Pandemic Thoughts from the Trenches
Our summer haven during the pandemic.
I know someday I’m going to regret not keeping a journal during this pandemic, so here’s at least a few thoughts I have regarding it. If you’re on my blog reading this, it’s probably because you’ve perhaps read some of my books, and maybe even my books about an apocalyptic pandemic that wipes out most of civilization. I started the first series with Infection, and gave the series the title, Sympatico Syndrome Series in 2016. I’m continuing with the same virus I cooked up for the first series, but with all new characters in my Sympatico Syndrome World. So, basically, different people with a different set of circumstances.
I finished the first book in the SSW series just as the real pandemic was beginning. It was a crazy time for me as my day job is as a respiratory therapist. In the beginning, there was a lot of fear, especially as the first few patients came into the hospital. I have a health issue and my work had an exemption anyone who was at high risk could apply for. I did so but was told that they needed me and that I should just not take COVID patients. Uh…yeah. That hasn’t really worked out. While I’m not usually in the ICU with them, (though I have been.) I still see them on the COVID floor or in the ER pretty much every shift. In one day, I might see from 8-10 COVID patients—but not in the beginning because it took several weeks for us to see the first wave. I’d say late April and early May, things were pretty crazy. It’s all a blur to me because I was moving and trying to finish up edits for Alone at the End of the World.
June came along, and things quieted down. I felt I could breathe a little bit and so, started on my next book. However, our new house has a pool and the summer was hot with nowhere to go. I think I swam a little bit almost every day. The pandemic wasn’t as scary then because where I lived, numbers were down a bit. I will admit that the prospect of coming home from work and writing about a pandemic while treating patients from a real pandemic wasn’t nearly as appealing as hopping into the pool and floating around on a pool noodle.
I keep seeing people say healthcare workers are heroes. I gotta tell you–we don’t feel like heroes. Most of us just asked that people wear mask and socially distance as much as they could. If we all did it, then we could beat this. It would have been a huge accomplishment, but it would have only happened if the whole country was on board. I imagine during WWII there was a unity and a feeling of everyone working to beat the Axis. That unity never materialized and instead we got accused of the pandemic being fake and deaths from anything being attributed to Covid. I gotta say, those patients I saw sure didn’t look fake and I didn’t pretend to take care of them.
November was horrible at work and not only was I terrified I’d get sick, but that I’d give it to my family, especially my husband, who is high risk. I was also going straight from work, to my parents’ house because my dad had his own health emergency that ended up with him on a ventilator, then to rehab (not Covid related). My mom needed help 24/7, so my siblings and I took turns staying for 24 hrs at a time. Good thing there’s so many of us! Thankfully, my dad is probably 90% recovered and is even back to driving. It’s like a freaking miracle!
But, I guess I feel like every person who refuses to wear a mask has no regard for anyone. They don’t care about their own family getting sick, or friends, or coworkers, so why should they care about strangers who work in healthcare? I don’t think they care about the exhaustion, the daily fatigue from stress of caring for COVID patients. The physical discomfort from wearing an N95, face shield, gowns that I swear were raincoats in another life, or fatigue from running from room to room, and down to the ER. It’s not like our regular patients went away either. Some days I’m taking care of Covid patients and then running to the NICU to assist with a neonate. If we could see a light at the end of the tunnel, I guess that would help, but all I can see now is a never-ending stream of patients and people in stores wearing their masks under their noses.
I’ve worked in my field for 34 years and have seen plenty of bad winters with flu patients. We get our usual COPD patients every year too. Those are almost the worst because we get to know them. They ask about our family, we ask about theirs. I can still remember many of my COPDers names who died years ago. We’re always saddened when we learn of one of them passing. So, we’re not unused to people getting sick and not making it. Or of running our butts off from one end of the hospital to the other (we cover the whole hospital, although one might have just ICU, sometimes they have to cover another unit in addition to ICU.)
No other year has compared to this, and we’re not even into January yet. February and March tend to be the worst for some reason. How will it be this year? I just saw someone on Twitter complaining about new restrictions in Harris county, Texas, and I just have no sympathy for them. None. It was clear they are one of the anti-maskers and it pisses me off.
As reviews came in for Alone at the End of the World in the summer, I was struck by the contrast with the appreciation from readers for my stories, vs. what feels like disdain from those who won’t listen to healthcare workers. Obviously, I think what I do during my day job is more important, but I guess since nobody sees it unless they are a patient, there is no recognition. It really makes me re-think my career choices, that’s for sure. I daydream about becoming a bestseller so that I could quit being a respiratory therapist, but that hasn’t happened yet. I flirted with it a few times, but always, sales spike and then plummet. I don’t write fast enough to have dozens of books to sell so that even if I only sold a few of any one book, I would still be okay because I would have lots of books. Meanwhile, Monday will come and I’ll don my N95 and go put some poor soul on an Airvo or Bipap, and hope that I can help turn them around.
At least I have my first vaccine dose already doing its thing with the second in a couple of weeks.
