Earlier this week my brother-in-law called to give me an update on his wife, my sister. (If you’re reading my blog for the first time, here’s links to my two earlier posts about her: Waiting, but not for Godot and Waiting for Good News Sometimes Pays Off.) He had just come home from visiting her and said that she was very confused that day. Then he dropped the bomb: someone at the rehabilitation facility tested positive for COVID so now all visitations are off.
Because of her current condition, my sister cannot advocate for herself, and now her husband and sons can’t see her and advocate for her. I am so angry that my brother-in-law and nephews can’t see her. They are all vaccinated and they wear masks. I understand that, for liability reasons, the facility has to shut down visitations if they have a case of COVID, but I can’t help but wonder if that case was brought in by an unvaccinated person. I can’t help but wonder and be enraged.
We are very worried about my sister. A couple of weeks ago she had to be moved to a real hospital and fitted with an IV for a few days. She had become so dehydrated that she needed IV fluids, y’all! When she was returned to the rehab facility, she was perky and talkative and upbeat. Since then, she has progressively worsen, becoming confused, slurring her speech. Her urine is dark, prompting a urinalysis (for which we don’t know the results yet). I don’t know why the rehab facility is allowing her to deteriorate. My brother-in-law mentions that they are short-staffed and when the social worker told him not to worry, saying “we’ll take care of her,” he assured her that he will worry.
I struggle with being positive, with believing that although my sister is in an apparently substandard facility, she will get through this. She is scheduled for a re-examination of her broken leg at the end of this month. I’m hoping that she can be released after that.
My 97-year-old mother keeps saying my sister “has so much against her” and “won’t be the same after this.” I bite my tongue because she has to deal with her fears and worries in her own way. My mom’s comments have provided some illumination, though: now I know where I get my propensity to always imagine the worst scenario.
Meanwhile, our oldest cat Maxine has a drug-resistant UTI. Rather than put her on a regimen of twice daily injections that could last months without a guarantee of effectiveness, our vet recommends monitoring her kidney enzymes for now. Maxine is currently at Stage 3 kidney disease, but she has a good appetite, drinks water, and pees and poops normally. She sleeps a lot but when she’s awake, she’s alert. Still, at times there’s a sense of her health careening out of control.
Meanwhile, the Atlantic continues to churn up hurricanes.
I want to be positive. Maxine acts like she still rules the household and that gives me joy.
I want to be positive, but there’s still too many anti-vaxxers out there ruining it for everyone else.
I want to be positive, but when it comes to my sister, I won’t be until she’s out of that place.
***
If you’ve read this far, thank you. Again I hesitated about writing an unhappy post, but I need to write and I need to be honest. Meanwhile, I take my joy where I can find it, like with these two:
The remote life is not so bad. Not as long as you have plenty of food, you’re not sick, none of your family are sick, your cats are healthy, and you’re able to work at home and maintain your income (alternatively, you could be retired like my husband in which case the remote life is a bit better than not-so-bad). It helps to be a homebody who doesn’t really care for traveling, to be someone who, for a long time, just wanted to stay home.
But I sense everyone else’s restlessness, the growing irritation with the shops all being closed, no restaurants or bars to hang out at, police breaking up parties, infringements on one’s individual right to move freely and congregate. What perplexes me is that, on the rare times when I do leave my neighborhood, I see a fair amount of free movement and congregating. It’s the congregating that scares me.
Some Florida beaches opened this weekend and two things happened: the beaches quickly became crowded with few if any face masks in sight, and a new hashtag was born. #FloridaMorons. My governor takes his orders from the president so Florida no doubt will go through much more heartache before (if) this is done.
I haven’t done much writing lately. I haven’t really felt like it. Who knew that spending eight hours a day on a computer working for my employer would effectively kill any desire to stay on the computer after hours and write? Honestly, I didn’t know until it happened.
People are writing, though, and if you’re one of them and you’re writing about the pandemic, then think about submitting to The Disappointed Housewife, a special place for offbeat literature. Call for submissions is here: https://thedisappointedhousewife.com/2020/04/17/call-for-pandemic-submissions/. Tell them Marie sent you.
The upside of not writing is I’ve been walking.
I see trees! They’re everywhere …
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A couple of weeks ago we went walking at one of the few nature trails opened to the public. We were initially dismayed by the number of cars parked at the entrance but, to our relief, no congregating was going on. I saw no more than three people together at one time, and we all gave each other ample space to pass, even on the narrow trails. People smiled and said hello. Imagine that.
