Green Lights

A beacon of hope. Hang in there kids, hang in there.

This Nurses Work

Oh, hey there. Its me, back from several years of living. I know there are a gazillion posts on partially abandoned blogs that begin like this. So, here's mine. I haven't felt much like expressing myself the last few years. I'm a crafter, can't craft. I'm a blogger, can't blog. I like Instagram a lot. If you scroll through these posts, there are so many images. Its clearly something I like to include in my stories. But Instagram doesn't lend to the long form story telling. Not on a phone. That's weird, fuck that. And then I remembered my beloved blog. One that I've manned and curated since March of 2009, a lifetime ago. So strap in, I'm still here.

I feel an urgency to write, to express and to create, because the world is so weird right now. It kinda feels like its falling down around me. Do you feel that way? Its a goddamned pandemic, our plague, and people are dropping like flies. So far, my family has been lucky. That could change in an instant.  I'm a nurse and work for a large university hospital in Kentucky and we are all preparing for this impending surge of patients in respiratory distress. I'm lucky in a way, because I won't have to care for many of these patients. Mostly what I will likely see are patients who are being tested for COVID.  If they were to test positive, they would quickly transferred to another unit.I work on an oncology unit and we are being diligent about keeping COVID positive folks away from these immune compromised folk. I also have to try to protect myself and my family (including an 11 year old and a baby) so that I can continue to come to work and be helpful at home. My wife is a nurse too. You never know who has what because it takes several weeks to incubate and some folks have no symptoms. The hospital is on lock down (no visitors), so that helps. I wear a mask into patient rooms, but how long can I do that? Don't want to be wasteful and honestly, after 12 hours in a mask I don't feel good. When we get home from work, we enter through the garage, strip naked and go upstairs. I then wipe down my phone, watch and glasses with bleach wipes and take a hot shower. I used to only wash my hair a few times a week but now I wash it every day I'm at work. We don't wear shoes throughout the house anymore. It all stays by the front door (work shoes in the garage), preferably in the closet. Everything in the house gets a bleach wash every few days, especially door knobs and hard surfaces. We open mail and packages with gloves and dump the contents out on a safe surface. We don't kiss the baby on the face.  We don't share food with the kids. Wash, wash, wash. Its. Fucking. Exhausting.

My little family is determined to stay home as much as is possible, with the exception of grocery shopping, the pet store and pharmacy. And we limit those as much as possible. We have lots of non-perishables at the house but we have to go every few weeks for perishables, fresh veggies, etc. In fact, I'm going this morning when I get off of work. I'll be wearing a mask my dear friend from college made me. I'm so thankful for it.

College students are still packing their apartments on the weekends having parties, acting invincible. So many people out and about driving around town acting like its normal springtime. Not enough people are isolating or respecting social distancing. If you are one of these people that just don't believe or take the time to understand the importance of it, what is wrong with you?? Healthy people are dying? Why take a chance? Why be an accomplice?

I am not ashamed to admit, I'm definitely self medicating. Aren't you? Its kind of pointless because half the week I'm at work and the other half I have the baby and can't fix a cocktail until my wife gets home. By then I'm so damn tired, I have to really work to be awake enough to make it worth it. But you can bet your bottom dollar that I am making the time, honey. Its just a brief and partial reprieve from the constant stresses of this new reality. Know what I really want? I want to pack up my family and drive home to WV. I want to see those blooms on those hills. I'll just have to go there in my mind.

All this to say: Are you ok? How are you getting through this difficult, weird time? How can I help you? How can we help each other from 6-10 feet?