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Jul. 24th, 2009
Olena's Journal: July 23
Jul. 24th, 2009 09:00 amA lot can happen in 24 hours.
I called the next-door neighbour, Julie. She has four kids and works for the newspaper. She was at the end of her rope caring for them, so I made sure my family was as comfortable as I could make them and went next door with some of my electrolyte solution. She was upstairs with her husband.
It didn't take long for me to figure out that he was dead - probably within the last five or ten minutes. Julie didn't seem to be acknowledging it. I got her to go downstairs and I saw to the kids for a few minutes. I couldn't deal with forcing her to see it. I suppose I'll have to learn to do that at some point, but today I couldn't.
Anyhow, the reporter came by. He'd heard people were gathering at the community centre as a makeshift hospital, and he'd come to drive Julie and her family over there. He did that and came back to tell me what was up. I borrowed Julie's van and took my family over there, too. The librarian, Ms. Schiller, is the main organizational force there. The woman is insanely organized. She's got me working triage, mostly, and sent the reporter off to do a mini-version of the paper and let people know they can come to the community centre.
It seems not quite everyone is sick. It runs to about three out of four people getting sick, which is about four times the infection ratio of the 1919 Spanish flu. The people dying are dying mostly because there's no one around to make sure they get electrolytes. Katarina was put on an IV as soon as she got here, because I hadn't been able to keep enough fluids in her. They're only starting IVs in the most desperate of cases - they're starting to run out. But she looks better even just a few hours later, and she's going to get better care here.
I'm glad Ms. Schiller sent that reporter to work out in the town. He was getting on my nerves. The curse of being short. I made sure he was there when I mentioned to Ms. Schiller that I had a degree in biology and was heading to medical school in the fall.
I have to go. I'm stealing time from sleep to write, and I'm only guaranteed six hours before I'll be back on duty. It'll be the most sleep I've had in days, but still not enough.
I called the next-door neighbour, Julie. She has four kids and works for the newspaper. She was at the end of her rope caring for them, so I made sure my family was as comfortable as I could make them and went next door with some of my electrolyte solution. She was upstairs with her husband.
It didn't take long for me to figure out that he was dead - probably within the last five or ten minutes. Julie didn't seem to be acknowledging it. I got her to go downstairs and I saw to the kids for a few minutes. I couldn't deal with forcing her to see it. I suppose I'll have to learn to do that at some point, but today I couldn't.
Anyhow, the reporter came by. He'd heard people were gathering at the community centre as a makeshift hospital, and he'd come to drive Julie and her family over there. He did that and came back to tell me what was up. I borrowed Julie's van and took my family over there, too. The librarian, Ms. Schiller, is the main organizational force there. The woman is insanely organized. She's got me working triage, mostly, and sent the reporter off to do a mini-version of the paper and let people know they can come to the community centre.
It seems not quite everyone is sick. It runs to about three out of four people getting sick, which is about four times the infection ratio of the 1919 Spanish flu. The people dying are dying mostly because there's no one around to make sure they get electrolytes. Katarina was put on an IV as soon as she got here, because I hadn't been able to keep enough fluids in her. They're only starting IVs in the most desperate of cases - they're starting to run out. But she looks better even just a few hours later, and she's going to get better care here.
I'm glad Ms. Schiller sent that reporter to work out in the town. He was getting on my nerves. The curse of being short. I made sure he was there when I mentioned to Ms. Schiller that I had a degree in biology and was heading to medical school in the fall.
I have to go. I'm stealing time from sleep to write, and I'm only guaranteed six hours before I'll be back on duty. It'll be the most sleep I've had in days, but still not enough.
Olena's Journal: July 28
Jul. 24th, 2009 09:12 amGeez, this is insane. I have to find time to document things here. I don't think anyone else is doing it. Historical record and all that. But there's so much that needs doing, and so few people who can do it.
There are committees set up to go knock on doors and encourage people to centralize in the community centre. About half of those we talk to end up coming. A lot of doors go unanswered. They mark those ones and someone comes around later to find out if everyone inside is dead. It feels rather medieval - a pickup truck with two people in back, carrying sheet-wrapped bodies for burial in mass graves. The only thing missing is the smell of sulfur being sprinkled on them. I know Ms. Schiller is trying to ensure that not too many people realize how many have died, but I saw her numbers. About half of the people who appear on a list, appear on a list of the dead. Half. HALF. If that number is accurate, there are more than 2000 people dead in this town. That death toll hasn't been seen since the Black Plague. I wish I could remember the specific numbers - I think even the Plague didn't carry off that many of its victims.
