Flatten that Curve

Hi everyone. Here I sit again in the hospital tower, looking down on the sleepy city of mine below. It is just after 9pm on a Saturday night in the capitol city and hardly anyone life in sight down there. I people watched earlier today for about an hour. Saw one group of four out for a walk with their children and dog, two singles crossing the street at different times, and one person got on the bus. That is it and it was about 4pm. In one hour. I overlook two of the busiest streets on this side of the city. It is bittersweet - I hope it means people are listening and staying the hell home, but it also means - things have really changed since I have been in here. 

I have been on the internet trying to catch up with the world, trying not to fall down the freak out rabbit hole, but when I read that close to 650 people died in Italy alone while I slept last night, I was quite unsettled. What the actual fuck. Why are other countries not taking it seriously? I have already seen some of the best and worst of humanity. Reading stories about the punch-ups happening over panic shopping, getting what you need or what you think you need and all that goes with that. 

I have also read a lot of good stories that have come out of this, like the sharing of your beloved resources as best you can with those in need. Online Facebook groups have popped up everywhere to link people with what they need through community involvement. Need some cat food but you are elderly and it is not safe to go out - someone going to the grocery store that day will pick it up and leave it on your doorstep using sanitized and gloved hands. People are offering payment when they can, through e-transfers or trades of goods. Some are calling out for help as they have no money until the next check day, but have run out of foods or supplies. 

People are setting up social distancing activities like one group in the USA had a Zumba class in their back yards - as in someone stood on their back patio with a loudspeaker and music while everyone else stayed in their own back yard/patio/balcony and did the class along with her. Others are having driveway hang outs. You sit in your lawn chairs in your driveway and I will sit in mine across the street and we will have a coffee and talk about the day. Others are doing drive-by visit trips. One of my friends drove around to see her friends, taking her kids, staying in the car and just waving to them from the car to where they sat on their front porch about 50 feet away. The kids got a drive around the city for fresh air, saw their friends at a safe distance and then everyone went back to their home bound activities. 

One that really struck me heavy and when I told my nurse tonight, she had the same effect - in Waterloo, Ontario where I used to live and graduated university, there are some tall apartment buildings next to a hospital where at shift change when all the workers are coming and going from the building, people are out on their balconies singing and clapping for the workers who show up every day to take care of us. I am here in the hospital still and it is not at all lost on me the sacrifices they are making to come to work every day and take care of me. Nurses, Health Care Aides, cleaning staff, laboratory staff, you name it. Hospital life continues amidst the madness out there. Remember to thank anyone you know who is still showing up for work to get the job done because it is all important. Both the nurse and I teared right up. 

I spoke to my cousin today who is aboard his 41ft sailboat in the Bahamas, retired, poking around down there. We had a great chat about how things look north and south of the border. Florida is in denial it seems. I read stories about how the beaches are packed with spring break partiers. What the actual fuck? We are closing everything including provincial borders, schools, universities, workplaces, and playgrounds here to save lives and they are partying. America will be paying a heavy price very soon and the party will be over. I cannot understand their response. Or maybe I can. 

Hospital life continues, with my exit plan in place. I should be discharged tomorrow morning and then my daughter is going to do my shopping, pick up my meds at the drugstore, etc. We will have a bit of a visit then she is back on the ferry as she has a hundred mouths to feed over there too (chickens, goats, cats, dog, partner in no particular order). I plan to follow the next day. I just want a night at home to make sure I feel well enough to travel at all. I am on new medication, just leaving the hospital, etc. I don’t have far to go, just a 30 drive to the ferry, 35 min ferry and 10min drive to the farm on the other side. I am staying there indefinitely. It might be a couple of weeks, but it could be longer. We really don’t know. They may close off travel between the gulf islands and I will be stuck out there, but rather stuck on the farm with my only child than stuck in the city away from her. 

Now on my last night, a word about hospital food. We all hear stories or experience the terrible hospital food. My last hospital stay was in Melbourne, Australia and it was no better over there. here is a recap of what I have been fed.

- chicken salad sandwich. Sounds good right? Well imagine using no-name brand mayonnaise that someone has added equal amounts of water to, and mixed it with unseasoned chicken. I could have been eating wet erasers. 

- macaroni and cheese. I was hopeful. I was wrong. Imagine fake cheese soup with over cooked macaroni noodles in it. I could have been eating wet erasers again.

- Salisbury steak - well it was not the worst thing as I could actually chew it and they included a packet of Mrs Dash for flavour. My digestive tract disagreed and grumbled about it to the porcelain all night. 

- chicken Alfredo - I was again hopeful when it was described. I was wrong. The noodles looked like someone had scraped them off someone else’s plate after they had dried up from last night. There was no Alfredo sauce whatsoever. The chicken looked like someone picked it out of a can of cat food and chopped it up. 

- fruit cocktail - well it was a bunch of square things that might have been peaches, but all they tasted like was the heavy syrup they come in. There was nothing else in there but these square orange things. I could have been eating erasers again. 

- chef’s salad - it was the first thing I dove into with vigor and was not terribly disappointed. Cucumbers, tomatoes (I threw out as I don’t eat them in salad), a bunch of chopped iceberg lettuce, a bunch of shredded cheddar, and a boiled egg. No real salad greens like spinach or rocket, just lots of barely green lettuce. I ate the salad to the last bite because I was so damn hungry for anything fit to eat. 

I am not trying to criticize the cooking staff, but if anything was to make me sick in here, it would be the food. All but the salad has sent me to speak to the porcelain. Cooking in bulk quantities to feed the masses is never easy, but surely there is a way to add some flavour? I thought I was eating my meals at my friend Angela’s place. We kid her all the time about her lack of flavour as she refuses to add salt and spices to anything whilst cooking. It was worse than anything Angela ever cooked. 

I have noticed a dramatic change in the attention I receive from the care staff now that I am nearly well and going home tomorrow. I know they are busy and again, not criticism. Up until this morning, I was poked and prodded day and night for sugar checks, bloodwork every few hours, plus tests for MRI, CT scan, X-ray, ultrasound, etc. I had three IV’s on two poles going at one point along with a catheter. There was ALWAYS something to fuss with, bags to change, medication to administer, and beep beep fucking beep from yet another IV pump day and night as something is kinked, or ran out, or not wanting to work, who knows. It got to the point that I learned how to silence some of the alarms as every time they came into the room before my Covid-19 test was negative, they had to gown up, mask, gloves just to check a stupid IV pump. With the catheter in, I was bedridden so couldn’t even get up to pick something off the floor that dropped. Now I have no IV’s running and just get a few blood sugar checks today, and I think only one round of bloodwork instead of every 4 hours. I hardly see them! 

My elbows look like a junkie’s arms. I plan to use them to ward people out of my social distance space bubble - look at my zombie arms! RAHHHHHRROOOAR! I don’t know what a zombie sounds like. My IV’s will come out in the morning before discharge I reckon. 

I watched the movie Contagion last night. I had seen it a few times before but that was before we were IN a pandemic. Folks, give it a watch. We are that close to what you see in the movie. If you want things to go that way, keep up your stupid parties on the beach, but as for me - you will find me hiding on the farm as soon as I can get there. I am a socially responsible human on the earth. People need to strive for that - being socially responsible humans. I don’t give a shit that you are missing your blow out at the beach this year. Keep it up and you might not have a next year to go to. Word is out - America is going to be the next Italy and boy do they have a lot to learn. 

I am hoping to post regularly as I have found my writing helps me process things and have a little think about what the fuck is going on in the world right now. Stay safe everyone. And stay home.