Tag: Healthcare

I Am Giving Myself This Day

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I need it, my body told me so. My mind did too.

Photo by Madison Lavern via Unsplash

I woke up this morning shortly before I usually do to prepare for work. However, I could not move. It was as if my body laid claim to my bed and demanded to stay put. Any other day, I’d peel myself away from the comfort of a pillow-top mattress and will myself to get up and get going, but today . . . today, I listened to my body and succumbed to a day of rest. The tears lined themselves up accordingly right behind my eyes. I could feel it — it would be a day of dealing with extreme emotions — work would have to wait.

I’d felt off-kilter this past weekend leading into this week, and I ignored it. This was probably not the best thing to do given my current circumstance, but a day off is in play. I communicated with our center manager the need for a mental health day and received a prompt response regarding it and its approval. I want to save as much energy as I can for the days, weeks, and months ahead. I have a few writing projects coming up that will require research and getting into character to pull off these works.

Of late, I am drained both physically and mentally and after yesterday’s minor run-in with a patient who wanted to do what he wanted to do, but found out quickly — we follow the recommendations and guidelines issued to us and our entire medical organization, I am zapped. It takes so much out of me to get through an eight to sometimes ten-hour workday, adding privileged and irresponsible people to the mix regularly, is too much.

How kind are we to our minds, to our bodies when we need to be? Do we give ourselves the time off we need or are we pushing through, trying to get past the pull of a crying body and an aching mind?

When you feel like your stress levels have reached their peak, it might be time to take a quick break to reset.

— Elizabeth Scott, MS

I reserved a “mental health day“ to do exactly this — reset. Recharge. Regain some semblance of myself before taking on the world of screening and surveying patients for Coronavirus, COVID-19 symptoms again. I could feel myself fading, unraveling — if I’m being honest and I had to put a stop to it. I still need to get through the rest of this week.

To read the rest of this article, please see it in its entirety at Thrive Global. 

The Power of Touch

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I am grateful to the editors of such a fine online media outlet such as Thrive Global for publishing another article of mine, entitled The Power of Touch. Working where I work and doing what I do–I’ve made it a point to continue to write about my experiences during this pandemic. Having Thrive Global as another source to host my work is beefing up my “writer’s resume'” and I am incredibly excited about this fact.

Of all the things Coronavirus, COVID-19 has stripped away from us, touch is what I miss most. Being an affectionate person has its downsides, especially during a global pandemic. If you’re a single person and live alone as I do, the comfort of your home and all that’s within it is what you have—it’s all you have. I am grateful to have a small dog who allows me to pour my love into her and returns every ounce of affection I need. All I have to do is beckon her to me and my requests for kisses, loving paw-taps, and lap naps are eagerly given without protest.

While I appreciate my precious little four-legged fur-baby and her ability to connect with me on this level, she cannot replace the power of a human’s touch. As living—breathing sentient beings, we need touch. It is important for our overall health and well-being, and being forced to not take part in something that can sustain us is a hard blow to the heart and mind.

According to Maria Cohut, Ph.D., “Touching, and being touched, activate particular areas of our brain, thus influencing our thought processes, reactions, and even physiological responses.”

Medical News Today, September 2018.

As a healthcare worker, a few things that allowed me to connect with our patients was to shake a hand, offer a hug, or lightly pat someone on the back if they were afraid, grieving, in pain, or simply needed someone to recognize that void and seal it up with a small dose of affection. Now, within my six feet of social distance, while wearing a face mask, gloves, goggles, and sometimes other forms of PPE, I cannot offer the one thing I grew accustomed to providing—human touch.

I have not seen my mother since March of this year. I have endured none of her long hugs, cheek kisses, or hand-holding in moments of being uplifted. I do, however, call her every day after my shift. I do this to give her the gift of my voice—to let her know I am okay, that I made it through another day. I appreciate having this mode of connection with her—that she can hear me, but it does not come close to what we established between mother and daughter: a bond that grew because of touch, because of affection. There is something about being able to lean into the comfort of one’s mother and gain a sense of relief from having done so.

