MHSC
Senior Moderator
The Ebola scare in North Texas reached further and touched more lives than anyone had imagined in the early days after Thomas Eric Duncan was the first to be diagnosed with the virus in the U.S.
The positive test in Dallas on Sept. 30 evoked a firm reaction from local and national healthcare professionals: Ebola would be stopped in its tracks in the nation with the best healthcare in the world, the finest physicians and the most sophisticated hospitals.
As it turned out, more lives were placed in more danger than anyone expected. Healthcare workers, schoolchildren, whole families, travelers and law enforcement officers were caught in the web that continued to grow after Duncan died Oct. 8.
The furor in North Texas has quieted down for now, and Dallas is counting the days until Nov. 7, when the virus can be declared gone if no more cases have shown up. Questions remain, but one thing is certain: Two victims fought back and won.
Lives interrupted
When Nina Pham got home from work every day, she walked little Bentley, her Cavalier King Charles spaniel, in her neighborhood on Marquita Avenue in Dallas.
Sometimes she was in such a hurry that she didn?t even change out of her scrubs to take him out.
The future looked good for Pham. She was four years out of nursing school at TCU, where she was known for both compassion and clinical expertise, and was already moving ahead. She had a good job at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas and was recently credentialed as a critical-care nurse.
Nursing had been her passion for years, since she graduated from Nolan Catholic High School in Fort Worth.
Her other love was Bentley. His breed was named after Britain?s King Charles II, and he was the same kind of dog that Charlotte York had on Sex and the City.
Bentley was known around the neighborhood as a hyper pup that everyone noticed when he was out for a walk. He would be heavy on Pham?s mind in the days to come.
One of her colleagues at Presbyterian, Amber Vinson, 29, had marriage on her mind. She had been busy browsing Pinterest, picking up ideas for cakes, dresses, hairstyles, flowers ? even cute kissing photos ? during off hours at her apartment in The Bend East of the Village Apartments, about two blocks from North Central Expressway.
She was looking forward to going home to Ohio soon, where she could get together with her mom in Tallmadge, a city of about 17,000 near Akron, and shop for the dress with some former classmates at Kent State University. Her roots were in Ohio ? she?d graduated from high school in Akron and then with honors from Kent State in 2006.
Both she and Pham were selfless, dedicated nurses in the early stages of promising careers, young professionals living in a vibrant city with all of life waiting for them.
Friday, Sept. 19
At the site read the day by day progression of the ebola cases in North Texas...
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/11/01/6250638/joined-by-a-lethal-thread-ebola.html#storylink=cpy
The positive test in Dallas on Sept. 30 evoked a firm reaction from local and national healthcare professionals: Ebola would be stopped in its tracks in the nation with the best healthcare in the world, the finest physicians and the most sophisticated hospitals.
As it turned out, more lives were placed in more danger than anyone expected. Healthcare workers, schoolchildren, whole families, travelers and law enforcement officers were caught in the web that continued to grow after Duncan died Oct. 8.
The furor in North Texas has quieted down for now, and Dallas is counting the days until Nov. 7, when the virus can be declared gone if no more cases have shown up. Questions remain, but one thing is certain: Two victims fought back and won.
Lives interrupted
When Nina Pham got home from work every day, she walked little Bentley, her Cavalier King Charles spaniel, in her neighborhood on Marquita Avenue in Dallas.
Sometimes she was in such a hurry that she didn?t even change out of her scrubs to take him out.
The future looked good for Pham. She was four years out of nursing school at TCU, where she was known for both compassion and clinical expertise, and was already moving ahead. She had a good job at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas and was recently credentialed as a critical-care nurse.
Nursing had been her passion for years, since she graduated from Nolan Catholic High School in Fort Worth.
Her other love was Bentley. His breed was named after Britain?s King Charles II, and he was the same kind of dog that Charlotte York had on Sex and the City.
Bentley was known around the neighborhood as a hyper pup that everyone noticed when he was out for a walk. He would be heavy on Pham?s mind in the days to come.
One of her colleagues at Presbyterian, Amber Vinson, 29, had marriage on her mind. She had been busy browsing Pinterest, picking up ideas for cakes, dresses, hairstyles, flowers ? even cute kissing photos ? during off hours at her apartment in The Bend East of the Village Apartments, about two blocks from North Central Expressway.
She was looking forward to going home to Ohio soon, where she could get together with her mom in Tallmadge, a city of about 17,000 near Akron, and shop for the dress with some former classmates at Kent State University. Her roots were in Ohio ? she?d graduated from high school in Akron and then with honors from Kent State in 2006.
Both she and Pham were selfless, dedicated nurses in the early stages of promising careers, young professionals living in a vibrant city with all of life waiting for them.
Friday, Sept. 19
At the site read the day by day progression of the ebola cases in North Texas...
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/11/01/6250638/joined-by-a-lethal-thread-ebola.html#storylink=cpy