January is a bittersweet month for me now. It is my birthday month and Bob and I would always celebrate my birthday by taking a trip somewhere as he knew there is nothing I would like more for my birthday! Usually we went to Arizona, where it was relatively warm, and we loved it there. But now January also marks when Bob had to go to a facility, and he went in just around my birthday time. I think I went home and slept for a week! He has now been in a facility for 5 years. He went on hospice care in May of that year, so at the time I was sure it wouldn't be that long, and hospice agreed.
Just before Christmas he started eating again, after several months of sporadic eating. As I wrote in last months blog, it was a wonderful day and I got to hold his hand after not being able to do so the Christmas before because of COVID. On January 28, I gave myself a birthday present and traveled with a tour group, Road Scholar, to California to check another item off my bucket list. It was 6 days of activities centered around the Rose Parade which included one day of actually working with the 52,000 roses that went on one float. The highlight was the day after the parade (which was also spectacular) when our tour group got in the venue early to beat the crowds and be able to walk among the floats and see them up close.
I had been so careful on the trip to wear masks, and the tour bus we were on only had 18 people on a 50 seat bus, and we also wore masks on the bus, even though everyone on the tour had to be fully vaccinated. But just days after I got home, I went to breakfast with a group of friends, and the next day one of them called to say she had COVID. I had already been to see Bob after I got back, but I started the 5 day quarantine period. The last day of the quarantine, the facility called to say that Bob had tested positive for COVID. He had survived having COVID last year in February and it was a mild case so I hoped this would be as well. 4 other residents and some of the staff also had it, as this seems to be a very contagious variant. The staff was so good about calling and giving me updates. And I got special permission to go in and see him. As he was in isolation, I had to wear full Personal Protective Equipment. 10 days later he has now tested negative and is out of isolation. This also appears to be a mild case and the main side effect of being sick was that he slept a lot. But more concerning is that he has stopped eating again. They said he would always take the oral liquids, so he kept hydrated, but he can't afford to lose more weight.
As I watch the staff at Hillside work extra on their days off to cover shifts for co-workers who are out because of testing positive or to help when people couldn't get in because of bad weather, I am so thankful that Bob is where he is being well taken care of. But I read articles of what nurses and caregivers across the country are faced with and I marvel at their strength and resilience. I listen to stories of people still working at the hospital where I worked, and hear of the horrible things that are happening, and cannot begin to imagine what they are going through. How long can this go on, and how long can they keep up their endurance? They are experiencing burnout and leaving the profession they once loved. There is no way they can keep up caring for the sheer numbers of sick people which of course includes diseases not associated with COVID that they cared for easily in non-COVID times. I pray for them several times a day and hope this soon slows down without another big wave on its heels. For some, this variant has mild symptoms, but for others especially with underlying health problems it can be devastating and people are still dying from it. So please take every safety precaution and do everything you can to protect yourself. You cannot afford to go to a hospital for anything now as you will have to wait for hours in an ED to be seen. And if you have to be admitted, you may have to wait in the ED for 48 hours or more for an inpatient bed to become available. If you have heart problems and need to be in ICU, your bed is probably taken by a patient with COVID. Or the ICU nurse may have up to 4 patients where the maximum before COVID was two. So it goes without saying that the standard of care cannot be met, and you will not receive optimum care. Nurses from everywhere are being asked to work in situations where they have no experience and units where they haven't worked in years. Simply put, there just aren't enough nurses to go around. I am sorry to be so graphic, but I don't think people realize the depth of the problems.
As I close, I want to wish you the best of health. In the midst of this crazy world in which we now live, I hope you find peace. Please pray for the caregivers that they may have the strength to go on in the midst of this chaos.
Betty
