More Than Anything

One of my co-workers said that when she got on the normally packed bus to come to work from the North Bay, she found not only that she was the only rider, she was the first person to ride that bus in four days, according to the driver.

I was positive that I would be devastated forever over Hammett, so it was rather remarkable to find myself mostly feeling peaceful and accepting after just a couple of days. Perhaps COVID-19 has overwhelmed everything else, but my theory is that the essential has not been lost. His body and personality are gone and are very much missed, but the love remains. When I see a photo of him, of which there are many around, I am happy to see how relaxed and contented he looks.

This week I returned to work after being out for two weeks, a period in which much has happened. The night beforehand, I emailed my father and one of my sisters an impromptu last will and testament, explaining where my assets are to be found. (It had occurred to me that maybe Hammett died when he did so he won’t be left parentless when I die.) Then I sent an addendum saying, “But most of all, remember that I had a really great life, and that I loved you all more than anything.”

The next morning, instead of being in a crowd of frenzied cyclists and people riding scooters and electric bikes on Valencia, I had blocks and blocks of the bike lane on this normally bustling street basically to myself. I saw maybe two other cyclists as I passed one boarded-up business after another. Number of Lyfts and Ubers sitting in the bike lane: zero, rather than about one per block.

At the hospital, there is now one entrance for staff and another for visitors, of which there are very few. A patient can have only one, and I think that is only if the patient is approaching death. I saw only about three visitors the whole day, so the hospital was actually very quiet and serene. It is much more complicated now to get from the bike parking room into the hospital; trying to do it in reverse at the end of the day was genuinely confusing, but next time it will be easier.

Because the chaplain office is near the periphery of the building, we have to pass through a checkpoint to go to any unit, so my temperature was taken about seven times and was always fine.

It was great to see my colleagues again. We are not seeing very many patients because instead of rounding, we are asking the charge nurse for referrals, and there are few. Our boss advised keeping visits to 15 minutes or less. I spent time on three different units with COVID-19 patients, but didn’t go in the room of any such patient.

At the end of the day, I was asked to visit a patient in the ICU who was soon to be extubated. His daughter was sitting alone in the room, distraught. She said she had wanted to be here for these final moments, but had felt afraid of being there alone. I assured her that I would not leave her, and thus the visit ended up being five hours and 25 minutes long. About four hours into it, I got a crushing pain in the chest, which persisted until I went to sleep. I imagined having to tell my boss that I’d gotten COVID-19 thanks to staying in a patient room five hours and ten minutes longer than she said to.

At 10:30 p.m., I found my bicycle and set off for the ride home. Eerie. Virtually no one on the streets, and those who were appeared to be exclusively the homeless mentally ill, except for one intrepid fellow walking his little dog. I normally never run a red light, but last night I went through many of them, out of eagerness to be home and also, what’s the point of sitting there when the nearest cars in any direction are blocks away?

At home, I called the advice nurse, who concluded that I was not having a heart attack and said to call back if it got worse or anything changed. This morning the pain was largely gone. I talked to my father on the phone, and with four friends, one after the other, while I ate breakfast. After a bit, the pain returned, so I called the office of my primary care provider and a doctor there performed triage. I started out by letting her know that I am a total hypochondriac, and also that twice over the past fifteen years, I have gone to the emergency room with chest pain only to find in both cases that it was basically some heartburn-type thing.

This probably is, too. It may have started yesterday evening due to going so many hours past my normal dinnertime, and may have recurred today due to the acid in my morning salad. In fact, salad dressing was precisely the culprit in one of those two ER visits, after which I greatly reduced the amount of vinegar I use. There’s just a trace now, but maybe that combined with the forkful of sauerkraut that tops every salad has gotten to be too much.

This afternoon, I went for a walk and enjoyed looking at the astonishing variety of beautiful plants, flowers and trees along my route.