Locked Down

On By thestampsinmypassportIn Uncategorized2 Comments

Anne Frank spent 761 days hidden in the secret annex. If you have been to Amsterdam and taken the tour of Anne Frank House, climbed behind the bookcase up the tiny staircase to the secret annex you know. As you are listening to the story on your headset “Anne” is telling you about how her father used to bring her magazines from the time with all the celebrities and what was going on at the time. He brought her glue and let her glue them to the wall. You turn the corner and there is a wall, covered in clear plexi-glass and behind that you can see all the photos and articles glued to the wall. I am not comparing Anne Frank to Covid, please do not misunderstand the context. The context was really to appreciate the length of time she was hidden away to this time in our lives.

I have been careful what I have shared about my hospital experience last month. Careful for many reasons. Firstly I want to respect anyone who has had family in ICU during Covid and has experienced trauma loss. I also want to respect the health care professionals who are so important to us. Not just in this time, but all the time. If you are reading this and are a health care professional, have anyone in your family or circle that is one, I want to give deep gratitude for you.

You don’t know what you don’t know

By the time I arrived at the second hospital I was taken to in less than 48 hours it was past ten pm. This was a Monday night. I had been up since 7am on Sunday morning and had spent the last 20 hours sitting on a chair in the cubicle I was in in the Covid ER of the previous hospital. All I wanted to do was sleep.

Imagine my surprise when the EMT wheeled my gurney into a room, a dark room, where I noticed there was someone else in the bed in the room. I am going to leave out the expletive words I was using at that point, but basically I am NOT sharing a room with anyone, I have COVID. Get me out of here, I want to go home now. I thought I was seriously hearing things when they told me they cohort the patients. I said, “you put more than one person with covid in the same room?” I was mortified.

They wheeled me out and took me to the room next door (which was empty). There were two beds that were not even six feet apart. The nurse said she couldn’t promise that I wouldn’t be sharing a room. I said to her that if someone else comes in here I am leaving. She said I would be alone that night, but she couldn’t promise anything tomorrow. I said, all I want right now is sleep, we will deal with tomorrow, tomorrow. The EMS left and I told her I wanted a sleeping pill and get some sleep. At that point I had been up for over 36 hours. She left the room and closed the door tightly behind her.

When you are in a Covid room, you are locked down. The door is closed all the time. The staff comes in in full PPE, with double masks, some with googles and face shields and head coverings. There is a hazardous material bin in your room by the door and they disrobe with their backs to the door and back out of the room when they are done, they back out of the room, and close the door tightly. Imagine how many times a day this is done. Imagine actually sharing this room with another Covid patient who has a different covid than you do. Everyone has it differently. That is what is happening when the hospitals say they are at the critical stage. Remember in my post last week when I said I moved because I was ill, but not critically ill and then needed my bed.

We all want this to end. We all want to get back to work, friends and family, and life in general. Even those introverts who a happy to be at home, are missing parts of their life that they once had.

Part of healing is being able to tell your story and no longer cry. I am not there yet. Sharing my story is something I choose to do and I hope someone reading this today who has had an experience that they don’t want to talk about, that this helps them.

Stay safe on your own personal journey,

The First Response

On By thestampsinmypassportIn Uncategorized3 Comments

I think it is pretty safe to say that we are overloaded with information in our world today. It is hard to take it all in, and try to decide what you are going to do with all of the noise on your screens every minute of every day. When I tested positive for Covid-19 I already knew I had it, it was just a formality. Why did I know I had it? Because I read a lot, I knew the smell and taste loss which is a HUGE symptom in this virus. What I started to read about was the length of the virus and what to expect. I read an article that described what happens in the middle of the virus, around day 5 or 6 and that was what I had to look out for.

My day 5 was Saturday February 6th and it was rough. I spiked a fever of 102 and it wouldn’t come down. Then the cough started. After a lot of Tylenol, the fever came down in the evening to 99 but when I woke up the next morning it was back up to 101. I was scared, I am not going to lie. My mom was on the phone with one of my cousin’s who brought over a pulse oxygen monitor for me to use. My mom dropped it off at the door of my condo.

My cousin and I Facetimed and I checked my pulse oxygen. It wasn’t great and she said to me I needed to call 911. I didn’t want to. But I had to. I called and while I was on the phone with the operator she was giving me the protocol for when the responders enter the home. Keep the door unlocked, do not approach them when they arrive, keep your mask on at all times. I sat at the table, turned the TV off and waited for them.

