Tuesday, March 31, 2020

COVID 19 and such

I probably should have started this a few weeks ago to truly accurately convey the thought process and mental turmoil that comes along with a global pandemic. However its all recent enough I can still portray it all fairly accurately. These views are mine along and do not represent the healthcare system in which I work, my colleagues, friends or family. I'm still a stable person. Trying to do all the right things, sleep, exercise, eat, keep social connections, empathize with others and be strong through this whole things.

Rumors started popping up in January, but like many things in the news we just sort of brushed them aside, continuing on with life as normal. In February we hosted a 4 week elective for medical students all over the world. We briefly conemplated the corona virus - add some hand sanitizer to the tables, encouraged students to self quarantine if sick and let us know. The month was uneventful from the infectious disease perspective.
Quickly after elective was over a group of us headed to Sun Valley for the WMS meeting. The corona virus had picked up a bit in the news. Seattle was really the only place reporting many cases - a whole nursing home in fact. Some travelers had masks on. One family had masks and gloves - which the children used to tough every imaginable surface - and the father covertly would remove a finger to use his smartphone and place in back in the glove. I chuckled about this and shared my thoughts with friends via text message. Sun Valley was a nice oasis - great time to catch up with friends, learn the latest and greatest in WM and get a few ski runs in (at that time I didn't expect that to be my entire skis season :().
Several days after we returned home we hosted the 13th annual southeastern student wilderness medicine conference. I took pause before having the event as COVID 19 was now spreading. I preemptively sent out an email asking people with any symptoms or contact with anyone with concern for COVID to avoid the conference. A few people did.
The following week was when things started to get more "real". I worked on March 12 in the ED. That morning we went into Tier 2 due to concerns for COVID19 cases locally. That day was filled with chaos. Sometimes as ED docs I think we may thrive in that environment. Between shuffling calls to dealing with our normal patients and trying to re-invent patient flow when a subset of the patients now "screen positive" which means they require a new level of droplet isolation and testing in negative pressure. We went into disaster mode - which brought new workers to the ED. I stayed after my shift to help get some "regular" patients admitted.

You can tell a lot about my level of "panic" by my amazon orders. Safety glasses, safety goggles, CPAP cleaner, 3M P100 filers, Burpee seed starter kit, seed starter trays, bolle safety glasses, herb started kit, portable UV clearner, heirloom seeds, coffee, bolle safety google, scrub cap, 3M respirator,  scrub cap, squash seeds...
All of these were ordered delivered between March 7 and 27th. I've never truly feared for my safety at work or feared I would have the things I need to be safe at work. Once this fear became a reality I somehow found comfort in buying material items to try to ensure my safety. Plus changing habits such as striping to my underwear in the basement, crocs in clorox bath, a "clean" and "dirty" shelf, clothes in the washer on hot water, me in the shower immediately after work. I'm alternating 2 3M N95 masks, UVing them in between shifts. Some sort of plan or pattern atleast gives me the illusion I'm somehow in control and can control my own health.
Some articles seem to suggest this decreases efficiency but also kills the virus. So many unanswered questions-  what is the wavelength of my UV box? what does 5 minutes do? Did I even seen anyone with COVID 19? Am I needlessly degrading my protection? Is the box doing anything?

Daniel and I have been social distancing since March 12th now. This has changed our lives. We've started a subscription to misfit fruits/vegetable, bought a large basement freezer and minimized grocery store trip to only one of us a seldom as possible. We bought some chicks to have backyard chickens and eggs. We've taken up playing nineteno super mario brothers together which brings back memories. I've done a fair amount of solo riding with Copper and then some weekend and evening rides with Daniel.  I've splurged twice and gone on a ride with Lani and one with CJ and Lani - taking separate cars and maintaining 6ft of distancing.
My 37th birthday was March 20th. Daniel made me a cake and we had a nice home cooked meal. Several friends called and sang happy birthday. It was sort of surreal.



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