Nursing Home COVID Crap

OMG Heyyyyy. So, some of you may not know this, but I am the social services supervisor at a nursing home. We house 162 residents of the most vulnerable population in medicine, (save NICUs) at this moment… Nursing homes are more regulated than NASA. Everything is a report, has a regulation, a care plan and an order attached. Even the placebo bug spray we are using for a resident who is hallucinating bugs (it’s a spray can with water), has an order, a care plan and a regulation with rules and laws protecting and enforcing. The governor, the mayor and the CEO of all Jackson Health Systems have been all over the news, and even Trump, herself, has had a finger on the pulse of how we are handling the protection of these elderly, sick and vulnerable people in nursing homes.

I wanted to give some insight into what a day looks like for me so you all know how absolutely ridiculous things are. I’m up at 5am, hit snooze and pray that it isn’t actually another work day, drive to work and land here by 7am (Cutler Bay is a dirty whore- only peacocks and half dead people live out here… and Cubans, because :in my best Sarah Palin voice: “I can see Cuba from here.”)  I pull around front and park and get my temperature taken (the oral way, you dirty fools) and fill out the daily questionnaire: ‘Have I been coughing or experiencing fevers, have I travelled outside of the US, have I travelled to any of the five states mentioned, and have I been on a cruise, do I breathe too much, do I steal toilet paper?’ Once I check “no” to everything, my temp is recorded and I endure an uncomfortable inquisitive exchange with the CNA who has been assigned to this shitty task, I hop back in the car and park. I use the hand sanitizer and enter the building, dodge the half empty wall-sanitizers (are they legit drinking this or filling up containers with it?), drop my stuff off in my office, check the mail, re-sanitize as everyone is watching, attempt to pee because it took me 12 hours to drive here, use the paper towels to wipe myself because CNAs are stealing motherfucking toilet paper, re-wash hands and then duck into my office to coffee and check the mail and see who left AMA (against medical advice) amid the panic, who was transferred to the hospital overnight (and WHY) and prepare for the morning meeting. The morning meeting starts with census, how many CNA-to-RN-to-resident ratios, news and updates about new hospital procedures, how to handle upset families who are now on restriction from visiting their ailing family members, how to handle cancelled outpatient appointments, how we must start using see-through purses because ALL small hand sanitizers, toilet paper, and masks are being stolen from the facility, and how to engage our hurricane teams for when we are given the alert- in which even environmental workers will go to 12-24 hour shifts, sleepover and we go on lock down. I envision some creepy street worker from Willy Wonka saying: “nobody ever comes in, and nobody ever goes out…” :cue tinny cart shuffling away on cobblestone roads equipped with $97 dollar squirts of hand sanitizer and $45 squares of TP:

I’m next in line to give my report. My subordinate has been banned from work until she is cleared by Employee Health at the main campus because she had the audacity to cough a few days ago. I give the updates on the residents as I am now responsible for all 162. We all look around the room and notice the staff is really thinned out. I clear my throat and suddenly, I am patient fucking zero. Everyone stops. I hear a gasp and they look at me as though I am the grim reaper and I am going to infect the whole damn place. I want to cough desperately to fully clear my throat, but I already did a half cough and the next one would absolutely solidify that I have the COVID, so I stifle it and grumble about Spring allergies and continue. I hold my breath for another hour and a half while we go through the normal meeting minutes and realize if I held my breath so long, surely, I do not have it. I think how ridiculous this all is. I scan Face Book. Every post is about it. Memes and pleas. Some blowing it up, some blowing it off. I’m not sure as a Jew I can in good conscious allow my Chinese food place to close down. How can these people who produce shrimp and mixed vegetables also be responsible for this outbreak? I spend 12 minutes mentally combing through a Chinese food menu in my head to stifle the lobster-sauce textured phlegm ball in my throat…. We finally let out and I come to my office to blow my nose and cough as hard and loud as I want to. Two weeks of a flu and the residual flare ups are keeping me looking mighty suspicious around here.

