-long exhaustive creation of my own company. I designed the logo, the name – Supreme Drone Delivery – and the whole business model. I was delighted and excited; it was a total rush. I could not wait to tell Daniel all about it. I woke up near dawn, drenched in sweat, my heart racing, and I felt as if I was surfacing from deep underwater. Several monitors were beeping what sounded like a repetitive sentence: ¨You cannot save us. ¨ ¨No, you can’t ¨ This was coming from monitors no.98 and no.99. I thought, what the hell was in that medicine? I recognized everything I had just undergone as some drug-induced hallucination.
I awoke to a dawning recognition of strange things about several patients and nurses’ behavior. I feel now, in retrospect, that the first night’s medication began my trip into the program that was being run. Before the first night’s pills, I did not hear chimes and beeps from patient monitors, I did not hear people talking strangely, and I did not see people acting weird.
English: 6/28/21, 9:20 a.m. – Messages and calls are end-to-end encrypted. No one outside of this chat, not even WhatsApp, can read or listen to them. Tap to learn more.
6/28/21, 9:20 a.m. – Daniel: Good morning Maria, how are you? I hope you’re well. I wanted to tell you that a bag of my mother’s things was at my door this morning. The things were her clothes, document holder, telephone and charger. Now that she doesn’t have a phone, we have to wait longer for information.
6/28/21, 10:14 a.m. – Maria: Yes Carlos and I went to the hospital last night and I picked up that bag, we have the documents on hand and he put alcohol on them. Wash clothes with plenty of soap. I went to the Covi emergency center at the hospital downtown. I spoke to dr. that she is with her and she told me that she was responding well to oxygen.
6/28/21, 10:14 a.m. – Maria: Mr. Ramos will bring you cooked food.
6/28/21, 10:19 a.m. – Daniel: Ok, I understand. Thank you very much for your help, Maria. God bless you.
6/28/21, 10:29 a.m. – Maria: Yesterday I realized how much I love your mommy. I have a hospital phone number, I am trying to communicate and if I know something I will tell you. 6/28/21, 10:30 a.m. – Daniel: Thanks for the kind words Maria. Ok, thanks again.
6/28/21, 10:37 a.m. – Maria: Daniel. How do you feel?
6/28/21, 10:38 a.m. – Daniel: I feel good. I have no fever or pain
6/28/21, 10:45 a.m. – Maria: Good. You shouldn’t go outside for 2 weeks. If you can, take the boxes that are around the table out on the terrace. You should put liquid Lizol on the surfaces. and spray the whole house. Open window doors, if you can little by little and remove all of mom’s bedding and take the mattress out to the balcony to ventilate. I would like to help you but it is dangerous for me I am high risk. Anything you need, let me know with confidence.ok😉 ♥ ️👍🏽
6/28/21, 10:50 a.m. – Daniel: Ok, I understand. Without worries. I’ll start disinfection today as you described .👍🏽
6/28/21, 1:33 p.m. – Daniel: Ok, thank you very much
6/28/21, 6:14 p.m. – Maria: Hi Daniel, how are you feeling?
6/28/21, 6:16 p.m. – Daniel: Hi Maria, I feel good. How was the visit to my mother?
6/28/21, 6:20 p.m. – Maria: I couldn’t see her. But I was reassured to know that she is in a room where the condition is average, I am waiting for the doctor in charge of her to call me.
6/28/21, 6:22 p.m. – Daniel: Ok, thank you very much for this news.
6/28/21, 6:31 p.m. – Maria: I recently spoke with Dr. and she says your mother did not allow them to put the heparin in her. Heparin is an anticoagulant that is generally applied to the stomach when lying down for a long time to avoid forming blood clots. These patients are isolated and do not allow any communication.
6/28/21, 6:32 p.m. – Maria: You can look it up on the internet.
6/28/21, 6:37 p.m. – Daniel: Ok, I know what this drug is. Thanks for the update.
6/28/21, 6:39 p.m. – Maria: It worries me, also this disease gives thrombi (clots) and heparin does not allow this to happen.
6/28/21, 6:40 p.m. – Daniel: Do we know the results of the covid test for my mother?
6/28/21, 6:44 p.m. – Maria: If she has covid. And by nexus you too. Since I was close to her last Wednesday, I must be at my house and let no one come because I too can have covid.
6/28/21, 6:45 p.m. – Maria: Do you know where you got it?
6/28/21, 6:47 p.m. – Maria: You guys went to San Lorenzo last week.
6/28/21, 6:51 p.m. – Daniel: I started feeling bad on Monday, June 14. I was with Nico just to run an errand and then back to my house. I’ve been at my house all this time. We canceled the trip to Heredia and never went. I would be surprised if it was covid.
6/28/21, 6:54 p.m. – Maria: Renee went somewhere to get it.?
6/28/21, 6:57 p.m. – Maria: I was with Renee on June 16 in the afternoon, who got sick first. 6/28/21, 6:59 p.m. – Daniel: Right, I was sick on the 16th, not my mother. My mother was mainly here in the house between June 14 and June 27. She got sick from me after a week of being sick. We were not traveling because it rained a lot these 2 weeks.
6/28/21, 7:02 p.m. – Maria: She went to the dentist and to the supermarket?
6/28/21, 7:05 p.m. – Daniel: No dentist. I do not remember the market. What I’m saying is that she’s more likely to have gotten sick from me than from any of these other places in the last 2 weeks. I was sick a week before she started to feel bad.
6/28/21, 7:11 p.m. – Maria: Most likely. Now ask God that she does not complicate in the next few days.
6/28/21, 7:14 p.m. – Maria: I explained to you last night but I don’t think you understood me that it was better to go to CIMA even though it is very expensive.
6/28/21, 7:14 p.m. – Maria: But cheaper than USA.
6/28/21, 7:26 p.m. – Daniel: Is my mother at CIMA?
6/28/21, 7:28 p.m. – Maria: No, she is in The Hospital, I already told you, in bed # 96.
6/28/21, 7:31 p.m. – Daniel: ok, I understand. We will continue to pray for her health. Thank you and have a good night Maria.
Grid Trek Magazine 
