this one is long; i hope you'll make time to read it

What are you doing to keep busy during the Covid-19 crisis? Are you one of those mothers who is schooling her children while holding down a full-time job from home, feeding her family three meals plus snacks every day, and keeping the house inhabitable? Are you one of those essential workers who gets up every day and goes out into the germ infested world to make things easier for the rest of us, preparing and trucking the food and supplies we depend upon, packing and delivering the orders we place in the comfort of our own homes, manning the food banks, evaluating and treating the sick and dying in our hospitals and nursing homes? Worrying that you will pickup the virus and carry it home to your children?

Or, like me, perhaps you're retired and living alone. Really alone. Cleaning your place again and again even though it hasn't collected a single cobweb since the last time you cleaned. Reading through the stack of books that has been collecting dust in the back of the closet, undisturbed, for years. Or, maybe you're toying with the idea of starting the book you've always wanted to write...or pulling an ancient manuscript out of the drawer and getting back to work on it...

...which is what happened to me this week. I was paging through the pages of a book I started to write years ago when I came across a piece I'd written about someone I knew who had died of the "flu". Not Covid-19, but "just the flu." It came directly out of the journal I kept to document the ordeal. I shortened it a bit, and changed the names and dates so I could share it here. It just seems to fit.

"Write what should 

not be forgotten."

~Isabel Allende~

Lora’s Story

Monday, June 22

My sister, Patti, called from Long Island tonight. She doesn’t call me often, but when she does, I listen up. There's usually a medical question on her mind. In this case, she told me her best friend, Lora, had come down with flu-like symptoms—fever, chills, and a cough—that had gotten worse over a period of several days until she couldn’t catch her breath. This forced a trip to the emergency room where her oxygen levels were so low the doctors wanted permission to sedate her and place her on a ventilator. Between gasps, Lora shook her head, “No.” She did not want to be placed on a vent.

But my sister was her power of attorney and her health care advocate. She called me to ask if there was anything she could say or do to convince Lora to sign the consent form for artificial ventilation. In other words, for life support.

As luck would have it, Patti and Lora had discussed the issues surrounding life support again and again over the years as each of them took on the care of their aging parents. Lora had made it perfectly clear that she was deeply and fundamentally opposed to it. Not that it mattered when Patti agreed to serve as her power of attorney. Surely, they joked, the issue would never come up between them. Until this. Until now.

While the doctors hovered over Lora, preparing to intubate her at a moment’s notice, Patti and she confronted the demon together—consent or certain death. With precious minutes ticking away, Lora ultimately agreed to the ventilator rather than die.

I started clearing my schedule for the next few days. I packed a bag and gassed up the car. In case things went sour.

Tuesday, June 23

Early this morning my sister called me in tears. Lora was in the Intensive Care Unit, and even so, the doctors were confounded by her condition. Despite the fact that she was on a ventilator, they couldn’t get her oxygen levels to come up. They were worried about her brain function should she recover. They hinted at the fact that if things didn’t improve soon, she might not make it.

I don’t think either of us really heard that. Maybe it was a hedge against fate, but we started to discuss some of the things that needed to be done until Lora made it home. Someone had to collect her mail, pay her bills, and check the messages on her phone. Her parents needed to be informed. Her elderly father had recently undergone surgery and was still recovering, and her mother was frail and confused, so Lora had spared them the news when she went to the hospital the night she got sick. Someone had to take on that task. And the doctor needed permission for a DNR order if the decision was made to withdraw life support. That task would fall to Patti as the chief maker-of-decisions that no one but God should have to make.

Patti called back later to say that Lora’s oxygen levels had stabilized. Her fever was down. They seemed to have a plan. I sent a prayer of supplication to Saint Rita, Patron Saint of Hopeless Situations. I swore that if Lora recovered I would cast my spiritual skepticism, doubt, and resistance overboard, and sail forth on pure unadulterated faith in God’s goodness and mercy. It would take a miracle.

I alerted my husband, gave the dog a pat on the head, and I left, not as a physician to intervene in Lora’s care, although I could have, but to be present for Patti during the days of uncertainty, fear, and exhaustion that are sure to follow.

