Pandemic Musings

I wrote this last week before my Facebook ban lifted in an effort to process my thoughts on this... a friend of mine farted some green poop gas into the environment and made me want to post this- 

No one rattles pans at the 7am shift here to applaud the work we are all graciously petrified to maintain. Exhausted nurses, doctors, social workers, CNAs and sanitation workers give exhausted knowing glances as we pass one another swapping watch.... I arrive early to car meditate and get ready for nine hours of inhaling my own carbon dioxide and Panera espresso burps, trapped in a space suit and stretch my face before trapping it into another bruise-Inducing triple plated helmet. I sift through Facebook conspiracies and pleas for live music gigs and gel manicures. I’m ambivalent: Am I angry that I’m in Facebook jail for thirty days while on the frontline and not able to comment or has this been by divine design that would force me to observe longer and not be allowed to engage in the debate among the loudest poison penned thumbs; aimlessly and carelessly typing away as though many of them actually knows much beyond Fox News, personal greed and boredom.  The friends who are hurting the most from the economic freezes have been the quietest. 

I’ve been watching Amanda Loots on Instagram: a flaw Facebook failed on: allowing me to continue access on their sister platform after posting the photo that landed me thirty days in the slammer...watching the free world from this small window while stuffing my face with commissary smut. (Don’t bother looking me up there...I don’t have the energy to post and entertain anyone on IG. I just look at pictures and follow stories of sick kids and obscure artists. ) Amanda’s husband is/was a star on Broadway and sings on a track I’ve listened to a hundred times. She’s your typical nightmare: gorgeous, fitness instructor, perfect new baby and the nicest, bravest person you’d ever aspire to be or share company with. She’s championed millions to pray and sing with her as her gorgeous, fit 40-year old husband with no pre-existing conditions fights for his life. He already lost a leg and has been on a ventilator for so long that he has been trached. Shitty luck for a singer and dancer. Seemed things were finally taking a turn upwards, then yesterday things looked grim again.. Funny...She doesn’t seem so concerned with her manicurist being unavailable these days. His 40-year old lungs have scarring that resembles that of an 80-year old chain smoker. He has a pacemaker and was on ECMO and they’re trying stem cell transplants as a final resort to save him. She’s got Jesus and hope... we have opinions.

I’m saddled with being on the COVID unit for another week before returning back to my patients down south where we continue to fight against allowing this beast into their home...only now, I’m the conduit. I’ll have to get a second test before returning and had a long cotton swab down each nostril to collect a specimen and I’ll wait anxiously to see if I was careful enough.... the governor is saying nursing homes will open up to visitation again. It’s like building a hurricane proof fort around us and then bulldozing it down just as the rain starts... 

This unit was the response to an overflow from the hospital of COVID positive patients who’s symptoms resolved and were considered asymptomatic after months of hospitalization. They couldn’t return to their SNFs and ALFs because they’re still testing positive, so they “step down” to us to be treated until two negative tests are produced. Pretty easy, right? Except the first test can be positive and the second is negative. No, not an isolated result. Faulty testing? Maybe. Cross contamination? False negatives? How long until it metabolizes? When you’re negative, do you automatically develop antibodies? When are you no longer considered a threat to others? No one knows. Plasma, hydroxychloroquine, dialysis, ECMO, azythromicin, oseltamivir... do any of them work? Is it just time? Good immune systems?🤷🏻‍♀️

Two required tests turned into three... the first two negative, the third positive. Patients who were “fine” and about to go home have a fever that returns... respiratory distress and emergent intubation. 98 year old Hospice patient- unscathed. A 30 year old former athlete... didn’t fare so well. 

Kids can’t get it. 

Now, kids get it. We borrowed  staff from the children’s hospital because it was pretty sparse because the fear of contracting the virus made parents stop using our ERs as urgent cares and without elective surgeries, furloughs were threatened and we needed the labor...and now they’re asking for pediatric staff back as the children’s hospital fills up with symptoms resembling Kawasaki syndrome. 

A friend asked me my opinion about the COVID thing. I’m not a scientist or any expert but I’m not just reading various sources about it and sifting through ciphering of political rhetoric from facts. So many say it’s bs because “no one they know even has it.” 🤦🏻‍♀️ 

I saw it. Not paid actors. Two of my favorite people in the world got it. They lived to tell the tale... some weren’t so lucky. Were we hyper vigilant and over-reactive? Maybe? Did I have in January? I don’t know. That illness sucked, but worth shutting down the world for these months? Eh. Someone who lost their loved one would feel differently. Amanda Loots would tell you we should have closed it earlier and stay locked up longer. 

The truth is... I don’t know. I don’t buy into the conspiracy theories of how we handled it for community control and political gain, because I think we were all legit scared and thought we could wait it out and let it pass like a bad storm. Australia did it and they’re cool now. We thought we nailed it. It changed paths, like a shitty Hurricane we prepared for and then it shifted up north and we exhaled and then it turned back and obliterated a lot of us ...but not In the way we planned for. Second wave? Riots and crowds and celebrations... what happens in two weeks? Rise in numbers? Is it because the incubation period is over or is the news going to slant this against the message of the protesters?

Masks, excessive hand washing, social distancing... its supposed to help. Maybe it helped those who followed protocol. I worked on the frontlines of the damn disease and did what I was told and I’m negative and I didn’t spread it... then again, a week ago, I was licking a wound, went to cheers, took off my mask and hugged someone. No one died. Yet. I’ll probably wear my mask when I go to the bar... then take it off. I’ll try not to touch my face and I’ll hand sanitize and limit my body to body contact. But not because it’s over.... 

I’m a shitty example. I should be better. I was. I got lazy. I’m more of a threat than anyone I know...maybe. I’m pretty spot on about infection control at work... because I know where the threat is. 

I chalk up my lowering of my guard to pandemic fatigue and not because of anything else. I’ve been duck and covering for so long, I’m holding my hand over my face to keep it dry while simultaneously screaming at the storm to come and get me already. I’m mostly cautious. But I’m tired. And I think it’s not over and it’s twisting and turning and changing and some get through it unscathed and some lose their fucking legs ...and their lives... 

So, my answer: I don’t know. And anyone who says with 100% certainty that they DO know on either side of the coin is a fucking liar. The smartest fact-gatheringest scientists have shifted their stance on this a hundred times: 

Surfaces bad. Surfaces meh. Kids are fine. Kids are not fine. Wear a mask. Eh, a mask is a pleasantry, a courtesy to show you care about infection control ... just a fever and lack of taste and smell: not runny noses. Ok, runny noses but not diarrhea. Ok, diarrhea but that’s it. Oh, and blood clots... and respiratory distress... and maybe chest tightness and...and...and..

And anyone who spins this to be solely about how the economy was affected and the Democrats pushing ya’ll to hate Trump (he does a fine job on his own)- they’re distracting you, so listen at half volume (and wash your hands while you’re listening... you should be doing that anyway.)

I don’t wish this on any of you. Even the douchenozzles who fight with such authority. You know what? I hope in the end, we were all wrong and that toilet paper wasn’t so important and taking off this long was worthless. Maybe because it’s “not so bad after all” or because evading it is futile because we will all get it and live to say “it wasn’t any worse than the common flu.” I hope that all of you get to say we were duped and this was a bad dream. 

We don’t know. They don’t know. The information changes because it’s behavior changes. It’s not as consistent and transparent. Not yet. Please just be careful. And if you choose not to be, just don’t hug me, not yet...cool?