My Coronavirus Diary Part 7

Today something miraculous happened. I got called off from work.

It's the calm before the storm. When I left work last night, there were only five patients in my department. I'd only had two patients, when I should have had four myself. The expected new patients for our unit never came (since elective and non-essential surgeries are on hold).  There were four nurses scheduled to be there this morning. But I was called off.

I had plans this coming week. I had an out-of-town trip scheduled that is now out the window. That means I am off for six days. I will not be back at the hospital until Friday. Will things still be normal then or will it be a war zone? With testing taking three to four days before being able to confirm the virus, I don't know what to expect. It could still be calm or the hospital could be about to hemorrhage. My guess is that it will be somewhere in between.

So I will enjoy my days off.

And learn about what is happening from my co-workers who are there.

There are now 6 confirmed cases in Fresno County (where I live) and still only 3 confirmed in Madera County (where I work). Tulare County now has 11 (up from 7 the last time I looked). There is no official word on the two unconfirmed cases at my hospital, of course. Unless the labs are working weekends and nights (as they should be), I doubt any word on them will be made until Monday at the earliest.

Yesterday evening, my mom texted me from Whidbey Island in Washington. She said that they had 19 cases and 1 death. She was going to call about getting a vaccination for shingles and the vaccination for pneumonia, but wondered if it would leave her immune system weakened, as immunizations often do. I advised her against it for now. It can wait.

Of course, I realized my panicked error when trying desperately to get the pneumonia vaccination the other day. The vaccine only helps prevent bacterial infections. COVID 19 is a viral infection. The vaccine would not be any good against it.

That reminded me of a conversation I'd had a week or so ago with my friend Eric in Southern California. He didn't understand that difference. Bacterial infections can be fought with antibiotics. Antibiotics are useless against viral infections. That is why the AIDS crisis was so deadly and there is no cure. AIDS is caused by a virus.

There are antiviral treatments out there, but despite the president touting them as a simple cure, his own top doctor disputes those claims. There simply is not enough research on them yet in correlation with the Coronavirus.

I read something very disturbing about the deaths in Italy. Of the 4,825 deaths in Italy, 70% of them were men. Yikes! Another knock on my odds of surviving this: Older? Check. Health issues? Check. Male? Check. EEK!

My friends from around the world and around the country continue to send notes and texts, letting me know they are okay and what is going on with them.

My friend Rosa in London sent me a note. Although both London and California are under lockdown and supposed to be social distancing, the photo and Facebook post (from someone else) she sent me were mind-boggling. As the Facebook poster says, due to lower passenger numbers, they've been using fewer trains---causing anything but social distancing. UGH!

Besides the annoyance with the London Tube system, she is already finding is difficult to cope with sheltering in.

"I am finding this really hard," she says. "I am a fake extrovert, so you would have thought that I would love being indoors. The combination of not being with family at this testing time (my dad is locked at home with my mother, who has Alzheimer's) and a good friend (a doctor who is infected, but she is in good spirits), are taking their toll."

She went on to talk about conditions in London over all.

"There are now some sort of angry conversations about our public transport," she says. "Front-line workers found themselves travelling in very crowded buses and trains because London is closing down part of the network. Nurses, doctors, food retailers are furious. I am right behind them as well -- my train was packed!"

She reported that she was trying to stay relaxed and calm and was watching the following:

London Olympics 2012 - best bits
Football World Cup 2010 - Spain won (Rosa is from Spain originally.)
"Casablanca" in English and Spanish
"30 Day Yoga Challenge" - more watching than doing
How to Cook Healthy Meals in 20 Minutes with Three Ingredients" - none of which are pasta.

"So, yeah... life is good," she says. "...As good as it can be."

My author friend, Scott Nicholson, checked in.

"I've been paranoid about this for a while, as you might imagine," says the man who has made a career out writing horror stories. "Here in the NC mountains, we made our first journey out since last Friday evening when we made our final grocery run. We rescued office plants with no human interaction on Wednesday. The town looked to be half as busy as usual, but the Walmart parking lot was about two-thirds full. People here still aren't getting it."

"I've only been out in public twice since March 8," he continues. "My wife worked (counseling) up until March 13. We plan to go nowhere for eight weeks if we can possibly help it. I've been a little bit of a prepper anyway. Since we live in the country and can grow our own food, we feel in good shape, but I worry about my friends in towns and cities."

My friend Nedra has been reminiscing and sent me a few old photos of us from back in the 1980s.

 

I shared these with my mother via text and she sent back these other photos of Nedra and I throughout the years.

 

Janine, in Lakeport, California, sent along a link to a video from a Tai Chi instructor named Bruce Frantzis, who is the founder of Energy Arts out of Fairfax, CA. The exercises are super simple and are geared for respiratory health as well as relaxation and a bit of exercise.

Shirley the tortoise is moving about inside of her cardboard condo (aka large box). It is cold today. It rained all night and more rain is predicted. We will shelter in for the next several days. I've got my mountain of movies to watch, books to read, and my other blogs (Tiki blog, travel blog, vintage movie poster collecting blog) and things (tiki Instagram, travel Instagram, and vintage movie poster Instagram) to work on/get caught up on. And maybe I'll clean my house. Or not.

There are now 303,001 cases of this worldwide.

Life is too short.

Stay safe.

CHEERS!




Continue to Part 8 HERE.