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.

Article Published in Thrive Global

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I recently had an article published in Thrive Global and to say that I am excited about this is a serious understatement. I am grateful to the editors of such a fine online media outlet and will continue to submit work to them in hopes of those essays also being accepted and published. I will share a snippet of the article, This Is My Life Now with you here, then link you directly to it in its published form.

“As a healthcare worker, I know what lies before me prior to entering our doors for work. I know that my day could be a roller coaster ride, a pleasant happening, or an overall chaotic batch of insanity. The problem is, I never know which one will greet me and when. Since the brunt of the global pandemic of 2020 in March of this year, North Carolina has seen its share of turmoil and devastation. According to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), our total number of active cases is 95,477 as of July 17, 2020, and these numbers are rising steadily.

My official title is Patient Access Specialist and prior to the pandemic, I registered patients for their imaging and invasive procedures at a prominent imaging center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. My role has shifted in the last few months and I am now the primary screener for our facility. What does this mean? I am the person who surveys patients by asking them pertinent questions linked to COVID-19 symptoms and checking their temperatures before they enter our waiting areas.

What I’ve found out in the last few months: No one tells you how to grieve when you’re a healthcare worker. They do not prepare you for the many emotions you may experience while doing your job. Since the middle of April, I’ve felt the following emotions: anger, sadness, happiness, fear, and disgust. I encounter a wide range of patients throughout my day. Some are oblivious to the severity of this virus, some are flat out stubborn and cannot believe it exists, and others are terrified of even the slightest communication from someone trying to ensure their safety. I have my work cut out for me for at least eight to ten hours each day.

There is no tiny bubble to where I can retreat and my feelings matter not when communicating with and screening a patient. What most of them see is someone before them intervening and disturbing their day when all they want to do is come in, have their services rendered, pay for them, and leave. Things have changed. Our lives will never be the same. Coronavirus, COVID-19 has stuck its toes in the everlasting waters of life and is here with a powerful force and for how long, we do not know.”

You can read the article in its entirety here. Thank you.

When the Night Barks

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And love has no bite

Photo Credit: Luis Quintero via Pexels

If I had a magic wand, my life would not include me saying the following statement multiple times a week: “No, I am not taking any visitors at this time. Due to my line of work, it’s best that I do not.” For those of you who do not know, I am a Patient Access Specialist turned Screener for an imaging facility. My transitional position, due to the Coronavirus COVID-19, places me front and center in surveying patients and taking their temperatures prior to entering our waiting areas. I screen anywhere from one hundred twenty to one hundred eighty-five people per day with a low to moderate percentage of exposure to the virus.

Some family members get the importance of my refusals to their requests, others want to test the waters of me and see how far they can take their reach without me blocking it or shutting it down. I am not one who likes repeating herself but for this, I make sure I am loud and clear.

I will miss out on a few opportunities for gathering with family this summer and it is because I have to take every precaution to ensure my safety and the safety of others. My health is important. I want to be sure it remains intact for the foreseeable future.

I have brothers, cousins, uncles, and aunts who want to visit from various Coronavirus, COVID-19 hotspots across the nation and in my mind, all I can think is, “Why would you want to visit me while we’re in the middle of a global pandemic? Why do you think I want you to?” Politely declining family gatherings and visitations is becoming my forté but I have no regrets. At least, not right now.

But how will I feel when the night barks and love has no bite? What will I do when the yearning for a hug becomes the one prayer I lend to God religiously? Am I strong enough? Will my defiance of running toward “some sense of normalcy” get the best of me? Only time will tell.

Right now, I am in avoidance mode and for several reasons. I cannot, in good faith, slack off in any way on the methods of survival and remaining virus-free if I give in to the simple requests of others.