I hadn’t been to this trail in a long while so I got a little camera-happy.
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It was exciting to see such variety of color. I love all the shades of green that a good nature trail provides, but some yellow, blue, and red is always welcome.
Although I still have a spider phobia (somewhat mitigated after thirty years in Florida), I am fascinated by the very tiny spiders that make these delicate hammock-like webs. My husband referred to this group of webs as the spider condominium.
Best of all for me was the dragonfly that graciously rested long enough for me to get this photo.
Nature can be accommodating when she wants to be. Especially when I’m willing to be patient.
I hope you enjoyed this walk through one of our favorite trails. I hope you are staying safe and well.
I’ve debated whether to post, given the 24/7 cycle of COVID-19 news that makes me want to curl up under a fleecy blanket with Wendy.
Here she is getting ready to nod off, while draped across my legs.
After my entertaining (at times) and insightful (always) experience in the COVID-19 call center (click here and here if you haven’t yet read those stories), I feel rather full up with all things corona. It’s enough that I check my state’s stats twice a day, increasingly alarmed at the rise in positive cases and the obviously ineffective mitigation of community spread. Watching COVID-19 take over Florida is like watching a slow-motion train wreck as it picks up speed.
As an introvert, I’ve come to embrace social distancing. Finally, I can claim my personal space and people cannot judge me for it. It’s been sanctioned by the governor’s Executive Order, no less. I am also working from home now. I was very resistant at first, knowing that the boundary between work and home would become blurred, my and my husband’s privacy invaded by conference calls and Skype meetings.
But aren’t I lucky to be able to work from home? To still have a job? Yes, I am, I am. Will I complain about it? Yes, I will. It’s what I do.
Still, I am grateful for a lot of things right now. I’m deeply grateful for being able to connect with friends and family in multiple ways, to stay in touch and check on each other, to try and shore each other up. I’m also grateful for having a cat who likes to snuggle against my toes while I work.
Still … I plan to do some death-cleaning of my social media accounts. Nothing like a global crisis to make me realize that some of these accounts have gotten a bit out of hand. [Not to worry: If you’re reading this, you’re safe.] Whenever in a crisis, I always want to pare down, live a simpler life, stop trying to be some kind of social (media) butterfly. It’s how I cope. Remember, I’m an introvert.
I’d rather take walks and remind myself that there’s still Nature, although some might say, it is Nature that is doling out this latest public health crisis. Well, Nature has bits of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Fortunately my walks in my neighborhood are graced with plenty of the Good.
On my latest walk around one of our larger stormwater facilities, irises (or Blue Flags as my husbands calls them) were in full display. I considered them a reward since I was picking up trash, and the icing was a lovely white blossom I do not know the name of. A neighbor had the kindness to plant gorgeous Amaryllis next to a sidewalk, making a perfect photo opportunity on my way back to my house. More Amaryllis plants were bordering driveways or houses, too far away for good photos, too close to private property not to be considered trespassing.
As for my writing life, I have the pleasure of announcing a recent publication. You can read about it here, on Merril Smith’s blog, Yesterday and today. Last year Merril sent out a request for essays on sexual harassment so I wrote one and now it’s been published in Sexual Harassment: A Reference Handbook. Dear Reader, I’m even in the Index. Just goes to show that when you are inspired, you must act on it. If I had paused for a second, I wouldn’t be crowing now.
Of course, for any publication to happen again, I need to be writing, and I haven’t really been doing much of that lately. Working at home has only given me an extra hour a day to play with since my commute is now from my bed to my computer in the corner. Still, it’s only been a week and a-half, and I’m just starting to acclimate to my new routine. I will say, though, our cats are getting so spoiled with both me and my husband to pester all day long. And pester they do!
Wendy and I (and Junior and Maxine) hope you all are staying safe and healthy. We will get through this because we must. I send virtual hugs and real love to each and every one of you.
My reprieve from the COVID-19 call center was only for a few days. (You can read about my stomach-churning anticipation here and actual experience here.) By Thursday, my division was being asked to ante up again. At one point, my boss wanted me to literally drop everything and high-tail it back to the call center.
Fortunately for me, I was working on an assignment for her so she relented. I could go Friday instead … and Saturday. I was furious (and I blame my quick temper to a lack of estrogen although I’ve had a quick temper all my life). But I got through my day, went to a yoga class, and by evening was shrugging it off … except for the idea that I might miss visiting my mother who is currently staying with my sister in southwest Florida. We had been told our vacations could be rescinded, and the plan was to go the following weekend.
