Just to catch things up 2019 was a Big Year for us. My mother died in sept (she was 103) and both our daughters got married. Madeleine and Allen married in Sept at KY dam Village. Sophia and Oliver married in Dec in London. Big Changes in 2019.
2020 started like most other years. There was book club, work, appointments. I made plans to go to a conference in Chattanooga at the end of Feb with a former coworker, Tonya. I had been hearing about a novel virus from Wuhan china. I actually had a 12 year old come to the ER with a fever and his mom wanted a test for this Corona virus. The boy's teacher had gone to china and then handed out candy to the kids. The boy had influenza, but I did some research about testing for this new corona virus from China. There was no testing except at the state lab and they did not recommend testing unless the patient met strict criteria. (this 12 year old patient did not) I asked around the physicians I work with about what they thought about this new virus. Mostly I got shrugs. Dr Martin was the exception and he said that he was stocking up on essentials. Then we went to an ER conference in Chattanooga. Physicians from Vanderbilt spoke at the conference about how this virus was going to overwhelm our healthcare system. There would be shortages of protective equipment. They spoke about how contagious this virus is and deadly. We would have drive through testing centers. I know they said the word pandemic. This left us speechless and scared. Tonya and I immediately ordered a few N95 masks from amazon for too much money. We pictured working long exhausting hours.
We came back to work and were called to get fit tested for N95 masks. I knew things were serious when the NCAA basketball tournament was cancelled. Everyday brought a new change. One day a nurse was wearing a mask. The next day everyone was. We had a new door to enter work by. There were lots of administrative meetings. Testing was still very limited. Schools and every activity were cancelled. Restaurants closed. Our first COVID patient in the ER was an older man who had been on a cruise and then came down with appendicitis. No one suspected COVID. My first patient had vomiting and diarrhea and the test I did was almost a fluke. Everyone was told to stay home so a lot of people did. Our volume in the ER was cut in half. Patients apologized for coming in when they had a broken bone. Our employer cut our hours drastically. They also gave providers a 10% pay cut which they would reinstate later and then pay us back when able. They said it was a national emergency and our contracts were invalid. One midlevel left. The remaining 3 of us split what hours we had. I worked 9 shifts in April and 5 shifts in may. I work with 2 guys who were supporting their families so I let them have more shifts. This was not how I had pictured a pandemic being. I stayed home and gardened. We really worked on some changes to our garden and improving the soil. I was determined to keep the weeds out too, so I mulched and mulched.
In June I had an unexpected two week stretch off. We had bought a new camper in 2019 and were anxious to take a big trip so this was a perfect opportunity (kind of). June 17th we left home to go to the Dakotas. I wanted to see Mt Rushmore and the Badlands. My parents had lived in Garrison, North Dakota in the 50's before I was born and I wanted to see that too. My dad had worked on building the Garrison dam. We also discovered harvest hosts and boondocking. It was a really good trip. We loved South Dakota and especially the badlands. Hot springs SD was a nice little town. I had just read Undaunted Courage about Lewis and Clark so we made that a part of the trip by going to see Sgt Floyd's grave, Fort Mandan and stayed at Lewis and Clark state park in Iowa where they had a replica of their keelboat. I loved the book and seeing the Missouri river and replicas of their fort and keelboat made the whole book come alive for me. We came home in a rainstorm to an overflowing garden. Covid was not too much of a thought for us while we were gone. We wore masks in stores and gas stations but the camper was our home. So glad we got to make the trip.
Back at work in July we all got 10 shifts a month. (almost full time) Our ER volume was slowing creeping back up. Fourth of July was pretty much cancelled. We learned how to zoom. In person Church was cancelled in March but we get together for worship on face book and then coffee hour on zoom. I have attended services in Paducah and at the national cathedral. I'm getting used to going to church in my bathrobe. I figured this pandemic would be ending by fall anyway. It just hasn't turned out that way.