To an unbearable extent, everyone is antsy. They’re ready to experience life the way they knew it to be Pre-Coronavirus days, but I am faced with the reality of its deadliness every single day and I am in no rush to gain a life back that does not have what I mostly need from it.

I have had the ungodly task of living through sixteen days wrought with worry while a co-worker panted through the depths of Hell and came back from a rigorous bout with said virus and the last thing I want is to be in his shoes. No, thank you.

It breaks my heart to not be able to see, spend time with, and share in the love of my beautiful family, but I love them enough to know I am bad for their health and to keep myself away from them regardless of their pleas. I love them enough to want them to live through this phase of life, come out unscathed, and tell the story of it.

The night does pull at me and oftentimes, I haven’t the strength to conquer it. A few loud barks from its deep voice doesn’t scare me. I don’t even flinch.

But, I will be completely transparent, it’s the absence of the vastness of love and all versions of it I miss the most. It is the intensity of a thing I’ve forced myself to believe I want more than breathing. I want to live through this pandemic and share stories of it with the same loved ones pressing me to open up my door and let them in.

Will I lose their admiration and perhaps the closeness we’ve had over the years? It is a possibility. But, I’d rather keep the potency of love in its full form in my heart than run the risk of losing its bite.

Originally published in P. S. I Love You via Medium.

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if it’s privilege, you will know

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Photo by Josh Hild via Unsplash

you are yearning to
go out while I
simply want to stay in

safe from the fevered patients
I screen, often misdiagnosed
pneumonia is a lie
doctors tell them
to keep from testing them
accurately

and I pray for my friend
recently the owner of
results that will
take a quarantine period
to alleviate
away from her family
a mountain of
positivity
is needed

I channel my
extra portion
and send it to her

one of my cousins
found my Great-Uncle
dead in his home,
his flimsy body
riddled with pain
shut-in, cast off
from others, a virus
claiming his soul

you are yearning to
go out while I
simply want to stay in

I see the numbers
I tally the cost
overwhelming hurt
rising in smiling faces
with tearful eyes,

demeanors shattered
and tossed about like
yesterday’s garbage

privilege smells like
piss in a dark alley
day old and sun baked

my cousin does his rounds
at a prominent hospital
in Queens, his colleagues
dying left and right
from the very thing
they’re fighting

I ask God to cover
him just as he’s covering
me. how would our
people take two deaths
at once?

if it touches your family,
claims your friends,
& piles up in every corner
where you turn,

tell me, will you still
be so eager to go
out then?

What I do for a living? I register patients for various imaging scans and invasive procedures and one of the scans we are doing far more of than we ever have before? Chest X-rays. Many patients are being tested for Coronavirus COVID-19, many of them have been diagnosed as having pneumonia. While most of those diagnoses have proven true, some of them have not.

My Great-Uncle was found dead in his home by one of his children while at home recovering from something people still believe doesn’t exist. A good friend of mine recently tested positive for COVID-19. When you see what I see, live what I live, and work where I work, you don’t need the news or a politician or a doctor telling you what’s going on, you experience it for yourself.

All of you, please take care and be well. If I’m not as active on here for a few days here and there, that’ll be because I’m exhausted and flitting between many emotions. Peace.

Non-fiction Saturdays

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It Won’t Always Be Like This

And I Take Comfort In That

Photo by Engin Akyurt via Pexels

“It Won’t Always Be Like This.”

I take comfort in that phrase because I have to. There are many changes being implemented at my job. We are not urgent care or an emergency facility and most of our imaging services are elective procedures. However, the great powers that be over our organization will have the facility open to help with the overflow of patients who need certain scans done, who wish not to go to any PUI (Patient Under Investigation for the COVID-19 virus) facilities. As long as we have some volume and patients on the schedule, we will remain open. The moment that volume drops to a number they do not want to see, we will close imaging operations until further notice.

