Sam Sigoloff: [00:00:00] Okay. So I'm here with Dean. Dean is a friend of mine we've met through, um, just being here, living in the same area and he is a business owner. Uh, he owns chosen cycle. And, uh, tell us just a little bit about yourself, your background, your history, 

Dean: um, farm mechanic, a Marine diesel mechanic. And I got started in Harleys back about 37 years ago.

Started my shop and then moved, uh, down here to Arizona about 16 years ago and opened up my shop, just love working on bikes and, uh, just having fun with it, dealing with all the people, the customers, and listening to the different people and being that we're at a close to Fort, which UK, uh, we get all the walks of life in here and it's just a great place to be backdoor of the day.

Sam Sigoloff: No. I came by inside, [00:01:00] ah, maybe a week ago, two weeks ago. And you told me about a really interesting experience, like actually quite terrifying, horrifying experience that you personally went through. I know some of your memory of this is going to be a little hazy because of, because of the experience itself.

Right. Um, but so kind of take us back to that time when things started, what your symptoms were and what happened. 

Dean: Okay. And I'm going to go back a little farther cause the. Uh, doctors knew this when I was checked into the hospital because I went to both the same hospitals, but in, uh, October 14, I had a heart attack and I was taken up to Tucson and, uh, I had a stent put in and it took care of everything and, uh, on all different types of medicine to keep my blood pressure cholesterol down, I was on statins for the longest time.

And I got off. Uh, due to a daughter's suggestion and my brother's suggestion, because Statens will just [00:02:00] rot your brain and what a difference that made. So now we fast forward and it was October. Once again, in October, I don't know what it is about October, but October of, uh, 21. And, uh, all the COVID stuff was going on.

Uh, I was just, uh, I seem weird and I didn't feel right. Uh, friends were constantly asking me for days, you know, what's going on? I didn't think anything. I thought I was fine and normal until, uh, one day, uh, middle of the night at three in the morning, I ended up, uh, going to Benson because of the, uh, chest pain I was having.

And my body just, I could tell something was. I get into Benson hospital and they immediately, uh, uh, put whatever it was, but two bags of something in me, uh, immediately cause my fingertips were turning blue and they wanted to [00:03:00] send me up to Tucson and they had to test me first. So they brought out this, uh, swab and it was quite humorous to me because the.

Right on the package said, made in China and they're going to stick that in my nose. And they tested me in, of course I had COVID imagine that, but what was wrong with me was my, uh, I had double pneumonia and my kidneys, they weren't shutting down, but the kidneys were having a serious problem. I was extremely dehydrated, uh, for whatever medical reason.

And so they, uh, 45 minute drive up to Tucson. They checked me in, but before they checked me in, they have to test me again to see if I have COVID, but 

Sam Sigoloff: you just got tested, right. You drove 45 minutes and they couldn't say he was already 

tested 

Dean: by. Right. And, uh, the one hospital told me they had to test me before the other hospital in Tucson would accept me, but the Tucson hospital had to test me too.

You'd almost think it was something to [00:04:00] do about money. 

Sam Sigoloff: Yeah. Or they, or just the ineptitude of the medical system and how they can't communicate at all. I mean, there's, it's a balance between the two. Right, right. Yeah. 

Dean: I agree with that. Yeah. So they test me and I have COVID and they're wheeling me through, on the gurney, through the hospital and they're going to put me in the, uh, uh, COVID ward where there's nothing, but COVID patients I'm like, I don't like being in there, but I did get my own room.

So that was nice. And, uh, I was in there for a day, total of eight days, but I was in there the first day, the second day, they finally put me on oxygen and I believe I was on like five liters a minute and, uh, that helped breathe better. And they started giving me, uh, something for pain, whether it was through my, I did have to Ivy.

Two IVs. And the first hospital did that in anticipation that I was going to [00:05:00] need it. So I ended up getting the, uh, pain medicine. It was either through an Ivy or an appeal. I don't remember. Cause I was in a lot of pain and I was looped. And 

Sam Sigoloff: what pain were you in? Do you remember where the pain was? 

Dean: Uh, well I have chronic pain, but mostly it was in my chest and I thought that I was having.

