Meg

65

06/29/2020

Emsworth, Pennsylvania

March 10, 2020. I went shopping on that day and ran into short supplies. I went to 4 stores trying to buy sanitizer and couldn't. A week later I had symptoms of the virus but couldn't discern whether it was an immune disease I have or the COVID-19.

I have been in isolation almost completely since March 11. I have been working from home since early 2016. That hasn't changed. I cannot visit any doctors' offices. That means my immune disease is not getting the usual assessments such as lab work. I see my doctor's online. My rheumatologist moved to a different state in March and my PCP retired. I feel neglected.

I have been working on a book I am writing and am pleased that I am not wasting time in commuting to meetings! I do most of my consulting business online anyway so my income has not changed. All my groceries get delivered--and they are never right and there are still lots of shortages. I couldn't get hand soap or paper towels for over 3 months. My balcony garden is the best it has ever been. The balcony is my way to get out of the house and into the sunshine. Bliss! I am getting to long delayed redecorating projects at home. I also allow myself to listen to music of all kinds to relax. I keep a journal to process anxiety and anger as I have for many decades. I talk to a Jungian therapist once a week. I am a bona fide bibliophile so I am reading A LOT.

There is hostility everywhere. One of the maintenance men who came to fix the plumbing and lay new kitchen floors felt somehow he could respond to my Yankee hospitality by identifying my home state of New York as the "shit-hole of the world". I see battle lines drawn on neighborhood social media over masks that get down and dirty quickly. Twitter has become toxic.

I own a consulting business. In that capacity I am currently a co-investigator in a study of people with multiple chronic health conditions that is comparing outcomes between telemedicine and wrap around services with professional who go into the patients' homes. We stopped home visits on March 15. The graph of our enrollment dropped like a champion skier off a mountain. I'm working on assignments for the study team and community stakeholders for the fall. The size of the newsletter I write has increased four-fold!

No I am not essential. I am the ethicist in-residence if you will. I think ethicists should be considered essential but--well the book is on ethics in the entire universe of health care. the collapse of the health care system in the pandemic might force us all to see that changes must come.

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Yes I am as I have been for four year. I enjoy the decrease in stress from not having to drive in heavy Pittsburgh, PA traffic. Not having to deal with all the driving, even for errands, as I have so much delivered, I am able to focus for extended periods of time. the challenges have to do with my emotional health with the police brutality I see and the mind bending incompetence of the federal response, or lack thereof, to the pandemic. The challenge is to not become despairing.

I have one named Sophie. She is a 2-year-old calico. she loves the plants on the balcony too.

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I have reduced my Facebook to almost zero and significantly reduced Twitter as well due to the hostility expressed. That is a shame. Social media was a source of connection for me as my illness keeps me house bound as a rule and all doctors tell me to stay home. I got enormous enjoyment being part of a watch party for an historical TV show (TURN:Washington's Spies) until it turned itself. It got horribly toxic due to Trump supporters thoughts about patriotism. I do my work online as a rule so it is business as usual. I get lectures online (National Constitution Center, museum virtual tours, etc) that keep me intellectually stimulated. I saw this on C-Span! Thank God for BookTV!

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See above (question 9) for my 2-year-old calico who is very happy that I am home all the time now.

I hope that my work on liberative health care ethics will make a long-term positive impact. It centers in premature morbidity and mortality that is being expressed in those being most affected by COVID-19.

I did in early March. I have not been able to see any doctor in his office. Two doctors offered the opinion that I did indeed contract it but there was no testing available. I was simply home and very sick alone. I was one of the many who take hydroxychloraquine daily to keep my disease from progressing or being fatal. We were all very afraid when the White House Administration touted it as a "game changer". For us it is. I ran out at the end of March when I was so sick. I did get a 3-month supply in April. The biggest take-away was the almost unspeakable fear and loneliness that goes with being an "elder orphan" and not having anyone to help with cooking, laundry, and simply being there for comforting emotional support. I attend two churches. Both went exclusively online of course. Neither pastor nor elders could come visit. I work in health care. No one much even asked if I was okay. We all hear stories about the heroes. That is because we want to feel we are good and kind. When it comes down to actually going grocery shopping or throwing in a load of laundry or making dinner for a baby boomer we take comfort in believing someone else is doing it. I did have one neighbor offer to buy some groceries in March. That was lovely and very much appreciated.

I did not lose anyone personally. I wept often though, knowing what was gong on with the poor, sick and elderly in the nursing homes and hospitals and dying by themselves in their homes.

I changed both my PCP and my rheumatologist in March. I wish I knew both doctors who replaced them before I got the virus. It would have been nice to have an established relationship with the men who ended up being on my computer screen.

I would want them to know how utterly unprepared we were in health care both in the way we educate and employ workers at all levels. I want them to see how a profit-driven health care system is morally bankrupt and in need of an overhaul. I want them to understand how important it is to build community support systems and personal relationships with people at all age levels and economic status. I want them to know that ageism is an evil just as much as misogyny and white supremacy. I want them to realize when adversity hits we survive together or we perish together.

As a person who has been working in the public health system since 1989 I can say we do not know how this will change us going forward. We are not merely going through a pandemic. We are simultaneously going through another stage in women's rights, gun violence protests, police brutality, as Black Lives Matter is changing us, we are seeing that we are allowing dark skinned poor people to die unnecessarily as we have been doing unawares till now. All the while we have the most corrupt and incompetent White House in our 240+ years of being a government. We'll see. We are in the midst of the trauma of all those things coming at us at once. We will either be a failed experiment as a liberal democratic republic or we will live up to our potential with the virtue and honor of the men and women who won our independence from oppression. Let's hope the new normal will be a total reformation of who we are as a people.

Before you reprint any of this please correct the typos!!!! Also, I am looking for folks who are willing to read my material for editing and suggestions. If you know anyone please give them my email mjparkmdiv@aol.com or mjparkccw@gmail.com @imemjae. Thanks for doing this!

Meg

Southern Adirondack Library System

English

Covid History

11742199072