Pandemic Parables: Changes

Pandemic Parables: Changes

The changes happening at the hospital over the last few days have been constant and confusing as the senior leadership battle to keep ahead of the overwhelming surge we all fear is coming. 

The very visible change is that from now on all staff all have to wear cloth face masks from the time we leave our cars until we return. “I feel like a bandit” said one male nursing assistant. I nodded in agreement. And it is surprisingly odd not to be able to see if people are smiling. I suspect we will all end up with very expressive eyes. 

 

There are so many other changes happening in what feels like quick fire succession. Including an increase of Coronavirus patients and an expansion of areas in which to care for them. 

As of Friday we had 41 Covid-19 patients in the hospital, nine confirmed to have the virus. The others have the symptoms, are awaiting tests, and of course have to be isolated and treated as though

they are positive. 

The ICU unit now has only Covid-19 patients. I walked through there on Friday. (The area’s regularly assigned chaplain was away.) Faces were tense, conversations terse, and a large sign said “Are you wearing enough PPE?” (Personal protective equipment.) 

Later I met a high level nurse assigned to the ICU from a different specialized area. It was at the end of twelve hour shift. This strong, intelligent woman was close to tears from exhaustion and suppressed fear. It was an honor to pray for her as she stood in line to get coffee. How I wish I could have hugged her - an impossibility from six feet apart. 

Other sections of the hospital have been turned into overflow ICU units. On Wednesday one of those units was in my part of the hospital. (I am assigned to the Emergency Department, Same Day Surgery, and the Third Floor.) The PAC-U  is the recovery area for same day surgery. It has been eerily quiet since elective surgeries were put on hold. On Friday, to my surprise, it was suddenly filled  with non virus patients who normally would have been upstairs in the ICU.  These were seriously ill people. The space was tight and divided by curtains as patients are usually transient. I anointed one patient with oil and prayed for him and his already grieving spouse, knowing he had little time to live. At the same time someone was sweeping the floor feet from his bed. That would not usually ever happen. But then this area is not usually an ICU and everyone is learning to adjust. 

To staff this new ICU area, nurses had been brought from other places in the hospital and quickly retrained, but the systems were different from what they were used to. Great difficultly and stress ensued. Recognizing the problem, Management stepped in and changed gears rapidly. (They have been admirable in their handling  of this unprecedented crisis.) The next day the whole overflow area had been moved to the second floor of the hospital closer to the original ICU. 

I only discovered this the day after praying for the dying patient when I walked through the once again deserted space. It was as though the whole unit had been vaporized. The beds, the curtains, the patients were gone. Remaining were just a few stunned looking nurses who told me what had happened. “It feels like a morgue in here” I said before stopping myself in horror. Then we all burst out laughing to break the tension. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that” said one of the nurses as we looked at each other knowingly, trying to suppress images of the overflowing body count in New York.

I saw one truly marvelous nurse, a good friend, that I hadn’t seen for several days. That’s because instead of being in colorful clothes she was in scrubs wearing a surgical mask. She is a hospice nurse who has been commandeered for the ICU. She doesn’t mind. “I am a nurse” she said. “I am trained to go where I’m needed, to the hurting, the dying. All of my team is like that. We are called. We go.”

Where my friend is most needed at the moment with the Covid-19 patients. This woman has the most enormous heart. She, and her fellow nurses and medical staff, care enormously. She had recently been at the bedside of a dying Virus patient holding their hand through her surgical glove to ensure the patient didn’t die alone. If I, or my fellow chaplains had been allowed into the room we would have done the same. But the declining supplies of  PPE have to be kept for the medical staff.  So in some areas the nurses are doing the work of the chaplains. And the chaplains job, now more than ever, is to care for the nurses and the rest of the staff. 

I was told of a chaplain intern who walked into the Emergency Department (when we were still allowed to go in freely) and was moved to see a nurse holding the hand of a patient and praying with them. I went to the bedside of a non-virus patient a couple of days ago. The patient’s daughter had promised him he wouldn’t die alone and had set up vigil by his bedside. I came in to pray, comfort, and, at the daughter’s request, to anoint her father with oil. Afterwards the daughter told me, with tears in her eyes, that a nurse had come in at the end of her overnight shift and offered to pray before she drove home. An offer that was gratefully accepted.

All this to say that we have the most incredibly loving, caring staff. The chaplains fervently pray that Covid-19 patients, who are forbidden visitors, are surrounded by divine love, compassion, and heaven-sent angels - both spiritual and human. And we trust and believe that those prayers are being answered. 