Uh, uh, episode of maybe possibly another heart attack or something. Cause it's been, uh, seven years, eight years. It's been at that row seven years at that point. And, uh, I didn't know what the pain was from other than it was just extremely uncomfortable and I wasn't able to breathe easy. It was hard to breathe because what I found out later was the double pneumonia and, uh, So once they put me on the oxygen and help, but they put me on some pain medicine and I'm not sure what it was, but, uh, it put me into a wonderful place.

I mean, I was in absolutely no pain [00:06:00] and every couple hours, like they do, they'd come in, take, draw my blood, uh, checked me, uh, uh, check my oxygen saturations and, uh, Uh, continue to do that every three or four hours, it was. And on the dot, I would get constantly get this pain medicine that they would just keep giving me.

And, uh, whether I asked for it or not, it was just something that they would give me. And at the, at the time I didn't care, it just made everything feel so much better. And, uh, I had this one respiratory therapist come. 

Sam Sigoloff: That could, can I pause you for a second? Cause I want to really want to shine some light on what you just said.

The respiratory therapist, I think is great. And I really want to hear what he said too, because it, or what he did was amazing. And he's probably why you're still alive. You agree? They, you said something that just, just hit me like a ton of bricks the first time and again, and I hope it hit [00:07:00] everybody else the same way.

You said they came in and gave you pain meds, whether you asked for it or. And the problem with that is I've been a doctor for about nine years now. And I've talked to some surgeons and, you know, different types of surgeons. And I asked them, because in my experience we never schedule pain meds. Like, you know, like opioid pain meds.

We always, we do PRN, which means as needed. So they'll come and ask you every four hours, would you like this? And if you say, no, I'm good, then they don't give it to you. If you need it, they'll give it to you. But we don't typically, and I've never seen this scheduling opioid pain meds. Now we'll we'll schedule Tylenol.

We'll schedule ibuprofen. Probably not a good thing to give you if you had concerns of a heart attack or kidney issues or anything like that, but to schedule opioids with someone, who's got a respiratory problem. Now, just for everybody listening, this is, this is you. I mean, this is [00:08:00] bigger than you could imagine, because we're giving you a medication that's going to slow your respiratory rate and going to knock out the respiratory drive for someone who has a respiratory issue.

So that means they're giving him medication every four hours, whether he needs it or not. And he's kind of in a mental place where he's not able to refuse it. You did not mention this part yet, but did you have anyone in the room with you that you could trust her family members or loved ones? They 

Dean: wouldn't allow anybody in.

And, uh, anybody that tried to call was 

Sam Sigoloff: blocked and, and for well, situational awareness for everybody who's listening. What does your wife do? Or what did she do? Uh, 

Dean: 35 years registered. 

Sam Sigoloff: So she would have been a great asset to have there with you in this room that where you're alone. Yes, absolutely. And they're pumping, you fill a full of opioids every four hours, whether you ask for it or not, you're not in the right mental capacity to say no, [00:09:00] or yes, because they just keep giving it to you and you have inflammation or you have like pneumonia visible on, I guess, chest x-ray or CT, whatever they did all that in both lungs.

Right. So they're trying to. Knock your legs out from underneath you it, so to speak without anybody 

Dean: to be there, to 

Sam Sigoloff: speak for me with no advocate right now, you did have an advocate. You had an angel. Oh, he was watching over you. Now tell me about this Overwatch angel, the 

Dean: respiratory therapist. He came in and he would watch, and I don't know the names of it, a respiratory therapist that came in and, and I don't know the medical terms for the tools, but I would breathe into this thing and I'd have to float.

Disc and keep it in a certain parameters. And he was very happy with my, uh, uh, breathing that I was, uh, being able to do because I wanted to get out of there. And the only way to get out of this. Uh, w short of just leaving was to make them happy, which I want to 

Sam Sigoloff: remind everybody [00:10:00] again, it's going to be tough for you to leave if you're being given opioids every four hours and you're fairly opioid naive and they are just like, it's just making you feel like, oh, let me just step into the light every time.

Dean: Right. Absolutely. And, uh, all I did was watch westerns on my phone and just sat there, like a blob for eight days. And, uh, I did lose 10 pounds though. So that was nice. Um, but he came in and he was just working with me and it just happened to be that his shifts worked out when I was there. And, uh, so he would come in every day and it was probably his five days on or whatever it was and it worked out great.

