The situation with COVID-19 continues to worsen here where I live. My mother, a transplant survivor, depends on a special anti-rejection medicine every day to keep her kidney functioning. She usually gets a refill with a three month supply. There is no medicine to be had, the pharmacy says. Her home health care nurse knows how to work the system, and was only able to get her a supply for one month. I am praying she will be able to live, and continue her medication at the end of the month.
At work now they are assembling teams and protocols. Part of my responsibility will be on an intubation team. I will lead it, as the anesthesiologist on duty I will do it. We respond anywhere in the hospital besides the ICU and ER, to the overhead page, Code 19. I believe there will be a respiratory therapist and a nurse also present. We will have to gown up, go in the room where the concentration of the virus is very high, put the breathing tube in, changing our preoxygenation and drug and equipment routine to reduce risk of contamination, and then take everything off safely after the procedure is complete. They will have two teams a day, one in the day and one at night.
There is no way my boss or the number two are going to even show up at the hospital. Some leadership, right?
Other responsibilities include staffing the O.R. for surgical cases and running ORICU if it gets enough patients to do that.
The hospital is basically contaminated inside already. There have been patients with the diagnosis walking about the hospital who refuse to wear their masks and have roommates who are not on isolation--so their other patient in the room will most likely come down with it.
Our hospital will have three zones, green (presumed healthy), orange (mild Covid, will be treated in a tent and sent home) and purple (Covid requiring hospital admission--moderate to severe cases) to reduce cross-contamination.
I know in China you need three layers of protection at all times, eyes, feet, mouth/nose, skin. Their intubation teams would just dress up once all day and go wherever they were needed in the hospital. My friend's friend who is a Beijing doctor who went to Wuhan just came back, she's okay. But they advised me bringing diapers. So I ordered some for me. I know from China it is safer not to eat or drink at the hospital. And to keep protective equipment on the whole time. When you remove it is when there is risk to you of contamination--you touch the outside where the virus is on your equipment.
I was deeply moved by a story on Twitter about an ER doc who had to intubate his colleague, another doc in his thirties who was otherwise healthy. He said to put on your personal protection equipment as if you life depended on it--because it does.
A woman shared how she had to tell a wife on FaceTime that her husband was dying. He died alone. Loved ones can't come in to the hospital for risk to them and to the patients, as well as there's full steam ahead with the surge and taking care of the patient load. There's no room or time for family members in this emergency.
I got one.
I finally got a high-altitude crystal from Switzerland. It's not a Gwindel. It's smoky quartz from Zingenstock, Oberaar Lake, Bern.
It's a beautiful crystal and it was long overdue for my -- polite cough--'healing energy work' I do for the planet. The last one I ordered--months ago--they are so rare--never arrived and I had to pay for the whole thing, remember?
Unbeknownst to me, it was the key to help me face my challenges at the hospital. In the description, the seller says, 'these crystals require the full mountaineering equipment for someone to collect them; they risk their lives to bring them to us.'
There it is!
There is a mountain I must climb, not by choice, but while I am risking my life in the line of duty, (my worst nightmare is that physicians can be called up to battle if there is a doctor shortage, I've noted that since the beginning of medical school and dreaded it), my workplace has become the front lines.
Let us see what I bring back for the crystals? Insights, knowledge, heartwarming moments to remember, perhaps even inside information on what is really going on during this massive information war?
On Saturday and Sunday I was badly shaken. I went for a walk with Anthony. He wanted us to clean the garage. It was a beautiful idea, very healing. My blow dryer and ceramic straightening iron and curling iron were finally found after over a year of searching for them! I threw some things out. And I sat in the lawn chair in the sun and went through old papers and cards and letters.
You can imagine my surprise when I found this letter from Ashtar dated December 3, 2013:
(he spoke to me and I wrote what he said, automatic writing)
This is Ashtar Sherhan
Remember that my Blessings are always with you. I must take leave of your for a short while.
There is a silver cord which flows between us. It cannot be broken, not by me or you or Archangel Michael. I will come when you ask -- any time, any place, your love for me is never too often.
God will challenge you, in small ways (shows his finger and thumb to show a small distance) but never so awful as THIS (no connection to Source like I had). Your fertility shall amaze you, both in Spirit and in Light.
I am proud of you for all of your developments. You have worked very hard on them all of your awakening time. (he does a gesture where he brushes his hands against one another as if to get the dust off.)
You are the sweetest lover I have ever spent time with. Your heart is highest above the rest. I love you for your Honesty and commitment to your cause. I shall be a better being for the time I have passed with you. Your True Love, a Fellow Soul, is very fortunate to have your Grace in life and also in the next. When I go, I will NEVER leave you. (he touches the cord from his chest to mine.)
We are always connected.
I cannot take my place in Heaven without your Love Blessing.
Will you extend your Heart to me?
I am always ever present.
Thank you for the lesson I had with you these past three days.
I will embrace you from time to time. My heart is a gift I share freely among the intended. My Betrothed and I have awakening I must attend. I am not jealous, neither is her heart. Our love is a gift to you to enjoy our blessing, until your miracle is complete. (I see fireworks, gestures). Remember you are loved. I will not talk to another like I have you -- not even my Twin. For you and partnership I bless everything.
Your beloved Ashtar Sherhan of the Sky.
Then I found this, in his beginning cursive writing, a piece of plain lined notebook paper pasted to blue construction paper to 'frame' it:
Anthony
My mom is someone who inspires me because of how hard her life is and she puts up with it and has a good life anyway. Of how much she does, and much she's been pushed around, what inspires me is to never give up, even if life puts so much in the way.
She grew up in a bad neighborhood, and ended up with being also an engineer and finally becomes an anesthesiologist (you can see where he erased it and had to work to spell that word correctly, and it IS spelled correctly). After that, she became a single mom. She is amazing, and I love her.
clap! clap!
Aloha and Mahalos,
Namaste,
Peace,
Ross and Carla
The Couple who are True Twins