Of course the hospital has patients that are not virus patients, although at less than half the capacity of before. Some areas are very quiet and their regular nursing staff have been reassigned to other sections of the hospital where there is a greater need. The nurses are willing, but still it is discombobulating for them to have so many changes. 

I walked through one of my areas on Friday, which was April 3rd. It was even quieter than it has been recently. “Where are the patients?” I asked one nurse. “We had ten patients leave yesterday” she said. “They were here drying out. It is the beginning of the month. I suspect the Coronavirus tension was too much for them and they’ve gone to the liquor store.”

We are all learning to cope with the stress of the ever-present virus in different ways. 

Tension is indeed everywhere. It is there in abundance in the hospital, in the grocery stores, in the streets. I crawled home on Friday night, exhausted and feeling like a wound up spring. That tension turned me into a klutz. On Saturday morning I was making breakfast. My arm swept across the counter causing a carton containing six eggs to hurtle skywards and land smashed and seeping across the floor. I could have wept at the waste. My store is usually out of eggs these days so I couldn’t just put on hazmat gear, pop down there and restock.  

But when I stared again at the mess I realized that two of the eggs were only cracked. I put them on to fry while cleaning up the sticky debris. 

They were delicious. 

In a way I think those eggs are a picture of what is happening in our lives. Everything we hold precious is up in the air. Some of it will never be restored back to the way it was. Even what is left might seem a loss at first. A heartbreak. But somehow, with God’s great grace, when we get through this season. And we shall get through it. That which is left behind will sustain us.
More than that, it will be good.

Pandemic Parables: And So It Starts

Pandemic Parables:  And So It Starts

And so it starts...  Last week we had no Covid-19 patients in the hospital where I work as a Resident Chaplain. Yesterday we had 22 with many more isolated awaiting test results. Today the number has increased, we are expecting many more, and we have had our first virus deaths. 

The hospital is electric with tension. Every space that can be used to house patients has been converted. I’m the Resident Chaplain for the Emergency Room, Same Day Surgery and the Third floor (one wing which is now a sealed off isolation area.) There are no elective same day surgeries until the virus has run its course. Walking through that area yesterday was ominous. There were no patients in a space that is normally bustling. And yet lined up outside the cubicles and along the corridors were fully made-up beds, awaiting a deluge of occupants. A myriad of beds. 

I rounded a corner and found a group of nurses quietly sitting and talking about the virus wave that was about to break on them. “I’m scared” said one. Others nodded. “Please tell people to stay home” said another. “For our sakes. Because, if I could, I would swap with them any day.”

They wanted me to pray and I was delighted to do so. And then my pen stuck to the front of my jacket at breast height and wobbled there. And we all giggled like teenagers - grateful that something inane had broken the tension. 

All over the building the medical personnel are on edge. A wonderful nurse practitioner, who has become a good friend, normally wears her beautiful, thick, dark hair flowing or in a loose chignon.  Now it is up in a tight bun. “I’m ex-military,” she said. “I’m wearing it army style because it comforts me and makes me feel secure As though once again I’m being protected by the structure of the military. 

This nurse practitioner and her team work in an area of the hospital where they are free to wear their own stylish clothes. They always looked colorful, elegant, and professional. Now they are in scrubs. “It’s in case I pick up anything” said my friend. I don’t want to take it home on my clothes.”

My friend told me she expects to get the virus at some point and live through it. “How could I not?” She said. “With such close contact that I have with patients.“ 

She told me that an alarm tone had rung loudly on everyone’s personal phones and she jumped startled, staring. Then she realized with a deep relieved sigh that the alert was State-wise and not within the hospital. 

Medical staff are coiled, tense ready to spring into action in this last slow-paced lull before the inevitable storm. 

Nurses must now wear short sleeves and the Nurse Practitioners and managers can no longer wear their white coats. That is so that nothing blocks hands being washed frequently, right up to the elbow. 

It is funny to see these senior nurse that I respect so much without those coats. They look more vulnerable, like wise turtles who have shed their shells. It brought home to me in a new way that these incredible women (and a few men) who deeply care for their staff, and have such big caring, wise hearts, have their own cares and concerns. Sick husbands, children missing graduations, elderly parents living with them. And yet they are called, and are dedicated, and so they adapt. And give. And adapt. And then adapt some more. 

Many other changes were put in place today. New protocols for chaplains visiting the Emergency Department in response to Codes. Basically we can’t until it is established that the patient and anyone with them doesn’t have the virus. 