If you have ever taken a first aid course, they really try to ensure you understand how to perform CPR and of course nowadays, how to use a defibrillator if one is available. One of the main reasons why they do that is because it does take time for EMS to arrive on scene. Every minute counts.

In my case, I was waiting for them to arrive and the first to arrive was the Fire Department. They were just casually asking me questions and getting the lay of the land of why I called. They did not come near me, they did not take my vitals, they were really there to assist if there was a need, but really to bridge the gap for the EMS to arrive. One of them asked me “you are not watching the Superbowl?” I replied, “No, the fact they have 25,000 fans there and I have Covid, turned me off”. He agreed.

When you are waiting it feels like a very long time. I am sure it wasn’t longer than 15 minutes but it felt like a lot longer. Once the EMS arrived, the other two left and they took over. They were asking all the questions, getting the history, etc. Then it was time to leave. I walked myself out of the apartment and in the hall was the gurney. My unit faces the street and I see when there are fire trucks, ambulances or police in front of my building. They took me door and out through the main door. The whole thing was a bit surreal and I wasn’t even sure it was real, maybe it was a dream and I was in one of my medical dramas.

Me, being the social person I am, asked the medic his name. He said, Lem. I said, Len? No, he said Lem, like lemonade. I was looking around the ambulance and I said to him, “I watch way too many medical shows.” He was wearing a mask, sheild and eye goggles but I could tell he was smiling. He asked me which ones, I said all of them. I started with Grey’s and he said his sister and mother watch that. Then I froze. He asked me what was going on as my oxygen was dropping. I told him I was having anxiety. He asked me why?

I had heard the siren. As a driver, I know that when you hear a siren you pull to the right and stop. You stop because the ambulance needs to get where they were going, fast. That there is a potentially a sick person in their rig. In this case I was the sick person. The siren brought me to my reality, I was sick.

We arrived at the hospital and they waited for me to be taken by the nurses in the Covid ER. I had a chance to talk to the other EMS who was driving. He was telling me how he is close to retirement and both his daughters are professional athletes and play for team Canada, but right now what sport they play has escaped my brain. He wants to move back to Guatemala and open a wellness centre on the beach. Sounds pretty good right about now. It was their time to leave, so I thanked them and they were gone.

I had no idea I would have another opportunity for an EMS interaction, but as my life would have it I did. I had to be transferred to another hospital after 24 hours. Again, I walked myself to the gurney and they wrapped me up in blankets and put the oxygen meter on my finger. The one EMS, I asked his name, Tim, who asked me what was going on as my oxygen dropped. Again I said, I am having anxiety right now. He put the oxygen in my nose where it stayed for the ride.

On the ride to the other hospital Tim asked me what they told me about why I was being transferred. After I told him the reason he told me about the shift that he and his partner were on that night. It was an overtime shift and their responsibility was to take Covid positive patients who were not critical from one hospital to another as the critical patients at certain hospitals were reaching capacity, many of them overwhelmed by the critically ill. I was grateful to be one of the patients that even though I was still quite ill, was able to be moved.

With every experience we have in life we have to look for the lessons. It is hard to believe that seven weeks have now gone by since that time I called 911 from my apartment. I am grateful for the first responders that were kind and made me feel comfortable during what was a very uncomfortable time. I am not looking to take a ride in an ambulance again any time soon, but knowing how hard these professionals are working and caring for their patients is something to acknowledge.

Please continue to be safe, get vaccinated when it is your turn and wear your masks.

In the Beginning

On By thestampsinmypassportIn Uncategorized3 Comments

One year ago today I was working only my second Saturday shift at Goway. What a day to be working in a travel agency. The day the world was closing down. I have written about this day and night before, you can read about that here.

In the beginning

In the beginning there was fear and that created chaos in every grocery store. The shelves were stripped bare. Supply chains were broken and it took months for some items to return to the shelves. I remember at the time looking at the bare shelves thinking to myself, “I hope in six months the food banks are overflowing with all the cans of food that people hoarded that they now realize they will never use”. Let’s not get started on the hoarding of toilet paper. Later on once the toilet paper supply was fixed, it was paper towel that became a scarce commodity.