Cause it wasn't the one that I had the first couple of days. And uh, now, uh, I'll jump forward each day. I was given. The pain meds, whatever they were every four hours and, uh, three to four hours, whatever it was. But I was given that well, now, if we fast forward to the seventh day, all of a [00:11:00] sudden a hospital person brings in this contraption, which I know now what it was, but at the time.

What in the world is this huge thing. And I found out later it was a ventilator. 

Sam Sigoloff: Well, and how long had you been in the hospital? Did your seven days. So you've been in there for seven days that they've been pumping you full, like waking you up to giving you pain meds, right? Yes. Waking him up to give him like, if, if a patient is asleep and they have pain, And it's PRN as it should be.

So as needed you don't go wake the patient up a mask, ask them their pain and then give them the payment. You let them sleep. And so they're waking up. To give him the pain meds 

Dean: every, every single night. And even during the day, if I dozed off numerous times, they would wake me up. 

Sam Sigoloff: And some of that dosing may have actually been the nods from the opioids.

Yes. Taking effective. 

Dean: And they would wake me up and ask me if I wanted anything. If I needed anything and take these pills or. [00:12:00] Pills or a shot, whatever it was, but they would come in. Cause numerous times they would come in and put stuff in my Ivy, which I didn't know what it was. And as doped up as I was, I didn't know, or care, you know, Hey, I'm feeling fine.

I think I'm going to be. 

Sam Sigoloff: And you shouldn't have to worry about these things, but we're in a world right now where yes, you should always have an advocate even, you know, 10 years ago. I would've said you need an advocate with you when you're in the hospital, but now even more so with these protocols, they have, I mean, Dr.

Valeet has, has talked about this along with Todd calender and talked about it here in Arizona, how these protocols are Def. And I can't see any other way to look at this. Then this is a death protocol to schedule opioids every four hours to even wake him up, to give it to him when he has a respiratory problem.

Now, if he's in that much pain, he'll be asking, Hey, I need some pain. Cause I'm doing pretty bad here. And 

Dean: I wouldn't be sleeping [00:13:00] either. I was comfortable and sleeping. Right. Cause you don't get a lot of sleep in the hospital. So when you sleep, you think they'd leave you alone. Uh, but that wasn't the case.

So they bring in this contraption, which I find out later was a ventilator. And it just happened that this angel comes walking in at the same time, the respiratory therapist, and, uh, tells them that they're not going to use that. They're not going to. Put it on me in me, whatever. However, it's done that.

They don't need it. And the person that brought it in, pulled the chart out and said, it's doctor's orders. And the respiratory therapist said, I don't care. He does not need it. He is ready to go home. He does not. And so after about 10 minutes, I'm going to guess eight to 10 minutes of them, uh, talking over in the corner.

They, the other person finally took the ventilator out and then he stayed with me for a couple hours in there and just worked with me and saw that I was [00:14:00] in, uh, obviously getting over the pneumonia and my kidneys were functioning again. And that was after numerous, uh, UA. And, uh, blood tests, everything they'd done, I had had cat scans, MRIs.

They injected iodine in me to, uh, look at everything. 

Sam Sigoloff: So you had kidney problems and they're injecting various dyes into you for imaging. Yes. Now I'm not. I haven't looked at his medical records to, to look at the how poor quality his kidney function was. But typically you're going to be very careful putting anything that can injure the kidney more in the middle of a kidney.

'cause you don't want to cause more problems. And we call that I attra genic, you know, in med school, there was this professor I had where he said energetic means you get to take the doctor's car home jokingly. But what it means is it's a, it's a injury that's caused by the medical care. And, and it sure [00:15:00] sounds like, sorry for all the background noise, if you're hearing it, we're, we're actually recording.

On location and his shop. And I can hear an ambulance going by. Um, but so they, which is interesting because he did not mention how the doctor came and told you they were going to put you on a vent. They 

Dean: did not. Nobody did. And I was just, I wouldn't have known what it was. I've never seen one, uh, because, uh, the medical profession that I got to know 25 years ago, They wouldn't do that.