Thursday, June 25

Where do I begin? I am sitting in front of Winthrop University Hospital waiting for Patti and several of her friends to arrive, and for ICU visiting hours to begin.

Lora has developed a condition called Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Even though her general health is good and she is only forty-six years old, the prognosis is dismal. No one really understands why some patients succumb to ARDS while others recover, nor is there much doctors can do to treat it. Nevertheless, they’ve brought in all the big guns—the ventilator, the heart monitors, the high tech medications. She looks like a marionette suspended from the intravenous lines entering both arms and the side of her neck, a PICC line, a catheter, and now a rectal tube because, of course, the antibiotics have caused a rip-roaring case of diarrhea. She is literally asleep in the eye of the storm while chaos churns around her.

This morning I educated myself about ARDS, ECMO (extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation), and nitrous oxide sedation as well as a few mind-body-spirit strategies that can be used with ICU patients who are in an “induced coma”--heavily sedated so they don’t fight the ventilator, but still somewhat aware of their surroundings.

The outlook is uncertain and unfavorable. At best, ARDS patients can expect to spend a year in rehab, and even so complete recovery is unlikely.

We are just starting to wrap our heads around all this, trying to make sure we haven’t missed anything. In a futile effort to maintain some thread of optimism, we have assigned necessary tasks. Who will answer her messages? Who will watch her house? Who will mow her lawn? We have discussed when and how much to disclose to her elderly parents who won’t be able to bear any of this. She is their only child.

All of that, of course, is easy compared to what is going on at Lora’s bedside. Here we are tending to her with all the prayer, energy, and intention we can muster. Whether it registers or not we will do every positive thing we can to invite healing and strength to her.

Today I leaned in and whispered into her ear, “Lora, this is Jan. This weekend my daughter--you remember her, right?--is offering homage to the sun goddess for you. She is sending “metta”--healing energy through meditation--and I come bearing warm puppy breath. Never underestimate the healing power of warm dog breath, isn’t that what we always say?"

Today they placed Lora in isolation. Now we can’t get close enough to talk to her or to touch her so she knows we are near. Instead, we’re piping in her favorite music, and watching through a window as her chest rises and falls in sync with the ventilator.

A box full of cards, handmade by the students at her school, arrived today, a touching testament to a beloved teacher. I started a novena to St. Rita and I continue to abstain from coffee as a form of sacrificial prayer on her behalf even though I am sorely tempted to capitulate out of sheer exhaustion.

I am reminded of all the souls around the world and all through time who have suffered like this. Our pain is no different from theirs, no worse, but still, it is extraordinary. Thankfully, Lora is surrounded by people who love her. Lord, have mercy on those who aren’t--the lonely and abandoned, the hopeless and forsaken.

Reality is beginning to sink in. Out of the shock and confusion, we have had to set aside our need to understand how this could have happened. How God could have allowed it to happen, willed it to happen, even caused it to happen. Why this, why now, why Lora? We have sorted through the woulda-shoulda-coulda’s that typically get us nowhere. (We should have known something was wrong. We could have taken her to the doctor right away. We would have made her go sooner, if only we had known how sick she was.) We have risen to the challenge of providing courage and support to one another when none of us has anything left to give. We pray. We fret. We take turns running out for coffee and donuts, for pizza, for fresh tissues. We watch the clock. We wait for the doctor to stop by, for updates on Lora’s condition, for any scrap of hope.

All this goes on while she sleeps. Thankfully, she sleeps. Her color is better now. Her cheeks, rosy. We stand at the window outside her isolation room and watch the steady rise and fall of her chest, her little pink toes sticking out from under the sheet, all we can see of her. All we can know of her.

Friday, June 26

There are no words for this. To describe what it feels like to watch a friend die would be to pluck something palpable out of an emotional vacuum, to recognize it, and name it for you. Unfortunately, the only words that come to my mind are about as profound as a commercial for laundry detergent.

I find myself casting about for something familiar to cling to, acting as though the most important issue in the world right now is what kind of jelly I should put on my morning toast, when the rain will stop, whether I remembered to put my earrings on this morning. I allow my thoughts to wander these familiar paths, and then I stumble over the reality of it again. It won’t go away.

