During A Pandemic
What a week. Anyone else or is it just me?
Currently, my M-F has me eyebrow deep learning an all new bracket of our healthcare system - the world of Home Health. I’m loving my new job and the people - there’s just loads of details to learn while helping build a department in healthcare.
During a pandemic.
I’m learning to give myself some space/time to learn instead of placing myself under the pressure of knowing. And I’m reminding myself on the regular that perfection doesn’t happen when the world is all rosey, let alone during a pandemic.
One night this week I was trying to drum up as much self-compassion as possible while purging through my eyeballs all the water my body contains. I had yet another argument with my boys about all things E-Learning. There are about 543 ½ reasons we don’t do homeschooling. But Covid thinks those aren’t enough reasons.
The night before that festival of fun, it was a stormy evening - rain, dark clouds. Everything but tornado warnings, fire, and brimstone. Around 7pm I found myself rushing Danny to the hospital. Someone apparently didn’t like taking their blood pressure medicine for months - but really, who “likes” to take medicine? This turn of events had me speeding (as much as you can) in a mini-van to get Danny to the ER.
During a pandemic.
I’ll admit it - pulling into the parking lot of a hospital piled on some extra anxiety (at least I was able to snag the first parking spot). These days, the ER is the very last place on planet Earth I would care to visit - even if it’s just the parking lot. I’ve had asthma for nearly 30 years and I don’t want to be anywhere near Covid - or it’s playground. Needless to say, if there was a life-sized Ziploc bag I would be in it until we laser blast Covid into the history books.
While walking into the ER entrance, I was so dazed from my busy work day, teenagers, and getting my brain to stop going through the details of worse case scenarios - i.e. Danny dies, I catch Covid and die, our boys are without parents, and Alex lives the rest of his days without someone reminding him to shower each morning.
In the middle of my brain going all rogue, a sweet nurse stopped me at the door letting me know I couldn’t go in with Danny - who at this point was being rolled to the back in a wheelchair.
Then I remembered.
We’re in the middle of a freakin’ pandemic.
The nurse immediately waved something by my head giving me vibes of Beverly Crusher’s tricorder that was whipped out for every alien the Enterprise came across during the 90s. I was just too tired and anxious to immediately register the idea that she was simply taking my temp.
Because we’re in the middle of a pandemic.
The nurse took my name and number in case they needed to call me about Danny then directed me to wait in the parking lot. The same parking lot with a mask-wearing security guard who was bored out of her gourd walking the beat of an eerily empty ER parking lot.
Back to our mini-van I went. I took a nap (don’t judge naps taken at 7pm). Did some Pinterest. Took a nap (don’t judge naps taken at 8pm). An hour and two swollen feet later, I decided to move myself to the back seat.
All the hundreds of pounds of me decided to curl up in the back of the mini-van because swollen feet needed to be propped up. Yet it had to be in a way so when hospital security walked by they didn’t think they were rolling up on a role play situation of Jack and Rose’s backseat rendezvous.
Four hours later, Danny walked out of the hospital feeling better and after all sorts of scans and blood work his symptoms were related to high blood pressure. Not a heart attack, stroke, panic attack, or some other diagnosis that would leave him dead.
I dropped my fear and worse case scenarios as he got back into the mini-van and we went the speed limit all the way home. Grateful we’re both still around to remind Alex about his morning shower.
These are loaded days, friends. L-o-a-d-e-d. I don’t know about y’all but I know for me I need to give myself a break. We are all doing the best we can to navigate life after our routines have been slammed into time out.
Need to rock yourself in the closet with some Oreos? I hear you.
Need to get some cute shoes from QVC because your hairstylist is unavailable? I hear you.
Tired of feeling you need to make this quarantine productive? I hear you.
Wishing you could make this quarantine more productive? I hear you.
Wondering how you will get six hours of your life back from watching Tiger King? I hear you.
You and I are doing the hard thing of being present during a pandemic unlike anything we’ve experienced before. Let’s give ourselves some compassion and grace to do and be what we can, when we can. Because at the end of this there will not be a Dundie award for “Most Perfectly Lived Life During A Pandemic”.
