To All the Nurses I Love.
By: Cindy Casey
Tags: Pandemic Diary, Nurses, Ppe, Covid 19, Hospital

Pandemic Diary Day 7

March 31, 2020

This goes out to three women I love adore, and consider heroes. My cousin, Valerie, one of my very best friends Alicia and and my skiing bud, Erin, and all the other nurses out there putting your job before anything else.

I need to start this with a mia culpa and OMFG I am so ashamed. I was FB’ing with Erin and told her she was a hero. Well shit, hell yes of course she is, she is on the front line of all of this, but how cliche was my message, and for that I feel embarrassed.

This was my message from Erin: This is just crazy. We are probably all going to see the surge in next 2–3 weeks. Scary times for sure. We are in full emergency mode here. Have about 350 positive cases out of 3600 tested. With 15% of those positives requiring hospitalization. So far 4 deaths. All with coexisting issues…..that’s in the adult hospital. Our Peds hospital is connected and we have no positive kiddos requiring hospitalization. We are just working on ways to offload our adult colleagues….PPE, beds and staffs become issue if things don’t slow down. We shall see. Scary times for sure with a lot of uncertainty.

This brings me to a moment where I feel completely helpless. I think of those three women and then include the thousands of people who work with them, or are in hospitals and care facilities across the country , and I can not do one thing to help. I wish I had wipes, I wish I had masks, I wish I had anything to walk to my hospital and help, but I don’t and I feel hopeless because of that. We hear your pleas for PPE’s and we know that you are trying to say to the general public, they are needed in hospitals, not because you think you are entitled to a pick up game of basketball. I also know these pleas are going out to manufacturers and our government structures because they are where the help is truly going to come from, but none the less I feel helpless.

There isn’t much more I can add to this missive, but I love the three of you more than you know, and please, please, please, stay safe.

I know your Dad, I know your Mom, I know your brothers and sisters, and they also want you to come home when this is all over, and yet, we know that your sense of duty out weighs our desires for you. You are heroes, but I can’t explain that without sounding cliche, so all I can say is I LOVE YOU.

Trivial Things

My Horoscope for today: Not all creative breakthroughs are dramatic and sensational. Some are quiet and profound — like today’s. (those last two words were not added by me, sometimes these freak me out)

The NYT Crossword Puzzle: Very easy with a fun nostalgic answer of “Rolling Thunder”

San Francisco weather: 52 degrees and cloudy

NYSE DOW opened at: 22208

Italian word of the day: libero (free, unhindered)

Spanish word of the day: el aderezo (dressing)

OED word of the day: sumpitan

Days under Shelter In Place: 18

Reading: Margaret Bourke-White by Vicki Goldberg

A Special Something: And I would like all who can to do the same: Left over from a sad time in my life I have lots and lots of postcards and postcard stamps. I started addressing postcards to the hospitals around San Francisco with a simple Thank You. It not only helps me express how grateful I am to people I don’t know, but when they are ready to go, I get outside and walk to the postbox, albeit only 1/2 block away, but it helps to clear the clutter in my mind.

My Black and White Picture of the Day:

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