I have been at home for the past 4 days with my family. I go back to work tomorrow. I am actually looking forward to the routine of a work day, although even the work day is not routine. I have little to no one on my schedule. I will be on the phone or computer “seeing” patients, mostly reassuring them, encouraging them to provide medical care for themselves at home. The last 4 days have been disorienting. It reminds me of being on maternity leave. Both of my children were born around flu season. I was petrified to take them out in public during those first few weeks after birth. I basically sequestered myself and the babies at home. It didn’t take long to become unaware of time of day or day of the week.
I tried my best to keep a routine. I got up every morning, showered and dressed before my husband went to work. I never once stayed in my PJ’s. I think that’s key to not losing one’s mind. Try to keep some semblance of routine during your quarantine.
It is important to take small moments to just breathe. I steal these moments often throughout the day. If I don’t, I feel the tension rising inside my chest, a feeling of panic that comes from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. I stop and breathe. I take a moment to be grateful for the breath, for life, for the ability to help even if it means staying in my house and limiting the spread of COVID 19. There are all kinds of heroes during this pandemic, both those that are leaving the house to provide essential services and those that sit their asses at home.
We needed chicken food yesterday. The local feed store was business as usual. Me and the kids stayed in the car and my husband went inside for the food. I observed the comings and goings of the patrons buying cow manure, garden plants, and mulch. It didn’t anger me. I just kind of shook my head. Humans are funny creatures. None of those purchases were necessities during a pandemic. They were just going about their yearly spring routine. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and it was time to get the garden started, I mean think of those fresh from the garden tomato and mayo sandwiches come summer time!! Perhaps chicken food is not a necessity either, but I think our chickens may disagree. Bless those 2 little chickens in our backyard. Right around the time this virus really started to uptick, they started laying eggs again after a long and tedious winter. I suppose they, too, are doing their part.
It is hard to break old habits. It is near impossible to get everyone to understand the importance of staying home. Yesterday was such a beautiful spring day in the Carolina’s that it almost seemed like nothing was wrong, nothing had changed. I wish we could stay in this place, but it’s too late now. It is past time to do our part. We have to stay home, we have to avoid the spread of COVID 19. The sooner we get it together, the faster this will be over and we can get back to our gardens, our restaurants, our jobs, schools, life as we know it. I don’t want to do this a day longer than I have to so my advice is….
Stay the fuck home.
The coronavirus is named because under an electron microscope, the group of viruses appear to wear a crown. I can’t help but compare that to the crown of thorns that adorned the head of Jesus Christ while he hung on a cross. I don’t know exactly where I’m going with this illustration, I just keep thinking about it.
There’s nothing like a global pandemic to bring Deconstructing Doctor out of semi-retirement. As I write this, the kids are obliviously occupied on their iPads, pretty sure my husband is, too. That Rumba that he bought for Christmas that I did not want is happily purring through the house. In retrospect, I love the Rumba, although this one is actually an off brand. Something generic, something copied. It is truly a worthwhile gadget. Maybe it deserves its own blog post sometime.
I have recently taken to the habit of drinking a glass of red wine from a clear glass shaped like a skull. Not everyday, mind you. It started after Halloween. I decided to make a Halloween feast for my family. Hot dogs carved like fingers, cake that looks like cat litter, with little tootsie roll cat poo half buried below the surface, green colored punch, smoking and smoldering, poured into clear glasses shaped like skulls. My dad thought the Halloween feast was a lot of fun, the kids still talk about the cat litter cake, and I really liked those clear skull glasses. I’m the only one. So I put the other 5 glasses away until next year and kept one out, one that I can drink red wine from when I felt inclined.
It was a typical Monday morning, I got the kids up and ready for school, dropped them off before the bell, and headed off to work. Halloween was still fresh in our minds, the candy piled high on the kitchen table, costumes laying clumped in piles in the kids’ rooms, skeleton decorations still hanging on the front porch.
There are times when silence is necessary. Quiet reflection, stillness, exhalation. I found myself in a state of mind consistent with floating on the stillness of the ocean, buoyed by the salinity, the sun peaking in and out behind the clouds, shadows flickering behind my closed eyelids. It is absolutely blissful, however, not as conducive to angsty curse-filled blog accounts of the unfairness of a doctor mom’s life. I reached steady state. How does one rail against such peace and calm? One doesn’t. One just floats.
My 10th great grandfather and his family boarded a ship in Mannheim, Germany in 1663 bound for America. They came to Germany by way of Amsterdam and before that France, seeking refuge from religious persecution. Each new home offered only temporary asylum. During this time, and for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, the Catholics were persecuting the French Huguenots, murdering and torturing them, causing them to flee to the corners of the world.
I only know one person that committed suicide. He was a patient of mine. There were plenty of patients over the years that had tried, but all of them were unsuccessful. Except for him. Over the years, whenever suicide becomes big news, my mind often goes back to him. I search all of my recollections of meeting him in the office, talking about his job, his family, his military experience, and I never once suspected that he would take his own life. Never. Once. He never seemed depressed, never admitted to being depressed, never expressed any feelings of desperation, isolation, loneliness, sadness, or rejection. He was pleasant, likable, even a bit jovial.
I passed the boards, in case you were wondering. It’s a relief. I don’t have to think about that again for 10 years. Who knows, by then I may be retired. Or a famous writer. Or still doing the same thing I’m doing now, the job I love. I have found a new delightful rhythm in my work. It feels refreshing instead of draining. I am on the other side of something sinister. My steps feel lighter, my laugh less restrained, my love for this work blossoming. I have my favorite nurse back in a new place and it makes all the difference.
The unwind. That’s where I find myself right now. It’s this strange process, like a colon cleanse or some such shit, whereby I untangle myself from the trappings of my job, just briefly, while on vacation. This unwind doesn’t last. It really never processes to completion, anyway. In fact, it’s kind of a tease. I can never truly unwind myself from this work.