It was everything about the patient first event was the absolute, last thing that would go on. It just, uh, they wouldn't automatically do that. And, uh, it was lucky enough that this, uh, respiratory therapist was in there. Otherwise I was doped up. I would've probably said, okay. I don't know. You know, I don't know.

Sam Sigoloff: There was a time when you could trust them a 

Dean: doctor's orders exactly. Back then. 

Sam Sigoloff: Yes. And I've personally vented patients before who needed it, you know, I've, I've interviewed. Uh, newborn I've intubated adults. Uh, most of [00:16:00] my intubations were during surgery. Um, but the thing is if you're going to intubate someone let's say in the ICU, which was that an ICU 

Dean: room?

No, it was, uh, uh, uh, just a room. It was room COVID. Yeah, private room, 

Sam Sigoloff: not an ICU room. So there wasn't glass walls everywhere. You couldn't see into a big area that had 

Dean: no, it was just a room in the ward, 

Sam Sigoloff: the Kobe. Put him on a vent in a private room with no extra monitoring because. What's different about ICU is if you've ever been to one or if you haven't, I'll explain it to you.

There's all these rooms that kind of circle a big room. And all of them have glass doors that face to the center and all the nurses work in that center area that way, uh, it's like a PanelPlex or pan a plea. I can't read the name of it, but it's where they can always see every room at one time. And they have monitors that they watch also.

And they have. Because if you've got someone on event, something goes wrong. You need to be able to go over [00:17:00] there within moments to fix that vet. And so they were going to put them on this event in a private room by himself at the end of, you know, middle of some hallway into some hallway janitor's closet, I think.

Yeah, that may have been it. Uh, and so, oh, it just boggles my mind. And then when you do intubate. You try other treatments. First, I have this one instance when I was in residency, it was Christmas day and there was a lady that she refused to be intubated. She was having some serious lung issues the day before she refused to be intubated.

And so we put her on what they call bypass. Now many people are familiar with C-PAP continuous airway pressure, and that's a big mask you put on it. It's a big blower on your face. Well bi-pap is like that, but a lot stronger and it's two pressures. So it's a light pressure to push air in, or I'm sorry, it's a heavy pressure to push air in and then a lighter pressure to allow the airways to stay inflated and allow the air out.

And if you [00:18:00] really care about someone trying to breve, you'll try that first. Prevent intubation, because the last thing you want to do is do more medical interventions when you don't have to. And especially at a point in time where we know, because we knew this about six months or a year into COVID when it started, that people that went on vents were more likely to do.

Yes, I agree. And so he was in a private room, not in the ICU. They did not try bi-pap. They kept giving them opioids to suppress his breathing. When they knew he had, uh, infiltrates in both lungs and they wanted to intubate them and they didn't talk to the respiratory therapist, which is the most critical person in this whole picture because the respiratory therapist is with the.

Most hours of the day. Yes, he was. 

Dean: And though he was shocked when they brought it in and it was a I'll call it a [00:19:00] professional argument between the two and they were both professional about it in the corner talking, but he was absolutely adamant. And once again, I was so high, I'm just like, oh wow, they're talking about me.

I didn't know what they were saying. 

Sam Sigoloff: And, and again, you know, whoever you are, you know who you are. Thank you so much and keep doing the work and we're leaving all descriptors off of any possible identification so that you can keep doing God's work because you truly are doing God's work. 

Dean: Yes, he was. He just amazing, man.

Sam Sigoloff: Okay. So let's go back to, they've had this professional argument professional, which he was probably trying, not that respiratory therapist is probably trying not to strangle the guy who wanted to intubate you for no reason. Again, intubation is a significant medical intervention where they have to paralyze you so that you don't.

Um, 

Dean: would I have no. 

Sam Sigoloff: They usually, if things are done in a normal world, which I don't [00:20:00] know, they usually knock, sorry, you can't see him right now, but his, he was just shocked. Cause he doesn't. Yeah. Um, what they do is they knock you out completely and paralyze you at the same time. Hopefully knock you out slightly before they paralyze you so that you are not awake and unable to move at all, because that is hope because that can be one of the most terrifying experiences in the world.

And then the. They have a big, um, blade, not sharp blade...

end of transcript.