First, I want to just come right and say if you disagree with any part of my post PLEASE just keep it to yourself. I don't want to hear it. I have heard it all. Every side of the fence and the fence is an octagon. These are my thoughts and my and my feelings. This is just for mental health, for me to unload and clear my head not to be torn down because someone thinks their point of view is more right than mine. SO HERE I GO.....
Second, FUCK COVID!!!! I know that if you are my family you hate my mouth, and if you are one of my nurse comrades... well, we have all paused to scream this out several times now. We are TIRED!!!!
Third, our life as a medical worker in a global pandemic..... This goes for the Nurses, CMT's, CNA's, housekeepers, laundry workers, cooks, kitchen aids, social workers, transportation, ect... If they work in a hospital, Dr.'s office, or like me a Nursing Home, let me tell you about some of the thoughts and feelings bouncing around in our heads for the last 9 . When this all started we didn't know what to think. In the beginning it was doom and gloom and if you got it you would more than likely die. Every couple of days the rules changed, new CMS updates and guideline shuffles. Lies and fake news, medical interventions and treatment possibilities, seeing light at the end of the tunnel then shattered possibilities.
In the beginning, we stayed away from everyone because we were so at risk of bringing it to work or bringing it to our families. We didn't know what to do. In our hearts we are protectors, healers but everyone is basically telling us we are walking, talking incubators of potential viral warfare. In the beginning, staff are either so scared they quit right away and leave us even further short staffed, working longer hours and more days than we do already or they plow on for the good of all, our patients, our families and our bills. Our long hours prevented us from getting out much. If we stopped by the store in our scrubs instead of getting thanked for our hard work and diligent service of others, we might get screamed at for actually being covid (yes this happened to me). We worked so much we barely had time to shop and when we did get off in time, there certainly wasn't any toilet paper for us. Nor milk or paper towel, eggs and dog food.
As time has went on, Covid has remained uncertain ever changing and completely full of miss information that seems as if it is more designed to scare than help. One day telling us this and that is what we have to do then two days later telling us that instead of this.
As a geriatric nurse I watched the news each days as they told us the most susceptible people were anyone with commodities. You watch as New York send positive people to live in nursing homes. The very place were everyone has multiple commodities. You watch the news and the internet as all those people die. You hear about possible cures and treatments. You hear the president say they are having good studies on them. You watch other countries give out those treatments but the media say they are too dangerous. You watch governors band the medication because they don't like the president so they say a medication that has been given for a little as prevention of malaria that people are given when going on vacation to other countries. I personally don't understand how the possible side effect that one can get can be worse than the side effect of death.
As a geriatric nurse we worried each minute that it would day, each minute that it would hit our building, infect our world. We were grateful to watch in fear as we were the last county in Missouri to have a case. We were grateful to have a boss that was a covid tyrant that said these are the rules, now follow them. That said no to taking any patients that had covid. That was stricter than the CMS guidelines.
Fast forward to the last month, I changed jobs. That boss quit, and I followed him. It is part of our like mindedness and care of geriatric nursing that I do. It is as simple as that. Work is less hard when your boss has like minded goals. One day at work I started feeling unwell. I took my temp and I had one. I went to him and quietly told him, we tested me and he was testing someone else at the same time. One was positive and one was negative. He tested both again. Both negative. He tested me 3 more times all negative. No matter, I had a fever so home I went. When Rachel got home, she informed me that her what we believed was her normal allergy symptoms was now she couldn't taste anything at all. So I called my boss and told him. He told us both to come back in the morning to be tested. He did a quick tested on both. I was negative, Rachel was positive. So we both go a lab swab, the next day those results were in and they were the same, I was negative and Rachel was positive. I was sick for a week. My temp got up to 103 (never in my adult life has my temp been 103) I had no appetite along with nausea and diarrhea. Basically felt awful. Rachel on the other hand had no further symptoms. Approximately one week later it hit my nursing home. It stated with two staff and one patent. We immediately started testing every staff and every patient every single day, now a little more that 2 weeks from that day we have almost every staff infected and all but 4 patients.
What is the infuriating part to me? The treatment. Why is our most week getting very little treatment? If it was my mother, my father I would say FUCK THE SIDE EFFECT!!! Right now the side effect is DEATH!!!! Why aren't people outraged. Why aren't people demanding that doctors are allowed to be doctors. Why aren't doctors sewing governors for trying to be doctors. Why aren't families going on the news demanding that treatment be given to their loved ones.
I am tired. I am tired of living like this. I am tired of wearing masks and gowns and face shields at work. I am tired of the government telling me I need to wear a mask in public. I am tired of hearing it is my responsibility to protect you from me when people should protect themselves. I am tired of staying at home. I am tired of seeing lies that others don't. I am tired of being lied to. I am tired of people not knowing that this isn't any worse than any other type of flu.
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, I am tired of not seeing my family. This all started at the beginning of the year. I saw them last Christmas and I haven't seen them since. In the beginning everything was uncertain. Everyone was scared to go near anyone that didn't live in their household that they put traveling bands on all of us. They made us healthcare workers feel like potential lethal weapons and savers of the universe at the same time. You stay away from your family because you don't know if your job has made you be infectious or if your family is mistakenly going to make you be "the one" that makes your job infectious. Nevertheless you are working so much that when your family lives any distance there is little time because you work too much.
Fast forward to present day, covid is in my building, I have had The Corona myself, Christmas is around the corner and it is just the what my soul needs. To be surrounded by all the aunts, uncles, and cousins that I love and love me. Due to Covid that has now been cancelled. Christmas with my Mommy, brothers, sister-in-laws, nieces, nephew, aunt and uncle. The ones that love me unconditionally. That have loved me through everything and most importantly when I have felt unloveable. This year that has been postponed until January and even that is depending on Covid.
It will be a year since I seen them. Never in my life have I went a year without seeing my family. Even when I lived in North Carolina for 18 months, I drove back 3 times. I miss them with my entire heart and I can't wait until all this is over.
SOOO.....
From this Geriatric Nurse Chick just let me say.....
To Hell with Covid, 2020, Masks, plastic gowns, face shields and goggles. Fake News, censorship, lies, cover-ups, vaccinations that will kill more than save. Scare tactics, socialism, anyone or anything that tramples on my constitution, and most importantly Go to Hell my rock gut fear that 2021 isn't going to be better.
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