There's also a group of - the only word that comes to mind is "scroungers." Their job is to go to all the houses that have nobody left in them and take any foodstuffs that are still usable. Ms. Schiller's efficiency strikes again - she's even attempting to keep track of where stuff comes from. All the guns and ammunition from local hardware stores have been stored at the police station across the street, but we didn't get to all of them - most of the holdouts are also armed. Anyway, the scroungers are also going to the outlying farms. We've got one farmer's wife who isn't sick, who said she had no real love of taking care of sick people, but she can bake bread all day to keep people fed. Since flour, sugar, and water are all non-perishables that are available in every household, and she's using a sourdough starter rather than dry yeast, she can keep us going in bread for weeks on end. She even went back to her house long enough to harvest some herbs - so each loaf tastes a bit different. Whoever thought that in this day and age, an old-fashioned skill like breadmaking would be more than a curiosity?
A group is developing, of people who want to take an interest in the makeshift government we've got going. There's about six of us. The mayor is dead, the deputy mayor is still ill, and we haven't been able to contact the other three town council members at all, so the most official person is Constable Rath, the police officer. There's Ms. Schiller, and Dr. Glover, and the reporter is on it, too. He's an idiot. Actually, that's unfair. He knows his job and his role in the crisis, but he insists on patronizing people and he's too jolly-good optimistic. Still, he's working hard to get the word out to the people who need to hear it, so i guess I should lay off him. Probably. I'll let you know when I do.
Let who know?
I can't let myself think about that. This is a private journal now, at least for the time being. When the army lifts the quarantine, I'll publish it for the world to see. Until then, it appears we're on our own.
There are committees set up to go knock on doors and encourage people to centralize in the community centre. About half of those we talk to end up coming. A lot of doors go unanswered. They mark those ones and someone comes around later to find out if everyone inside is dead. It feels rather medieval - a pickup truck with two people in back, carrying sheet-wrapped bodies for burial in mass graves. The only thing missing is the smell of sulfur being sprinkled on them. I know Ms. Schiller is trying to ensure that not too many people realize how many have died, but I saw her numbers. About half of the people who appear on a list, appear on a list of the dead. Half. HALF. If that number is accurate, there are more than 2000 people dead in this town. That death toll hasn't been seen since the Black Plague. I wish I could remember the specific numbers - I think even the Plague didn't carry off that many of its victims.
There's also a group of - the only word that comes to mind is "scroungers." Their job is to go to all the houses that have nobody left in them and take any foodstuffs that are still usable. Ms. Schiller's efficiency strikes again - she's even attempting to keep track of where stuff comes from. All the guns and ammunition from local hardware stores have been stored at the police station across the street, but we didn't get to all of them - most of the holdouts are also armed. Anyway, the scroungers are also going to the outlying farms. We've got one farmer's wife who isn't sick, who said she had no real love of taking care of sick people, but she can bake bread all day to keep people fed. Since flour, sugar, and water are all non-perishables that are available in every household, and she's using a sourdough starter rather than dry yeast, she can keep us going in bread for weeks on end. She even went back to her house long enough to harvest some herbs - so each loaf tastes a bit different. Whoever thought that in this day and age, an old-fashioned skill like breadmaking would be more than a curiosity?
A group is developing, of people who want to take an interest in the makeshift government we've got going. There's about six of us. The mayor is dead, the deputy mayor is still ill, and we haven't been able to contact the other three town council members at all, so the most official person is Constable Rath, the police officer. There's Ms. Schiller, and Dr. Glover, and the reporter is on it, too. He's an idiot. Actually, that's unfair. He knows his job and his role in the crisis, but he insists on patronizing people and he's too jolly-good optimistic. Still, he's working hard to get the word out to the people who need to hear it, so i guess I should lay off him. Probably. I'll let you know when I do.
Let who know?
I can't let myself think about that. This is a private journal now, at least for the time being. When the army lifts the quarantine, I'll publish it for the world to see. Until then, it appears we're on our own.