Speaking of hot commodities, let’s talk about the broken supply chain of flour and yeast that went flying off the shelves faster then they could be stocked. Everyone was baking. How many of you baked at least one banana bread those first few weeks? How many started your own sourdough started and named it? I did neither of those two things.

I did share photos of meals. as did many others at the start of the lock down. Facebook groups were created for people to share photos and meal ideas for their families. It was a great source of comfort in those very first days of the unknown. For me, I think it made me feel less alone.

In the Beginning

In the beginning we lit Shabbat Candles together as three households. That of course led to Zoom Passover, Zoom high holidays and Zoom everything. This has become something we have become ‘used’ to the last 12 months. It does have some benefits in truly connecting people that would otherwise never have been at that particular event. During the High Holidays my brother had ‘surprise’ guests come into our room from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and more.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my birthday that I celebrated two weeks ago. My brother facilitated a zoom room and my mother became a super detective and in the span of two hours in two zoom rooms, there were close to 100 people that joined in from London to Vancouver, to Montreal, Texas, Northern and Southern California, Chicago and much more. You know I love to plan birthday parties, but not in any of my party planning dreams would those people have been here in person to help me ring in 50.

In the Beginning

In the beginning it was winter. But then the snow melted and the weather started to go from winter to spring. We had a very cold and rainy mother’s day on my brother’s driveway. About a week after that I planned a picnic for my parents and I at the park across the street. I brought a huge bag filled with pre packaged snacks, place mats, Lysol spray and wipes. My parents picked up subs. We had just finished our lunch and a Vaughan city worker came and told us the park was closed and we had to leave. My dad’s 75th birthday was in June. We had a visit with family in my brother’s backyard and then we had planned for a few of his friends to meet in the park. There were a lot of people in the park that day. Along came a Vaughan city worker and told us we are not allowed to congregate in the park. We had to move along. So we did. This photo was taken from my balcony. A balcony that does not get ANY sun. It was very hard in those early days not even having a place to sit out side and enjoy the sun.

In the Beginning

In the beginning, let’s go there. Grocery stores. It took me a couple of weeks to get over the hoarding experience I mentioned above. But, we all need to eat. I ventured out in the cold, waited in line outside and went to the store, mask, gloves and fear all rolled into one. This is when I started shopping for my parents and myself. It took a while to get into a shopping grove, figuring out what day of the week and time of day would be best for me. I did this for both households for 11 months, until I got covid.

I found that not working allowed me to go in the morning, in the middle of the week. After the first couple of weeks I never waited in line again to get in and stumbled across check out lane 3 to Susie, a fantastic cashier at No Frills on Centre. The first two weeks I ended up at her lane by accident, but after that I started to wait specifically to check out with her. She is fun and friendly and helps you out when you miss something that may be a price match. She has quite the following. One day in January, there were three of us in line waiting to be served by her. Her manager was mad at her. I told her that he should be happy that people are regular customers and want to be served by someone that makes their experience better. If you shop in the morning at No Frills on Centre and happen to end up at lane 3 – if it is Susie, you can tell her Lisa Simpson sent you to her.

In the Beginning

In the beginning I was taking photos of CNN’s case number counter every couple of days. I am sure that I am not the only one that did this. I did this for a long time, as you can see below. I stopped taking pictures a long time ago, and I think CNN stopped their counting screen a long time ago as well. Now the focus is how many vaccinations are being done, which really is where we all should be thinking now. For America, that was such a mess during the days of pandemic has now emerged out front and blowing Canada out of the water on the vaccination front, we are all now waiting our turns.

Where am I now

Where am I now? That is an interesting question. I did have Covid. I am very grateful to be in recovery of pneumonia with some lingering issues that I hope will clear up in the coming few weeks. I have not ventured out past the park across the street. I have started ordering my groceries on line. I am really in need of a hair cut so that may be the first place I venture out to in the short term. I am craving a restaurant meal, to be served, but I am not in a rush to do that just yet.

I am cautiously optimistic of getting my vaccinations by September. I am praying each day that Canada gets its shit together and it can be sooner, but I don’t know. I am putting it into the universe that I will have a stamp in my passport in 2021. I know that 2022 is going to be a big year for travel. I have plans for 2022 and I am hopeful that come summer time we can actually have legit conversations on moving forward with plans.

Until then, I wait.