After talking it out with my husband, I canceled the trip. My mom is 96 but I have to believe that there’s still time for us to see each other again. I called her, told her I might have to work, and that workplace plans were being changed day-by-day. She understood but she sounded a bit disappointed. Better safe than sorry, I thought, as I rung off. Even though I wouldn’t say it to her–she would only “pooh, pooh” the idea–I didn’t feel that visiting her right now would be the responsible thing to do.
As it turned out, I only had to work four hours in the call center, but it was a harrowing four hours. The phones–all twenty of them–rang nonstop. I took 53 calls that morning, roughly the same number I took in a full day the week before. I would have taken more but for one bathroom break, and I switched off my phone a couple of times just to catch my breath. The calls were on average five minutes long and, as soon as I replaced the handset, the phone would ring again.
Some callers were calm, just wanting information, sometimes confirmation that they were doing all the right things. A few callers were angry. One was angry because she witnessed healthcare workers in a respiratory ICU not wearing face masks and gloves. Another caller complained that her child’s school was letting sick children attend classes. Another woman–a caller I won’t soon forget–was desperate for a test. She had no doctor, no health insurance, was new at her job and surrounded by people who regularly traveled. She wasn’t feeling well, and she was an older woman.
As I gave her the usual spiel about needing a doctor’s order for the test, she became angrier and angrier. Finally she hung up on me. I didn’t take it personally. I would have been angry too. She needed a target and I was willing to oblige.
Although I already harbored suspicions that my state government was not well-organized in its approach to COVID-19, that morning in the call center turned those suspicions into certainties. After two weeks of addressing COVID-19 we still were getting calls from healthcare providers who didn’t know what to do with patients who might need to be tested. People we had referred to their local county health department called back saying their local county health department was referring them to us. Most callers still thought we were a hotline or that we could arrange testing when all we could do was provide general information.
I took too many calls from people who said their primary physician refused to see them.
And, worse, I was given “updated” information regarding testing protocols that conflicted with what I had been told the week before. Information that was not available on the state’s website or in any of the documentation I had originally received from the call center. The woman working next to me hadn’t received the so-called updated information and was, frankly, horrified when I told her what I had been told. Near the end of the morning, I was giving callers more information than they probably needed because I no longer knew what was true and what wasn’t.
I wasn’t feeling the preparedness in all this.
After lunch, I returned only to be sent back to my office for the afternoon and foreseeable future. The line for the call center had been moved to a real call center. Far as I know, I won’t be taking any calls from the public, or healthcare providers, or snowbirds whose wings have been clipped.
The silver lining in all this for me is the rediscovery of Lafayette Park last week. I went there after work on Friday and again on Saturday. It’s a rough but beautiful trail. Here’s a few photos I took over the past two visits.
The park abounds with large old trees and beautiful flowering bushes.
One tree I just adore. Its branches are so gnarly and arthritic-looking, we figure it must be in the 400-500 year-old range (don’t quote me). I appreciate that the park elected to tether one of its extensive, low-hanging branches to the trunk rather than lop it off. These next photos are different perspectives of the same tree.
Friend of the blog, John Howell, recently noted how important it is that we think of our blessings during difficult times. You can read about it here. I’m doing my best, John. Nature is full of blessings for me, as are these critters.
From a few months ago, when it was chilly. Wendy, Junior, and Max enjoying the sun’s warmth.
The good news is I didn’t spend a straight 44 hours in the call center; just five and a half consecutive eight-hour days. So, despite my previous pity party, it all worked out well … eventually.
[For those of you new to my blog, I work in the public health sector and was recently commandeered to take calls at a center for general information about the coronavirus. Lest you think that is an easy-peasy assignment, I’m a highly sensitive introvert who avoids loud noises and crowded environments … so, yeah, a call center is kind of my worst nightmare.]
My first day I took only five calls, and some might argue that was a win. So few calls should mean that my time at the call center would be cut short. Eh, we were just getting started, folks, and we were getting plenty of calls. The problem was all the phones (twenty in total) would ring at once but only one person could take that call. It felt like a competition–who can pick up the handset the fastest–and I found myself at times actually cradling the handset in my palm just so I could get at least one more call. Somewhat ironic since I loathe talking on the phone, but then something happened during that first day.