Olena's Journal: August 15th
Jul. 24th, 2009 10:28 amIt looks like I'm not going back to UBC to start medical school next week. I wonder if they gave my spot to someone on a waiting list already, thinking I was dead? I wonder what I'll have to do to get another spot once this is all over?
Not that there's any sign of it ending. The military is still manning the roadblocks. They're now made of concrete. Nobody from the community centre has checked to see if we can get through the fields, because the nearest town in those directions is several days' walk, and we really can't spare anyone. And nobody wants to get shot.
The situation is starting to get desperate. The reporter - I suppose I should start using his name - Monty Mittel, then - found a ham radio on a farm, and the operator was still alive. For a while we were getting outside information that way. It seems the pandemic is mostly contained to towns like ours around the globe. Mexico has fallen off the radar entirely, and it's being blamed on the lack of quarantine measures. The situation in the Midwestern States is dire - martial law, vigilantes making sure nobody leaves the quarantined towns, bloodbaths when people get desperate enough to try. Meanwhile, people are being told that everyone in these towns is dead or dying, and they're scared enough to believe it. They're also being told that supplies are being airlifted in on a regular basis. We got our first shipment two nights ago, and it was enough for maybe a third of the people still alive in the town. Since they didn't bother to check with us to find out how many people are alive, they've underestimated to a degree that might kill healthy people via starvation. And we can't tell them, because shortly after we found out all that information, the radio towers were taken down. The ham radio operator now has a range of less than forty miles - not enough to get to the next big town or to reach any of his usual contacts. The shortwave radio messages have changed, too - instead of reporting real news, now they've switched to everything-is-fine-we're-taking-care-of-it crap.
The constable was unwilling to secure all the pallets of dropped supplies for the community centre - he said the holdouts had as much right to them as we did. Mittel was really upset at that. Sarah (Ms. Schiller) pointed out that we weren't sure at the moment if there was hoarding going on, since we'd accessed less than half the pallets that were dropped before they were gone. I volunteered to find out.
They wouldn't let me go alone - the sounds of gunshots in the streets has gotten more frequent with each passing night, and people look at my hundred-pound frame and assume "fainting flower" for some reason - so I took Mittel with me. We planted a pallet in a side street and watched from a deserted house.
Four guys in a pickup truck, two armed with assault rifles, drove up, grabbed the pallet, and drove off. Mittel had his camera and telephoto lens recording the whole thing, and Rath confirmed it: they're members of the biker gang that's been plaguing Regina for years. They never cause trouble here - what's that phrase? Never foul your own nest? - but they're organized crime for sure, and they're armed with weapons that are really difficult to get in Canada. Those two assault rifles could take out most of the hunting weapons we've got at the police station.
What we don't know is whether their need is as desperate as ours, or whether they're stockpiling. We suspect the latter, but the community centre only has about a quarter of the people we estimate are alive in the town, so it's possible they need it as much as we do.
Mittel painted a billboard out near the road blockade, asking for three times the supplies that were dropped. Meanwhile, the harvests are starting to rot in the fields. There's no one to bring them in. The supplies of canned goods and staples to make bread are dwindling. We have enough medical supplies to keep our weakest patients hydrated for a few more days at most, and several have already died for lack of clean sharps. Dr. Glover vetoed the idea of sterilizing old ones - the risk of secondary infections will go up dramatically if we do that - but it may be the lesser of two evils. A few healthy people have started raiding weedy vegetable gardens, but they haven't been tended for the last month and the local deer population is looking very well-fed. A few of the hunters have been out taking care of that. Mmm, venison. But it won't keep us going for long, and Rath is understandably reluctant to release ammunition for hunting when we've got a gang sitting on an arsenal of unknown size just across town. (I've learned that fifty healthy people and twice that many recovering people can get through an entire deer in one meal.)
I have to go. Rath put me in charge of figuring out who among the healthy can be trusted with a gun. Obviously the hunters can, but there must be others, and we need to start training them.
Hopefully I'll be able to update again soon. My life has turned into an apocalyptic adventure movie, but there's no walking away from a burning town on the arm of my newfound love at the end of my version. With any luck, Dr. Glover and I will someday write a world-renowned medical treatise on our experiences during the pandemic. But that seems a long way away somehow.
