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from a nurse in Michigan...

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Posted 4/26/2020 5:02 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks for your spot on analysis, Nytngale.

Life will be different, more challenging, even difficult. There are no easy answers or simple solutions. The strong will survive, the clever will moan, and the weak may not make it. It will be a bumpy road.
Posted 4/26/2020 5:57 PM (GMT 0)
Nytngale, this retired RN completely agrees with your comments. Our family is looking at this in a couple of ways. Our older son is a registered nurse who heads up the communicable disease section of his county's health department here in FL. Needless to say, he has been working non-stop since this pandemic started and spent all day Friday doing contact tracing and testing in a local nursing home. He is also a Lt. Colonel in the USAFR and is on standby to be deployed to a part of the country where there is a lack of caregivers. His last critical care experience was his deployment to Iraq during the war, so hopefully he'll be assigned to patients who are not critically ill.

Our other son is a girls volleyball coach who is (was) in the process of getting a new volleyball club up and running in Sarasota. Everything was going so well when we last saw him in March at a national qualifying tournament in the Orange County Convention Center, and then everything crashed and burned. He filed for unemployment right away, but thanks to Florida's terrible unemployment system, has yet to receive any benefits.

Hubby and I live in a continuing care retirement community in a spacious villa. In addition to villas and apartments, the campus also has an assisted living facility, a memory care unit and a skilled nursing facility. Everyone living here is considered high risk due to the age demographics. Over the last several weeks increasing restrictions have been imposed on a regular basis, to the point where we are now no longer allowed to leave the community unless approved by the nursing staff. Anyone who leaves the property for any reason must self-quarantine for 14 days upon returning.

On one hand, we would love for life to resume some semblance of normality for us and both of our sons, but at the same time understand and support the need for the current nationwide and local restrictions. This is a real test of who we are as a nation, and hopefully we get it right.
Posted 4/26/2020 6:23 PM (GMT 0)
Thank you for the comments of support, Mattam, MichaelT, garyi, Pratoman, and FLBeachgal. I just want to add a clarification. I worked as a bedside RN for 17 years and described what my life was like then in critical care practice - the repeated 16 hour days, etc. I presented it to underscore how much worse the situation is now in the midst of the pandemic. I currently direct a nursing education program. The work the critical care RNs are doing now is 10x the rigor of my experience as I described. I cared for critically ill patients in a more singular and controlled environment. So, just to reinforce - the life of the current critical care nurses and docs (in EDs and ICUs) is beyond even what I experienced. I do not want to accept any thanks for my past career that would detract from what the current nurses are experiencing. My experiences working critical care, while brutal at times, do not in any way compare to what is happening now.
Posted 5/5/2020 8:54 PM (GMT 0)
Nytngale, thanks for you insight. My Son in Law is a Nurse Practitioner in the ER and our dear friend is an RN in the critical care unit of our local hospital. Our county hasn't been hit as hard as some, yet both have horror stories to tell. This is not a "flu". As I'm typing this (about 10 days from your post, the death toll is nearly 72,000. We are losing about 2000 people per day, and Chris Christie is calling that acceptable if it means we can open the economy back up. I find myself stunned and unable to reconcile what I thought I knew about my country.
Posted 5/6/2020 1:37 AM (GMT 0)

RandyJoe said...
Nytngale, thanks for you insight. My Son in Law is a Nurse Practitioner in the ER and our dear friend is an RN in the critical care unit of our local hospital. Our county hasn't been hit as hard as some, yet both have horror stories to tell. This is not a "flu". As I'm typing this (about 10 days from your post, the death toll is nearly 72,000. We are losing about 2000 people per day, and Chris Christie is calling that acceptable if it means we can open the economy back up. I find myself stunned and unable to reconcile what I thought I knew about my country.

I am stunned too. This isn't my America. People calling for others to be sacrificed is beyond anything I've seen in my 63 years. It angers, disgusts, and saddens me.
Posted 5/6/2020 12:28 PM (GMT 0)
Buddy:

You're not the only one. For the past 3 years, I have remarked many times that I just don't recognize this country.
I would say so much more, but it would end this thread. I get more frustrated every day.
Today is the worst. We are "opening up this country." Brilliant. Once again, suck up to a very loyal base and ignore the recommendations of your medical/science experts. SAD.

Mel
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