I can’t believe it’s Thursday and everyone is home. Jeremy is home. Vince is home (sick). Maybe he has the coronavirus? We dunno! Because we can’t test him in this very advanced country of ours. Edda, the tough one, made it to school today.
Of course, everyone has things cancelled. Jeremy cancelled his business trip to MN (I think he had the toughest time admitting that his work was non-essential as his work banned all non-essential travel). Vince cancelled his birthday party, his trips to MN and Toronto. Edda cancelled her pancake breakfast birthday party. I cancelled a routine blood work appointment because I don’t want to go to a doctor’s office. You know what’s not cancelled? Extra shifts at the hospital. They asked me to work again today (which would have been my third day in four – I usually only work at the hospital once a week). I had other work meetings at my other job I didn’t want to reschedule, so I turned it down. My hospital is known for being cheap, not paying more $ for extra shifts, but apparently they offered 3x salary to come in today. I’m not sure if that is true.
My shift yesterday was completely normal. If I didn’t know the world was falling apart around me, I would have said – hey! this is a damn good shift. I performed many nursing skills with flair and pizzaz. Foleys in on the first try, wound vacs placed without leaks, blood transfusions, tippy patients almost, but not falling on their way to the bathroom. Deploying my rapidly expanding Spanish (still terrible) – pastilla? dolor?
Jeremy and I are trying to figure out my hospital work with the rest of the family. I finally told my boss (who I’ve had for over a decade) at my desk job about my nursing job. I have about a week and a half off before my next shift. My goal is to finish the taxes and to move my home office into the guest bedroom and do a low-key home quarantine in the house. Jeremy’s like – I’ll take care of Edda, Vince will take his room, you have the guest room and don’t use the common rooms, the kitchen, the bathrooms, etc. Then pick up shifts as they need you at the hospital. We’ve stopped seeing my parents, I facetimed my dad this morning as he started radiation therapy for his prostate cancer yesterday.
I’m not sure what will happen at the hospital. I’m neither an ICU nurse nor an ED nurse. I’m afraid that the ICU will be overwhelmed and run out of ventilators and that the overflow will come to my unit because at least every room has a source of oxygen on the wall. Right now, 100% of my patients breath well. If you aren’t breathing well, you go to the ICU. I’m afraid soon 100% of my patients will not be breathing well and there won’t be much I can do about it.
All Maryland schools are closed now from Monday onwards. I think Vince’s senior year is done. No graduation, no nothing. I see in Vince that he wants to go to school tomorrow and he would go slightly sick if it was a normal day. He’s worried about his schoolwork. I’m sad he has one day to be with his senior class. We’ll have to see how he feels tomorrow.
I dropped a 30 pound weight on my toe today. It wasn’t a dumbell, it was a padded bar about 3-4 feet long. I’m hoping I didn’t break it. I might have. I’m limping around. It’s black and blue and swollen. Gah. I might have taken myself out.