Residents see my door open and start to pour in. Complaints. Fears. Questions. Some come for humor and we laugh at the apocalyptic toilet paper hoarders and come up with ways to use Tito’s to make hand sanitizer. Some are scared. Some come to my office to cough in private while I create a safe haven to clear throats and manage seasonal allergies while only half suspecting they’re spreading “it” to me. People are passing each other in the hallways, suspicious; like a game of Clue where everyone is guessing who has it, who washed their hands, who is stealing supplies and wondering how long before someone here gets it and we go into full quarantine and we all face the biggest fear: dying while at work.

Everyone has a theory: It’s bio-warfare, it was predicted by long-dead mediums, predicted by the Simpsons, it’s retribution for our sins, it’s the apocalypse, it’s Trump; if Tom Hanks survives, we are going to be ok, if Tom Hanks dies, we are all going to die (Tom Hanks is the canary in the cave, it seems), it’s worse than the flu, it’s the same as the flu… It’s absolute chaos. Families come and beg to cancel emergent procedures because they’re sure their loved ones will perish if they go to the hospital and won’t be able to come back. Loved ones are watching their 70-90-year old mothers and fathers live a quiet life in the nursing home, some on Hospice and know that their time is suddenly even more limited, because if this outbreaks here, no one will stand a chance. They cry through their futile masks, creating a suspicious snot that accompanies a good cry and gets them banned from visitation for symptoms. We are quoted policies and new laws handed down from government and hospital leadership on newly printed signs and loud speaker announcements like we are in a war zone… staff and residents are quoting new visitation and sanitization laws like Jesus preachers on the streets.

I sit in fear. Should I have kept the kids home? Did I buy enough food? Should I also be stealing toilet paper? I think about Anne Frank and how they rationed potatoes and I imagine Rosalind screaming that I gave Sebastian the larger square. If I get it after still recovering from this cold, will it mean certain death? Gigs being cancelled? Can I afford that? Singing has been the only calm in this storm and now that’s going away, too? Did I buy enough Tito’s?

So, I sit in my office and wait until we are released and I am sent from the petri dish of international visitors and sick people. Away from protecting them and perhaps to a safer place… But the kids… they would lick a shit-stained pole that spelled out the words “virus” if it had ice cream on it... What if they are harvesting this? What if the dogs get it? If we are too complacent, we die. If we overreact, we live in fear and pass this fear to our offspring- who are very sensitive to this and have been upset all night. We are hosting a sleepover tonight. What if THOSE PARASITES have it? I went to the dentist yesterday and he asked what I thought of “this whole thing…” A doctor who valued MY insight because he was undecided whether he should panic or not. He stared at me and batted his eyelashes waiting for direction. I asked if he was also running low on gloves. He hadn’t thought to ask. He noticed napkins were replacing the paper towel rolls and suddenly, he looked a little panicked.

So, we stay educated. We don’t stay complacent, but we don’t give into fear. We wash the fuck out of our hands like we just touched jalapenos and feel the desire to touch our eyes… or our dicks… We find balance between the reports from Italy where they waited too long to take precautions and we invest in science. We don’t hoard toilet paper, but prepare with some ibuprofen and Gatorade?

I guess I don’t know. But we are all affected in some small way. We are all a little scared. So, if I can advise anything beyond hand washing, it’s just kindness. Be kind. Be generous (not with your germs, keep that shit for yourself). Be giving. Be SMART. Stay home. Don’t spread it. Don’t provoke fear. Spread education and hope. Be nice.

Oh, and most importantly…

Band I cannot stand: <tie>, Nickelback, Genesis in the 1980’s

Band I think is overrated: KISS

Band that is Underappreciated: Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young

Band I love: Blind Melon

Band I can listen to over and over again: Radiohead

Band that made me Fall in love with music: Beatles/ Beach Boys

Band that changed my life: Queen

Band that surprised me: The Velvet Underground

Band I haven’t seen but wished I did: The Police