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Think about the people closest to you. Tell us about how the coronavirus has affected them, and their life.
This is myself (in the fighter pilot helmet) hugging my daughter who had been working as an ICU nurse with strictly COVID prone vented patients for 4-6 weeks straight. She was struggling with her work and her inability to socialize - see family and friends - and working 12 hour shifts 5 or 6 days per week. She was a new nurse (only been in ICU for 4 months when COVID hit). She has a passion for elderly and hospice care (she worked at the VA in step down care the year before). I was getting calls from her in the middle of the night crying and hysterical because she was profoundly sad that COVID patients were coming in talking and walking and then would be on vents within 24 hours. The idea of not having anyone with them when they were dying was tearing her apart. She was seeing patients her own age, her parents age as well as older patients. She was seeing a large portion of the patients being black and hispanic. She was literally operating in a 'shock' mode. She was so worried about myself and my husband getting sick. I was so proud of her and worried for her own health and mental health but could do nothing other than face time and send her gifts. In this photo we met at a highway rest stop in Indiana (we each drove 2 hours to meet) and our family brought her the family dog to help with her sanity and be sure that she felt less alone in her Chicago apartment (which her roommate had moved out due to my daughter working strictly with COVID patients). Our dog stayed with her for 3 weeks and I truly believe that this saved her life (mentally at least). Her mood and ability to cope changed immediately. People need people (or dogs) and they need 'a reason to keep going and getting through the days'. Thanks for letting me share.
September 7, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
I absolutely don't feel like writing this week. Every time it feels like there's good news, it seems like bad news is ready to jump out behind it.. ... we got the vaccine but now it's being rolled out at a snail's pace and people are trying to jump the line. There's nowhere near the doses the government promised. At our current pace of vaccinating 1 million per week we'll need six years to get the population vaccinated... ...the court cases were thrown out, the states voted to certify the election results, other governments have recognized Biden as the next president, the election should ALL be over. But Trump and his minions will not fucking give up trying to steal this election. Suing Pence to get him to not accept the states...senators declaring they will challenge the results on January 6. --- Biden has put together a strong team of experts, and now the administration is blocking access again? How many days until January 20th????? ... so many stories about people having pandemic fatigue and just doing "one little thing" and then bringing the virus home and infecting their whole family. --- my mother, in a nursing home, got the vaccine on Monday, as did all the staff, so my family was really happy, and then today we got news that four more residents have tested positive. About four per week are testing positive at this facility. At this rate, four cases per week, this nursing home is going to lose all of its residents. Each time they have new cases, the close the facility down. My mother tested positive in April and never had any physical symptoms, so we are praying she has some immunity. But I still worry about ALL those other people in this nursing home and everywhere. How can we be ten months into this pandemic and still have people going out, mixing, unmasked... ... my husband and I were getting along fine staying at home, and then the other day I noticed all this extra food in the pantry. I knew he didn't buy it because he hadn't been out shopping, and I realized he'd taken it from one of those free food pantries. This made me so sad I can't even speak. At first he was defensive saying no one else was taking it, which made me even sadder, that he would still take it on principle. He has a job, is working from home and we've done very well in the stock market this year. We do not need free food. In his defense, his grandparents grew up very food insecure in a country that was just coming out of civil war, and his parents conveyed a lot of that anxiety to him. As he said to me, "I can't help it, when I see free food it's really exciting." I understand that we're in a pandemic and anything goes, but it made me so sad that at 56 he still hasn't dealt with this on a fundamental level. I made him take it all back and as soon as I finish this entry I'm going to make a donation to a local food bank. ... on my birthday about a month ago my best friend called me to apologize for missing my zoom party, saying "things got tough at work." That was fine, I know she has a tough job, so I reached out multiple times to check in. But then she didn't return my calls or emails for a whole month. I was extremely worried. I didn't know if she had ghosted me or was in crisis and the fact that she wouldn't reach out to me made me sad, like she couldn't trust me to help her, or worse, maybe she couldn't. I was just about to call one of her sisters, when she finally replied to my text apologizing for "falling off the radar" and told me that on Nov 25 (my birthday) one of her co-workers, who she'd been helping with treatment, had died of cancer. I know this isn't about me in anyway, but this made me so incredibly sad that instead of telling me she'd lost someone, she told me "things got busy at work." It made me sad that she couldn't trust me to be there for her, that maybe she didn't want to ruin my birthday with bad news? And it made me sad that because I was giving her space this month, that I wasn't able to do anything for her. I feel really sad and worried this week. I want this week to end, for everyone to go home post-holiday, to stay home, for caseloads to go down, for people to STOP dying, for health care workers to be safe, for Biden to take over the white house and get the vaccines organized and take leadership for the benefit of the country, unlike the turd that's in charge now.
January 1, 2021