Plus Gavin Newsom. Also Cuomo.
Reducing the amount of sauerkraut I put atop my morning salad has eliminated the sharp chest pain lately mentioned here. Maybe next time it happens, I will remember right away that it is gastric, not cardiac.
There has been constant new information at work about PPE. At first, chaplains were asked not to use any—not to go in any room where it is required—so as to save it for physicians and nurses. Last week, the recommendation changed: every staff member is now required to wear a procedure (surgical) mask for every moment of patient contact. The next time I passed through a temperature-taking station, I was issued a standard procedure mask, and soon discovered its annoyingly persistent tendency to slide down my face.
Assuming, as one should, that someone coughed COVID-19 all over the outside of this mask right after I put it on, was having to touch it constantly to put it on, take it off, or try again to keep it on my face not merely increasing my risk? I sent my boss an email saying that if this measure was exclusively to protect patients, then it seemed like a great idea, but if it was supposed to protect staff members, I wasn’t so sure.
The next time I went to work, I found there were two types of procedure masks available at the temperature-taking station: the standard yellow one, and a blue one I had never seen before that looked a little smaller. I tried the latter, and it was much better. It threatened to slide down only once the entire day, whereas the yellow one did that about 30 times. I don’t know if the blue one will always be available.
I also waded through a whole bunch of COVID-19 updates and read that extending the use of a mask is preferable to re-using it: Once it’s on your face, just leave it there. And I saw a recommendation to perform hand hygiene before and after touching the mask, every time. So that problem was solved. I sent my boss a follow-up email saying never mind.
I am keeping my fingernails particularly short, to reduce places for the virus to hide. Staff members at work have been asked not to wear makeup so that masks can more easily be cleaned for re-use. There are special containers for putting used masks in at the end of the day.
Each morning, my colleagues have been wiping down the surfaces that people touch in our office and the adjoining meditation room, so I, there alone, did the same. It is now my habit, every time I touch anything outside my apartment or just after I re-enter my apartment, and most particularly at work, to think “COVID,” reminding myself that my hands may now have the virus on them.
I wiped down all the obvious things in the office and meditation room, and then, as I went about my day, became very aware of all the things that I touch that I was not formerly aware of: Oh, when I enter the office, I touch this spot on the door! When I need to move a chair, I touch this spot on its armrest! Every time I became aware of a new spot that gets touched, I wiped it with a sanitizing wipe. Normally I avoid those things because of the chemicals and possibility of getting an itchy rash, but now I am glad they are so abundantly supplied at work, by our safety person.
There is now a security guard sitting right outside the chaplain office all day, because it is right near one of the couple entrances to the hospital that is in use. When I approached in the morning, the security guard said, “I’m glad you’re here. I appreciate you.” It made me feel good that he was happy to see a chaplain.
After I read all the COVID news, I worked for a couple of hours on my board certification application, which our boss has given us permission to do, and in the afternoon, I strolled through every unit in the hospital saying hello to staff members and checking for referrals. I saw three patients. One was under the impression that her husband has invited a lady of ill repute to move into their house; this designing woman stays out of sight all day, but the patient can hear her at night.
When I got home, I talked to Dad on the phone. We discussed Trump’s ordering one company not to sell needed medical supplies to Michigan because Michigan’s up-and-coming Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, dared to make the factually correct observation that the federal government is not doing a very good job of responding to the pandemic. We both felt enraged: The President of the United States is trying to kill my parents and my sister, not to mention my sister’s two fuzzy cats.
I would like to think this would piss off Michigan voters, but I soon saw something from Trump reminding them to blame Whitmer, which I’m sure most of them will.
This was also the day Trump threatened to quarantine people in NY, NJ and CT—not because he gives a crap about any of those people, but so they wouldn’t drive down to Florida and infect Republican voters there. Later, he changed his mind. In other words, we’re back to normal life in one sense: that every day is about Trump’s selfish, juvenile, ignorant, hateful behavior and the chaos, confusion and misery it creates.
I’m thinking that maybe the governors of other states will help Michigan—that they could act together to do what the federal government has declined to do: identify resources and get them to where they are needed at the moment, instead of having states compete for them.
In addition to governors for president, beans for dinner! My routine now is to hurl several cups of beans into the pressure cooker before I make my breakfast. By the time I’m done eating breakfast, I have a lovely pot of beans to have for dinner all week. It takes about ten minutes to reheat the beans; I toss in a handful of fresh kale (washed and chopped on Sunday afternoon) and a fistful of sliced frozen shiitake. I add three grinds of black pepper after the beans are reheated. The beans always have toasted sesame oil, olive oil, and a bit of hot pepper oil in them, along with a crapload of fresh garlic. In addition, they have either two vegetarian bouillon cubes plus tamari, or porcini powder plus tamari, or rosemary salt. Because there are so many kinds of beans and because the other ingredients differ from week to week, there is sufficient variety, though I am a person who can easily eat the exact same or nearly the same thing every day, such as my morning salad, which varies only in that I rotate four kinds of vinegar in the dressing, and the olives change week to week.
On NPR this morning, there was a short piece about how necessary hospital chaplains are right now, to provide care for patients who may be forbidden to have visitors, and to support other hospital staff. I texted my boss and she texted back instantly to say she’d tune it in. My newish boss is truly fantastic. Becoming a chaplain has caused “new boss” to cease to be a worrying phrase.
Finally, I am sure it is unseemly to mention it, so begging pardon in advance, but in some ways, this pandemic has improved my life. First, it hasn’t changed it that much: I still go to work two days a week and sit around my apartment the other days. One change is that I don’t go to County Hospital to volunteer one day a week, but that had been on hiatus, anyway, while I work on my board certification application.
And some things are actually better: Zero eating out—in particular, no pepperoni and sausage pizza—has made me feel physically very well. I talk to my father on the phone every day, which is very nice. And I’m connecting with a lot of other people and groups via a variety of not-in-person means. I’m getting phone calls from friends, colleagues and ex-colleagues that I might not have gotten before, as people heed the advice to reach out more. And I make a point of taking a walk on most non-work days, which I didn’t necessarily do formerly.
If the federal government does send me a check, I plan to donate it. I know many people are in terrible situations, which might not have been quite as bad had Trump not wasted several weeks putting his head in the sand.
No comments:
Post a Comment