Perspective

I am tired. I saw too much covid last week. There was the daughter Face Timing her good-by’s to her mother as the bipap was being removed. A different family where the entire household including the patient had covid ; The daughter hospitalized, the son who should have been hospitalized, the granddaughter trying to care for everyone. No one was vaccinated because they didn’t believe covid was real. They still weren’t masking. They were not staying home. yet another family, not vaccinated, refusing to mask ,becoming defensive and angry when I suggested they mask to protect the person dying of cancer. Death is inevitable. That doesn’t mean we need to hurry it along with added misery.

It is harder for me to to remain impassive these days . It’s difficult not to shake people by their shoulders and knock their stubborn heads together. I can’t let my frustration show. I can and do advocate for masks and getting the vaccine. I try and dispel myths. I have to be matter-of-fact, non confrontational.

” Delta’s super contagious, ” I say. “We can’t predict who will end up sick in the hospital, or who will be asymptomatic. Healthy thirty year are dying with delta. I would hate for your mom to have to deal with that on top of her cancer.”

It is taking massive amounts of mental energy to remain impassive now. To instill trust, I have to always be calm. Any alarm I feel cannot show. The family can be drunk and screaming. I am calm. I might get firm, but never upset. I am there to help, not add to the problem. I need them to trust what I am saying so the patient can be made comfortable. I am in their home, their facility, their ICU. Usually, I can find some way of connecting. It is getting harder, though. My tongue is bloody from biting it so often.

I think I have compassion fatigue. Maybe I just have plain old fatigue. My desire to knock heads together is getting stronger. A very hard thing made even harder by the cult of red hats and covid deniers.

I do still see wonderful, loving families. An elderly husband in a rundown home who spends money he doesn’t have to make his wife more comfortable, a daughter Juggling work and single parenting to be there and hold her mother’s hand were also a part of my week.

I need to keep my perspective.