About thirty years ago, I volunteered for a battered women’s shelter and one of my duties was to work the hotline. I received extensive training for this because, you know, violence and suicide were usually big topics in these calls. As a young teenager, I had availed myself of hotlines, trying to work through dark periods of angst and fatalism that I couldn’t share with my family. I understood how the disembodied voice of a stranger could be a lifeline. During my first day at the center, my old hotline skills started to kick in.
Also, I hate feeling useless, more than I loathe talking on the phone. When I came back to the call center the following day, I was resolved to figure out a way to take more calls and maybe actually help someone. We got into a rhythm of sorts. Five staff were reassigned to answer emails which made it easier to pick up more calls. Plus, we were getting more calls. Tuesday and Wednesday I logged about 25 and 37 calls, respectively. Thursday and Friday I logged in the high 50s.
By late Thursday, they set up an “agent routing” system for all the phones. Only one phone would ring at a time, and the incoming calls would be distributed so if my phone rang, it was for me and me only. I probably took the same number of calls, but it was definitely less stressful since I no longer needed to have quick reflexes.
I listened to all kinds of stories and I share some of them in this essay on Medium: Life Stories from a COVID-19 Call Center. As the confirmed cases of coronavirus rose in Florida, the calls became more predictable: either healthcare workers wanting to know the protocol should any of their patients need to be tested, or people reciting their symptoms to us as if we were a “Call a Doc” service. Toward the end of the week, it was obvious that Florida wasn’t doing a good job of communicating, particularly to healthcare providers.
The state also failed in providing translation services. I lost a few calls because I could not speak Spanish and the caller could not speak English. The only Spanish speakers in our group were usually already taking calls, and we had no guidance on how to handle non-English speakers. The Florida population is over 25% Hispanic and we also have large Haitian communities as well so we could expect French and Creole speakers. No excuse, Florida, for dropping that ball. It wasn’t until late Thursday that a language translation line was established.
In my Medium essay, I note that one call in particular haunts me: A young woman who could barely stop coughing long enough to tell me her symptoms, who had recently traveled to Italy, and who had no doctor or health insurance. I didn’t waste time with small talk and quickly gave her the number of her local county health department’s epidemiologist. I was left to wonder if she called them, if she had been able to call and get help. In hindsight, I wish I had taken her phone number and followed up myself with the county health department.
Hindsight is amazing, isn’t it? I have a whole list of things that should have been done before the call center was even open. I don’t fault the emergency team that worked with us. Their orders were being given on a day-by-day, sometimes an hour-by-hour basis, by leaders with little to no experience in responding to an infectious disease outbreak. The team did the best they could. By the morning of the second day the call center was staying open to 8 pm; by that afternoon, it was changed to midnight. By Thursday, we were told the call center would be open 24/7. I don’t know who took those shifts past 5 pm. I just know it wasn’t me.
Nature is always my balm during stressful times. After a week at the call center, I decided to visit a park for a quick trail walk on my way home. My husband and I had regularly walked at this park years ago, but I eventually changed my commute home and rarely drove by it any more.
I was happy to see the park is being well-maintained with so many grand old trees. Aside from the iris (?), all was varying shades of green and brown with a splash of gold from the setting sun. I worked an afternoon shift on Saturday and went to the park again, getting the same lift in my spirits.
When in Nature, I do a lot of reflecting. Besides that young woman whose painful coughs still ring in my ears, I think about the loneliness I also sensed. Some people called not because they were sick or had recently traveled to Asia or Europe or even knew someone who might be at risk. Some people called just because they wanted to talk and they wanted someone to listen. Some callers had a cure for the virus, some were armchair infectious disease specialists and had insights they wanted me to pass along, and some were simply scared. One woman cried as she said, “I’m in my golden years and I feel like my life is falling apart.”
Unlike the flu which is fairly predictable in who it affects and how and for how long, the coronavirus is so far unpredictable. It is more contagious than the flu (a person with the flu will infect 1.2 people whereas someone with the coronavirus can infect 2.2 people), but we understand little else about it. What we do know is that it is deadly for the elderly and people with underlying health conditions. While I’m not worried about what the virus might do to me if I became infected, I would worry about infecting others and for that alone, I’m trying to take as many precautions as I can.
I hope you all will do the same.
Thank you for reading this far. As your reward, here’s a photo of Maxine. She’s our oldest kitty (16 years old), but I think she looks like a kitten here. She’s not a happy girl as she never likes visiting the vet. We were happy, though, because her UTI appears to have cleared up … for now.