Not that there's any sign of it ending. The military is still manning the roadblocks. They're now made of concrete. Nobody from the community centre has checked to see if we can get through the fields, because the nearest town in those directions is several days' walk, and we really can't spare anyone. And nobody wants to get shot.
The situation is starting to get desperate. The reporter - I suppose I should start using his name - Monty Mittel, then - found a ham radio on a farm, and the operator was still alive. For a while we were getting outside information that way. It seems the pandemic is mostly contained to towns like ours around the globe. Mexico has fallen off the radar entirely, and it's being blamed on the lack of quarantine measures. The situation in the Midwestern States is dire - martial law, vigilantes making sure nobody leaves the quarantined towns, bloodbaths when people get desperate enough to try. Meanwhile, people are being told that everyone in these towns is dead or dying, and they're scared enough to believe it. They're also being told that supplies are being airlifted in on a regular basis. We got our first shipment two nights ago, and it was enough for maybe a third of the people still alive in the town. Since they didn't bother to check with us to find out how many people are alive, they've underestimated to a degree that might kill healthy people via starvation. And we can't tell them, because shortly after we found out all that information, the radio towers were taken down. The ham radio operator now has a range of less than forty miles - not enough to get to the next big town or to reach any of his usual contacts. The shortwave radio messages have changed, too - instead of reporting real news, now they've switched to everything-is-fine-we're-taking-care-of-it crap.
The constable was unwilling to secure all the pallets of dropped supplies for the community centre - he said the holdouts had as much right to them as we did. Mittel was really upset at that. Sarah (Ms. Schiller) pointed out that we weren't sure at the moment if there was hoarding going on, since we'd accessed less than half the pallets that were dropped before they were gone. I volunteered to find out.
They wouldn't let me go alone - the sounds of gunshots in the streets has gotten more frequent with each passing night, and people look at my hundred-pound frame and assume "fainting flower" for some reason - so I took Mittel with me. We planted a pallet in a side street and watched from a deserted house.
Four guys in a pickup truck, two armed with assault rifles, drove up, grabbed the pallet, and drove off. Mittel had his camera and telephoto lens recording the whole thing, and Rath confirmed it: they're members of the biker gang that's been plaguing Regina for years. They never cause trouble here - what's that phrase? Never foul your own nest? - but they're organized crime for sure, and they're armed with weapons that are really difficult to get in Canada. Those two assault rifles could take out most of the hunting weapons we've got at the police station.
What we don't know is whether their need is as desperate as ours, or whether they're stockpiling. We suspect the latter, but the community centre only has about a quarter of the people we estimate are alive in the town, so it's possible they need it as much as we do.
Mittel painted a billboard out near the road blockade, asking for three times the supplies that were dropped. Meanwhile, the harvests are starting to rot in the fields. There's no one to bring them in. The supplies of canned goods and staples to make bread are dwindling. We have enough medical supplies to keep our weakest patients hydrated for a few more days at most, and several have already died for lack of clean sharps. Dr. Glover vetoed the idea of sterilizing old ones - the risk of secondary infections will go up dramatically if we do that - but it may be the lesser of two evils. A few healthy people have started raiding weedy vegetable gardens, but they haven't been tended for the last month and the local deer population is looking very well-fed. A few of the hunters have been out taking care of that. Mmm, venison. But it won't keep us going for long, and Rath is understandably reluctant to release ammunition for hunting when we've got a gang sitting on an arsenal of unknown size just across town. (I've learned that fifty healthy people and twice that many recovering people can get through an entire deer in one meal.)
I have to go. Rath put me in charge of figuring out who among the healthy can be trusted with a gun. Obviously the hunters can, but there must be others, and we need to start training them.
Hopefully I'll be able to update again soon. My life has turned into an apocalyptic adventure movie, but there's no walking away from a burning town on the arm of my newfound love at the end of my version. With any luck, Dr. Glover and I will someday write a world-renowned medical treatise on our experiences during the pandemic. But that seems a long way away somehow.
More about my new character
Jul. 24th, 2009 01:20 pmMy character is going to be fun, and so far she's fun to play. As before, read them in dated order rather than posted order - that is, go back to the first or the fifth depending on whether you read the earlier ones already.
http://velvetpage.dreamwidth.org/
http://velvetpage.dreamwidth.org/