We will close imaging operations until further notice.

That has a pulsating ring to it, doesn’t it? Try saying that phrase five times fast. Trust me, it is not easy to do. I have tried it. I have broken down, fought an invisible enemy with my fists, combatted a wave of depression shortly after, and am doing all of this without the direct aid of my therapist. I cannot see her at this time but have been notified that virtual and email options are available. I will have the time to take advantage of those options during the coming weeks.

Quickly going from a 40-hour per week employee to a “whatever-we-have-available-hour” per week employee is a blow to the gut that will linger. This week, I was on the schedule for 24 hours only. Next week, I am on the schedule for 16 hours only — subject to change at any given time. I will have to use PTO (paid time off) to assist me in gaining my full-time status each week until my PTO dwindles. That will not take long. When my PTO is depleted, the company will allow me to go into a negative PTO bank, but up to 80 hours only. And when that negative 80-hour bank has been depleted and there are no patients on the schedule, I will not get paid.

I have broken down, fought an invisible enemy with my fists, combatted a wave of depression shortly after, and am doing all of this without the direct aid of my therapist.

Knowing all of this, living alone, being alone, and having to rely on myself only for income, has been overwhelming. I am positive, though. I am also grateful to still say that I am working, even if my change in hours is significant. Many are not in my shoes — the hammer came down on them and it came down hard — switching them from gainfully employed to unemployed in a matter of days.

On my days off, I am also given the opportunity to fully participate in the Stay-At-Home order implemented by our Governor so as to flatten the curve for the spread of the virus. I would rather continue to do my part in combatting this thing rather than be a part of contracting it and spreading it to others. This news — the reduction of my hours, is also happy news for The Powerhouse, my mom, and many of my family members and friends. They have been worried about me since the virus touched down in the United States.

I have direct contact with our patients on a daily basis and although, I now wear a mask and gloves too, the percentage of me contracting the virus while at work is higher versus if I were to simply stay at home. I see this as two things: a welcome break that I have needed for years and the opportunity to finish up many of my projects while taking on a few collaborative ventures as well. I am open to every potential lead to being more creative that is thrown my way. I am ready and I am willing.

Many are not in my shoes — the hammer came down on them and it came down hard — switching them from gainfully employed to unemployed in a matter of days.

Far too tired at work, masked photo. “You wear the mask well.” — Aura Wilming

A patient, one whom I delight in greatly, brought a gift to my job for me. He and his wife are patients I register regularly and she thought to give me a little something that would provide us with luck. She sanitized the item and placed it in a tiny plastic bag and ordered her husband to give it to me when he had his next appointment with us. I was at lunch while he was registering with one of my co-workers, however, I came out of our breakroom to get something from my desk, and immediately lit up when I saw him and waved.

He called me to my co-worker’s desk and said with joy, “Tre, get over here! You gotta get this. My wife said I gotta give this to you!” I walked over to him and he was careful in taking the item out of his pocket and handing it over to me. He said sweetly to both my co-worker and I, “It’s for good luck! We need y’all here. We just do. Thank you, girls, for what you are doing. God bless y’all.”

I nearly teared up right then and there, but I smiled. I told him had we not been moved to practice social-distancing, I would come out to the waiting area and give him a hug. I asked him to please thank his wife for me and to let her know that I am most appreciative. I thanked him too before heading back to the breakroom. I am blessed to be able to do what I do. I love the connections I have made and the connections that are probably awaiting me in the future. But, it is deep in my spirit that when this is all said and done, that I may not continue at my facility for the rest of the year.

I am playing things by ear and being mindful of “taking life fifteen minutes at a time,” but my heart wants to move. My mind wants to move. My body aches and everything within me says, “Get out of this field.” That is now. Who knows what my mind may drum up two weeks from today or a month from today.

“It Won’t Always Be Like This.”

No. No, it truly won’t.

Originally published in A Cornered Gurl via Medium.

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