March: 4-year Anniversary
I was asked recently how the shutdown in response to Covid-19, impacted me. Me as a nurse, or as a mother of an immunocompromised adult daughter with DS? The answer is different depending on which hat I’m wearing.
Covid-19 didn’t impact all nurses the same way. Those serving on the frontline in the hardest hit areas of the United States, and in Covid ICUs or Covid general wards, I’m sure the impact was devastating. For school nurses? Some of us may have wondered if we would have to find temporary jobs that put us at more risk. Others knew they still had a job to do. I work in a preschool, that like all schools in our area, closed our doors, and put classes and therapies on-line.
Since I was asked to look at healthcare and cleaning policies, I knew I would still be working. Not only that, but I was also asked to attend state health department weekly webinars to keep abreast of what was happening with Covid in my state. As soon as our state ed, and our state family and child services started producing opening guidelines, I was asked to attend any of their associated webinars. I’ve already addressed that I love learning in an earlier post; so, for me it was, ‘bring it on’ time.
I was happily writing away, creating policies for my boss to review, comment and then I would make appropriate changes. Job done and on to the next policy. I did not run out of things to do, and once the policies were completed, I was asked to create a reopening PowerPoint presentation of the Health and Cleaning guidelines. Oh, yay!
All this time I was happy as a pig in mud, there were two others, two extroverts, in the household that were not quite as happy as me. As a mother of one and wife of the other I felt for them. One was missing all her friends at her program. But it was interesting to watch her growth in establishing activities and a rhythm to her day… as day after day dragged by. The hubby was the designated shopper and as church treasurer, he still needed to make a run to the now closed church.
The explosion in useful, bring-people-together, technology was a direct outcome to the shutting down of large congregant settings. Collecting money was needed to reopen the doors of the church, and to still pay the salaries of preacher and music staff. Donations went on-line, or were mailed to the church where they then needed to recorded and deposited in the bank. Then there was the 2020 census—guess who felt compelled to do this? No, not this introvert, dear reader. The hubby felt compelled. At the same time, we were both aware that any out of the house activities required precautions. Bringing Covid into the house was not an option.
As deaths of people, especially healthcare workers rose, my heart grew heavier and heavier for the loss of so many people. It is hard to work in healthcare and not be affected by the loss of lives. Were we all becoming immune to the devastating losses? What was or would be the impact on the mental health of caregivers? How about young people missing their friends? What about the elderly and their isolation—whether in their own homes or a nursing home. Everyone’s lives would be forever touched by this scourge upon the land.
Reopening was challenging for me. I received word from my boss that our county health department was including her nurses towards the end of the first wave of vaccinations. Since hubby is an election poll worker he was to be included in the second wave, and then we received word from the county that Sheila would also be included in the second wave of vaccinations. I was glad we would be getting vaccinated, but would it be enough to keep Sheila safe? As a mother I felt more anxiety about this novel virus that was wreaking havoc. It kept mutating and changing almost as soon as we got a vaccination for the last iteration of the virus.
What about children coming back into program. So many of our kiddos have chronic issues such as seasonal and/or environmental allergies that cause runny noses. Knowing our staff and knowing how nervous they would be I could foresee kids getting sent home constantly—especially the ones with chronic runny noses and chronic diarrhea related to what they ate—or because they were getting MiraLax for chronic constipation.
I envisioned poor beleaguered primary care providers (PCPs) becoming irritated with school nurses. At the time DOH was telling us that all kiddos with symptoms of Covid would need to go home, be tested and we were required to get a note from the doctor. Since the symptoms of Covid were so similar to other respiratory viruses were told to err on the side of caution and send the child home.
I set up health alerts that look like an action plan: two columns, the left one is “If You See This” and the right one “Do This.” I wrote specific parameters of what they would need to see before we would send children home. They helped some. But not as much as I hoped. The PCPs started sending notes to us that said, “Do not send the child home for __________.” I would include the wording in the updated Health Alert—that helped a little more.
And yet, still to this day we have some nervous staff…of course, they are for the most part, the unvaccinated staff. Those staff members still push back and yet they were the first ones to say they wanted us to “get back to normal.” They are also the ones to refuse to wear masks when they come to work sick. Sigh…
So how has Covid impacted me? I’ve watched our world contract and expand. I’ve watched Sheila grow in new ways and we have had to say good-by to her—not because of Covid, but because of her congenital life-threatening disorders. I’ve seen healthcare workers be praised and then be reviled. Seriously, the anger towards the frontline workers saddens me. I look for ways to thank others for doing their jobs. I work a bit harder at trying to find the positives in life and not dwell on the negatives.
I look for ways to grow in knowledge, patience, and joy. But the cost has been enormous. If there were things you could of, would of, should of changed, what would they be?