Then, it seemed within minutes, tall plexiglass shields were erected in the main lobby protecting security officers, and registration personnel. 

One change I found sad and odd. Taking advantage of so many people working from home, major building work is going on near the Chaplains’ office. I went into the tiny chapel today where I love to spend time, and it was stripped bare. All the pews and trappings had been shifted to other areas. The only thing that remained was the beautiful wall wood carving of one elderly hand being compassionately held by another. 

But maybe that is the lesson for the moment. When everything in our lives has been stripped down to its essentials, God will still be there to comfort, nurture and sustain us. As with Elijah hiding in the cave after fleeing Jezebel in terror of retribution, so with us. With me. 

Elijah didn’t hear the voice of God in the earthquake, wind or fire. No no. Elijah heard God in the still small voice. 

 

Now that much of the noise in the world has been turned down, I’m eagerly listening. 

Answers are everywhere. Yesterday I was walking along a deserted corridor near my office. I passed a small round piece of dirt, I looked at it and walked on by. On my return it was still there. So I thought, come on Geraldine, you know what to do! So I bent down and picked it up to throw it away. To my surprise it was an extremely dirty cent coin - a penny. I grinned widely because I have a thing about finding cents on the ground. They often magically appear when I’m needing comfort, encouragement, or answers. When I discover one and read its inscription: “In God We Trust” I feel as though it is a message from the Almighty saying “Don’t worry kid, I’ve got your back.”

I took it to the Chaplain’s Office office and started to scrub it with an antiseptic wipe. It began to shine. It was as though the Lord was using it to say, although everything seems dark and hopeless trust that underneath I am still the same. I will never leave you or forsake you. 

Later, buoyed and comforted by that message, I went for a walk on the nature trail behind my house. I needed to shake the hospital from me with all its tenseness, expectation and fear. I heard the birds, saw the blossoms, and I knew  once again that God is in charge This storm will run its course. And at the end of the movie that we are living in, everything will work out exactly as it should.

Pandemic Parables: Discoveries

Pandemic Parables: Discoveries

This weekend has been a time of discoveries, reminiscing, and mini miracles. 

Yesterday a school friend of my brother's contacted me. I think I was about fourteen the last time I saw this chap who was year or two older than me. He came to stay with us in our home in Spain for a few weeks one Easter.  It was not far from his native Portugal, where he still lives with his wife and family. 

All three of us were on holiday from the boarding schools we attended in England. My brother, Damian, and Antonio went to a monastery, I went to a convent. 

The Easter Antonio stayed we struck up a sweet friendship. I haven’t heard from him since, until yesterday when he Facebook friended me. He’d been doing FaceTime with Damian, asked about me, and Damian gave him my details. 

 

This virus is giving many of us an excess of time to reminisce and check into things we’d never have the time or inclination to do otherwise. 

 

We chatted and exchanged news. It took me back to far off innocent days, in a house on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean. My morning alarm was the bells around the goats’ necks that followed their shepherd on a daily trek to high pasture. It was an formative time, and it was good to put myself back into that young self, remember my dreams and ambitions, and measure my life now through that filter. 

I believe this virus time will be a reset time for many of us. We are learning to do without much that we thought was essential. As one wit said - “I never expected to give up so much for Lent!” 

I’m seeing pictures of friends who are cleaning out closets and cupboards. I think we are doing that emotionally as well as  physically.  We might never again want to pick up some of that old baggage and the new normal will be lighter and freer. Many of us are learning new skills. I am being forced to embrace a level of technology way beyond my comfort zone. And I’m glad to be pushed past my fears. 

Then today I discovered, rediscovered, that being  artistically untidy can be a good thing. Years ago, when I lived in a ground floor flat in London, I left a window open and burglars grasped the opportunity and ransacked the place. However I worked for a church and didn’t have much to take. Except I had a lot of beautiful jewelry that had been my mothers and grandmother’s. I kept it right at the back of my underwear drawer. The burglars, that I suspect were kids, opened all the drawers and pulled out some of the contents. However they never found my gold and gem stash. Why not?  Because the drawer was in such disarray to begin with they never spotted them.

Good things came from that invasion. The insurance money supplemented my tiny salary and enabled me to continue working at the church for another year. And I have refused to be ashamed of my creatively messy bent ever since. 