I’ve been adrift lately, casting about on some infinite ocean in a small dingy … without oars. A sense that my life is not my own, at least between 8 and 5, Monday through Friday. The child in me rants and rages, risks rocking the boat and drowning. The adult in me stares down at the water, searching for mermaids. The child cries and bangs her head against the seat. The adult peers at the horizon, embracing the earth’s curvature despite the deep-seated fear of falling off the edge of the world. The child pouts and fantasizes about abrupt departures should this boat ever get to land. The adult lies down on her back and gazes up at the clouds, marveling at their cottony and colorful expressions.
When the going gets tough, the adult grabs the child’s hand and turns to nature.
But first.
Earlier this week, I took a walk over to one of the larger ponds (or lakes as the developers prefer them to be known). As usual, I was looking for trash, which I found. But I also found this … a wonderland of sorts. What looks like a river is merely a stream only a few inches wide. I felt like Gulliver standing next to it. As I walked around, I kept my eyes focused on the ground so I wouldn’t step on any Lilliputians.
My inner child’s imagination took root (pun intended) and I imagined myself a boatman on this mighty river, or an explorer slashing her way through a tropical jungle. In my imagination, I saw before me a humongous body of water (not), and I had to be mindful not to fall into the deep crevasses that scarred the earth.
The adult in me wished I knew more of botany and could explain this lush vegetation that would not be seen except for the drought. And I wondered at how Nature–with her cyclical bountifulness and barrenness–has a purpose in everything she does.
Then it rained steadily for two days. I went out again.
You might have to squint, but yes those are the bathing beauties (aka turtles) that I look forward to seeing on my walks around the smaller ponds. They always slip into the water when I’m on the same side of the pond as they. The third photo is of a depression that only had grassy vegetation for several weeks, until this recent rain. Now water fills Nature’s bowl. A group of wood storks enjoyed the sun on the other side of this new pond, too far away for me to get a decent photo.
And then there was Friday. I almost didn’t go to work as I had been low energy all week, dragging myself from one meeting-filled day to the next. But I expected it to be a mellow day, with a chance to visit the ponds and the turtles and the birds.
The child raged when she was told that she would have to spend all of the coming week, 8 hours each day, sitting in a call center, manning phones, reading off a script that might or might not satisfy the caller. After almost a month of looking the other way, Florida has deigned to acknowledge the threat of coronavirus, that maybe–just maybe–providing some (hopefully accurate) information is better than no information. COVID-19 (as the coronavirus is also known) is in the U.S. and the public will want information.
I am not a health care worker. I am not an epidemiologist. I am not a scientist. All I know about COVID-19 is what anyone who reads the New York Times or the Washington Post or Reuters or The Guardian knows. That said, I just might know more than the White House administration.
Still. My inner child raged within me while my outer adult sat stoically as my duties were explained to me. Then I said, “I hate telephones.” Granted, I had “volunteered” myself to be assigned to a call center in case of a natural disaster, but I did that only because I was told to sign up for something.
It’s not that I don’t want to help people. I do like helping people, and you can read about one recent experience I had: When a Stranger Asks You for Help. I just have some trepidation when it comes to being “voluntold,” treated as if I were untrained personnel in the military and am now being called up for active duty. In the past when I’ve had to take calls from the public on behalf of my workplace, I’ve often felt pathetic, armed with only enough information to frustrate both me and the caller.
Enough of my self-pitying. After the child had exhausted her tantrum, thankfully deep within me while I stood at my window gazing at the blue sky, I decided it was time to go out. I had only walked up the street when I was given a gift. A sure-fire way to lift my spirits and bring balance back into my world is a sighting such as this:
I am grateful to this bluebird for positioning himself so close to the sliver of moon and then holding his pose long enough for me to get a good photo. (This photo is a cropped enhancement courtesy of my husband.)
Sights like this make me feel like crying, but in a good way.
Don’t weep for me, dear Reader. Eh, if the volume of calls is less than expected, I’ll be sent back to my office and will (no doubt) complain about that.
Just ask Maxine. “Talk to the paw,” she says!
You can help, dear Reader, by taking necessary precautions as outlined by the CDC (click here). At the very least, don’t be like one of my coworkers and sneeze into your hand during a meeting and then use that hand to pass items around the table. Just sayin’.
Marie at 1 Write Way 