COVID-19

I'm not really sure what I want to say here, but I feel I should say something.

It is middle to late March 2020.  There is a tsunami that is potentially about to come crashing down here in my general area (Minnesota).  It has impacted others in other countries and other parts of the US.  We have seen and read the warnings.  The water has pulled back and the beach is laid barren.  The water WILL rush in again, soon.

Are we ready?

It is like having taken a deep breath, and now we are holding it.

I am a Respiratory Therapist.  I am going to be one of those people pulled into the fray, to try and help those who will be swept away by this tsunami.  Will we be able to pull enough of them out of the flood and save them?  Are we up for the fight?  Am I?

Our management staff is on high alert.  Extreme professionals all, they are trying to get ready for the worst, and hoping against hope that the too-late efforts to "flatten the curve" have been successful.  Too many in our supposed top leadership did not take this crisis serious enough early enough.  Many other people on tiers below that top leadership saw through to the truth, and believed the scientific experts, and began taking matters into their own hands on their own levels of responsibility.  Will it have been enough?

At my place of work, that famous hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, I am just one of over 200 worker bees.  Many of those bees already work in the ICUs.  Many are already seeing the impact.  Some of our staff have diversified into research.  The call has gone out.  All hands on deck!  I work in General Care and in a step-down unit.  Perhaps I will simply continue that support work, to free up others for the battle in the trenches.  Perhaps I too will be handed a "rifle" and sent out on the front lines.

It is scary!  Am I ready?

I enjoy the work I do. I enjoy getting to know my patients and seeing them get better.  I hope we might have taken action early enough to surf this storm surge, to stay above it, to pull as many as we can to safety, and to make it through to the end of the trial with sanity intact.

Hold your loved ones close!  Stay at home!  Wash your hands.  Don't use this time at home to do any kind of risky tasks that might end you up in the hospital . . . because there may not be room for you.

Look out for your neighbors.

Pull together as a community!

If we learn nothing else . . . THAT would be a good lesson!

(BTW - picture above was taken over a month ago when I was being routinely Fit Tested for my N-95 mask.  This was not a stunt picture.  It was routine, prior to the realization of how critical things may get.)