This corona thing has got me (and everybody else) a bit unglued. My cage started rattling in late February when I was reading news on my google home page. I then discovered Johns Hopkins www.corona.hu.edu site where the cases are tracked across the world. Discovering that might have been a mistake – I am compulsively watching it. True, I am watching a bit with a scientist’s objective eye – doing inner calculations such as the doubling rate, the mortality rate, realizing how long it is taking infected people to recover. But then it became a compulsion. Probably not such a good one.
Weeks ago, before the landslide of infections started in the US, I told my office staff and friends – this virus is coming, it is a risk for us all to get infected. Then I started having some worries in my waking hours. You know, those early morning hours in which you download your “knowing” and messages from Higher Up. I started making plans for how to process patients in the office, where to get testing done. Should I cancel all elderly non-essential appointments?
Then the rascal COVID moved in like a hurricane. And every hour, things were changing. And everything started getting hyped up, and the conspiracy theories started, and the world got crazier each minute — no, actually, each second. This past Monday was the worst day in the office I can ever remember. The Governor of Pennsylvania closed the schools – were my nurses who had kids going to be able to come in? At 7 in the morning, as we early birds arrived in the office, we started brainstorming our processes and realized the personal protective gear we ordered from our mother ship medical center had not arrived. And our first patient was at 730!! What if that person is sick?
Take a deep breath, I told myself. Together, I, the nurse practitioner, the physician assistant, the nurses and front desk staff started making a plan. Temperatures on everyone who walks through the front door. Close the back door where patients come in to go to the lab for blood draws. Have them come to the front where we check their temperature as well. Front office staff have a glass window – only open it an inch so they can hear – not enough to allow a droplet in. If someone has respiratory symptoms, only use exam room 3 so we can have a sort of isolation room. I will be the only one to gown up, so as to limit who is exposed. Especially because two of our staff are preggers. Monday was an exhausting day.
Tuesday, we had a patient arrive with respiratory symptoms. Quick mask on the patient and into the isolation room. What? The forehead thermometer reads 97 degrees. Really? Get out the oral thermometer – holy crap! Over 101 degrees! Ok, process change, we only use the oral thermometer. Then call the local testing site and arrange for testing. Have to send orders to check first for flu and then swab gets sent for COVID testing. You’ve got to be kidding! Takes two days to mail the swab to North Carolina and then 5 working days to get the test? If the patient’s illness was not enough to convince them to self-quarantine, we were hoping a positive test result would add urgency to us advising them to stay home. Now we have to pray someone is both smart and altruistic.
Tuesday night, I literally had a come-to-Jesus moment for myself. I am trained in energy medicine, with a strong spiritual approach. I had yet to actively pull out any of those stops. What the heck? Stop a minute and get a grip! My whole motto for life is “Maximum Medicine”. Meaning, we humans have so much at our disposal that exists in the unseen world; so many connections to the Divine, so many helpers. We have Nature – at the very least, that provides us with good nutrition and immune boosting effects. We are capable of preventing illness and healing ourselves.
So back to basics I went. Taking disciplined time to go quiet, to communicate with Source. I made my vegetable juice, having gone to the grocery to buy parsley, celery, apples, spinach, kale, bell pepper, zucchini, cucumber – all great immune boosters. I remembered to wipe down the grocery cart handle before and after, to use hand sanitizer after I did self-checkout. And I washed my hands well as soon as I got home. I spent more time aware of my yard and my animals. I got outdoors as often as I could. I started taking pictures of my animal friends to upload on FB, in part to stay in communication during my social distancing, but mostly to remind us of the uplifting things all around us, to bring a smile to our faces, to reduce our collective fear and anxiety.
We will make it through this. We will be changed, but I suspect in many ways for the better. We will be reminded not to hoard, and to share. We will spend more time talking to our Higher Selves/ God/ Source. We will be re reminded that Life is changeable and mostly out of our control, and so we will come closer to those people and things we love. We will find laughter and humor in what used to be small things, such as animal videos. We will bring forward our kindness and compassion which for many of us has been dormant and or lacking. We will remember to love more deeply. We ARE capable of adapting, thriving, surviving. We ARE MAXIMUM.