All that to say that my car has not been thoroughly cleaned since my last long storytelling road trip. I keep all sorts of stuff in there as you never know what you will need as you pass through different terrains and stay with a variety of people along the way. Well guess what I found when digging for something else under the back seat? Let me give you a clue. Right now it can seem more precious than gold or gems. 

It was the impossible to find, completely sold out in my local store, extra large container of antiseptic wipes. Glory!  

I needed the wipes badly. They were nowhere to be found. And they were supplied just when I needed them. Thank you Lord!

To me this pandemic feels like we are close to Biblical times. I’m reminded of Elisha and the widow. She, hesitantly, used the last of her oil to cook him bread and in return received an abundance of oil. The oil in the temple burned for eight days keeping the light going, when it should only have lasted a fraction of that time - the miracle celebrated every Hannukah. The child’s five fish and two loaves were multiplied and fed a huge crowd.  (I’ve always wondered if they were sardines unless that kid had a huge appetite.) All that to say that I’m believing our needs will be met one way or the other during this store-stripped time. 

During this dark season relationships are being restored. People are helping every way they can. Young people are shopping for the old and infirm. Quilting groups are making face masks. Communities are coming together while keeping a safe distance. We are in a time of sorrow in which, I believe we will see miracles both domestic and dramatic. 

In the meantime I’ve heard that a nearby nursing home has 66 residents who have all been found to have the virus. Eleven have been hospitalized. Some of those have come to us. So the hospital I’m working at as a Resident Chaplain now has virus patients on its isolation wings. I’ll find out more in the morning when I return to work. 

So once again the house smells of cinnamon. Two loaves of pumpkin bread are cooling in the kitchen. If the only thing I can do is bake a sweet treat and pray over it, I’ll do it gladly. And I’ll believe that somehow God will take it and turn it, and the masks, and the everyday kindnesses, into something that will nurture, sustain, and bring peace. 

And I’m believing for all of us that great good will come out of this season of darkness. That we will remember who we were meant to be, and embrace that truth, and Truth itself, with all our weary, frightened hearts.

Pandemic Parables: Swimming Underwater

I have decided to do a series of vignettes of life (in a small hospital) in the time of Corona. (Forgive me Sr. García  Marquéz!) 

Stories are swirling all around me and I want to share those that are mine to share. This is the third episode. This post is purposeful. The first two just happened. 

It is so odd that I would be working in a hospital at all - that plan never crossed my radar until recently. I was far too busy telling stories and teaching others to do the same. (My year’s stint as a Resident Chaplain is over at the end of August.) 

I am in awe that what was going to be a challenging but fairly uneventful season has turned into a front row seat into a powerful, almost biblical world wide event. I want to capture these times with word snapshots so that I’ll be reminded in the virus-controlled, and hopefully virus-extinguished future, that these things really happened. 

Pandemic Parables: Swimming Underwater

Swimming underwater- that is how I felt yesterday throughout the day as I did my rounds at the hospital. There was a heaviness in the air, tangible tension. Others felt the same. A Nurse Manager told me that they had less than half the number of patients on their floor but everyone was exhausted. I walked (staggered) out of the hospital at the end of my shift next to a social worker that I had never met before. I mentioned swimming underwater. “Yes! Yes!” She said her eyes brightening, clearly delighted that someone understood. “That’s exactly how it is. Everything has changed so quickly that it’s like having to retrain for your job all over again. It’s exhausting!”

Yesterday was a day of further changes in a season where new best practices have been updated daily or more. In line with other hospitals in the area a new visitor policy was put in place. Basically patients can’t have visitors. There are exceptions. If you are giving birth you can have one person in the room, and one parent can be with a child in NICU and Pediatrics. One person can accompany someone coming in for an emergency. Two are allowed in for end of life or recent death. 

One family tried to circumvent the rules in a very understandable way. A much-loved family member was dying and so they went up to their room in shifts of twos. Until they were stopped. It is two visitors within a twenty four hour period. This is a hospital with heart, it is hard, but necessary,  for them to put in place these stringent procedures. 

The policy was activated at midday. Not long afterwards I saw an elderly man with slumped shoulders heading out of the hospital. I had met him and his wife earlier. They had been married for fifty seven years. She was a patient and he had spent many hours in the chair by her bed.  It was clearly hard for him to leave her behind. The visitors understood though. We live in perilous times. 

Later, walking through my assigned floor I saw that most of the hand gels that are  attached outside every room were empty. So hands have to be washed in a sink before and after entering. Then, as further proof of the way people are adapting, I saw an assistant walking along with an armful of bright fabric masks made by our dedicated volunteer auxiliary. 

A nurse who had selected one that coordinated with her uniform told me: “There is a shortage of masks. We are going to wear these as alternatives to keep the others functioning longer.” The nurses, indeed all the medical staff in this hospital are incredible. Exhausted and incredible. 

Today though, Friday, the atmosphere seemed to be different, lighter somehow. The staff’s resilience is kicking in. On full view is everyone’s well-honed ability to rise to the occasion and adapt to changing circumstances. One thing that bolstered moral was learning that local communities and businesses have been gathering up supplies and bringing them into the hospital in multiple box loads. Masks and hand sanitizer are among the windfall. God bless every one of who donated!

At lunchtime I went for a walk on the beautiful, deserted, Hood College Campus, which is right behind the hospital. On my way there, in a window in full view of everyone who exits the staff parking deck, was a sign thanking all the staff at FMH. (Frederick Memorial Hospital recently changed its name to Frederick Health Hospital.) I found it very moving - a warm, grateful hug from the community - another boost to sagging spirits. 

Although numerous people have been tested there is no one with the virus in the hospital. They are well prepared, though, for a sudden influx that I am praying never comes. 

There is one story that symbolizes for me this week of ever shifting reality. An elderly man, not originally from this country, only had a few days left to live. A relative  was by his side. Although the patient could hardly speak, his eyes were alert. The relative told me that this man had lived, really lived during his time on earth. There could be few people with less regrets. As I looked at the patient, I saw laughter in those eyes - a twinkle. For a moment I could see the dashing adventurer he had been. His relative said his life had been unusual. And so was his death. He was dying, virus free, in the middle of a pandemic. As his relative said, it was a fitting way to go. The patient nodded in agreement. At the end of the dramatic opera of his life it was the perfect coda. 

Why does that story stay in my mind? Perhaps because I am believing that as we adapt to necessary constraints, things will happen in our lives that couldn’t have been brought about any other way. Good things. Prayed for things. After this season of cocooning will come transformation. A glorious coda. Lord - let it be so!

Pandemic Parable: Love-Infused Pumpkin Bread

There is a wonderful smell of cinnamon permeating my house. It smells like Christmas. That is because I’m baking two loaves of my famous pumpkin bread, that I only usually make around the holidays, to take into the hospital tomorrow. 

Let me explain. 

As most of you know I am working as a Resident Chaplain at my local hospital until the end of August (when I return to being a full time Storyteller.) The hospital is on high alert, ready and prepared for an influx of virus patients. There is a thick miasma of tension in the air mingled with fear. 

Women in the birthing center want to push their baby out and leave the premises as soon as possible. The big hospital in the next county has banned most visitors and people are wondering if it will happen with us. One woman didn’t want to leave her elderly mother’s room and get fresh clothes in her car  in case she wasn’t allowed back in again. Whereas another was incredibly relieved she could see her mother, because she wasn’t allowed to visit her in the nursing home where she usually resides. However she said she was praying furiously that their joyful reunion wouldn’t be cut short. 

New, necessary restrictions are put in place everyday and everyone is wondering what will be next.

I arrived in this morning, after a weekend away, to discover that one of the sections I am assigned to on the third floor has become an isolation wing. It has been effectively sealed off with minimum admittance permitted. I’m not allowed to enter. If a patient wants a chaplain I have to visit with them via a specially set up iPad or over the phone. 

The nursing staff working there have volunteered to be on this wing. They will alternate with others on the Third Floor who are waiting to relieve them. (God bless them all!)

Although there are no active cases of Covid-19 in the hospital yet, quite a few people on that wing are awaiting test results. I could feel tension and fear seeping through those closed doors that seemed to cut of the people behind it from the rest of the world. 

So there I was this morning, looking at a “Do Not Pass - Isolation” sign barring my way into a section that I usually happily trot through daily, when I had an idea.  An idea that wouldn’t go away. 

I should make some pumpkin bread for the medical staff behind those doors. 

Then I should ask the Lord to fill it with all the peace, love, and joy that flows in abundance at Christmas, when I usually make the treat. I should, (and do) firmly believe the Good Book when it says that His perfect love casts out fear. And trust that when the medical staff eat it, somehow His love goes deep into their insides and girds up their loins for whatever lies ahead. 

It might be fanciful to some of you, but I’m believing it will work. 

Lord somehow, may two loaves of pumpkin bread bring Your  comfort and love to one section of the hospital that sorely needs your miraculous love, strength, and grace. Amen!