Saturday, June 27

Outside the hospital, life goes on as usual. Traffic is backed up with people impatient to get to work, or the mall, or the gym. A siren marks the arrival of another critical case. A couple of lab techs grab a smoke in the shadows near the side door.

Lora is still with us. The days slip by, the memory of them lost to her forever. While we wait, we keep ourselves busy. We pretend to be optimistic. Every so often someone cracks a joke which, come to think of it, should be impossible. Still, Lora would have loved that.

If only she knew what was going on around her. If only she could see the brave smiles, the sudden outpouring of tears, the embraces that are meant for her. Strength and weakness, courage and fear, hope and despair alternating like the pendulum on a clock. If only she could breathe in the outpouring of love for her, of longing for her. If only she could open her glacial blue eyes and snap off some sarcastic commentary on this whole damn situation.

Sunday, June 28

Back up to last night. At close to eleven o’clock, we finally had a chance to speak with Lora’s doctor. Well, one of them, anyway. We’d been waiting for him all evening. We were concerned because her condition seemed to be deteriorating, and there still was no DNR order on her chart. Not that we wanted to rush into it, but we needed the order to respect her wishes, if it ever came to that. When the doctor explained that Lora's chances for recovery were less than 5% we downshifted into harsh reality mode. She is not going to make it through this, barring an outright medical miracle which, of course, we’ve been praying for all week long.

Monday, June 29

Late last night, after I’d closed my journal for the day, the doctor came back in. He called us into a small dark room where he broke the latest bad news. Lora’s kidneys were shutting down. They needed to make a decision about dialysis. Without it her lungs would fill with fluid and she would suffocate. She might linger for a few days longer, but without it there was no hope. What the hell? Even with dialysis, there was little hope for her. The word “no” hung in the air like the blade of a guillotine. No dialysis, no hope, no choice.

The end is in sight now. The game plan has changed from stubborn optimism, to wishful thinking, to total surrender. All that is left is to unplug the ventilator.

Tuesday, June 30

There are no words for this. Nothing that plumbs the depths of such despair. Nothing that describes the pain of letting go or reveals the human spirit the way it unfolded today.

Today we welcomed a brave procession of Lora’s closest friends and coworkers, as well as some of the parents of her students who were grieving on behalf of their children…none of whom have had time to process this turn of events as we have.

There was fifteen year-old Paul, howling and wailing in the stairwell like an abandoned wolf pup under a full moon, so much did he love Lora.

And Lora's father, George, at age 84 trying to process the news that he is about to lose his only child. His eyes searching through his memories, then searching the room, then turning inward again with an occasional shrug of his shoulders, the silence punctuated by simple wisdom and the naked truth: “She is so young.” “It isn’t fair.” “She had so much to live for.” “I can’t feel anything.” “There is nothing to think about.”  “I have nothing to live for now.”  He bowed his head, and wept quietly and courageously against his helplessness. Then, he said good-bye to her.

As frail and confused as Lora's mother, Maddie, was she made it clear she wanted to be at her daughter's funeral. Whatever it took.

At the appointed time, I joined a few of Lora’s closest friends--Patti, along with Peggy, Karen, and Lil (better known among us as the four cockles of her heart)--to say our final goodbyes. Outside the room, husbands stood guard like empty vessels waiting to collect their wives’ grief, while five courageous women donned masks and gowns and gathered around the bed.  One by one the nurse disconnected the intravenous lines, removed the EKG wires and the oxygen meter, and pulled the sheet up to Lora’s chin.

I’m not good at spontaneous prayer, but the others looked to me for it so I did the best I could in the moment:

“Heavenly Father, with this prayer we surrender Lora’s soul into your eternal keeping. May our sorrow recede like the tide, and may each of us find some special way to keep her spirit alive in our hearts and fully alive in the world. For this we pray: Thy will be done.”

The nurse hit the off button and gently slipped the tube out of her throat.

Amen.

Tomorrow we will swing into action--planning the services, tying up the legalities, te
and guide him among sudden betrayals
and tighten him for slack moments.
'Life is a soft loam; be gentle; go easy.'
And this too might serve him.
Brutes have been gentled where lashes failed.
The growth of a frail flower in a path up
has sometimes shattered and split a rock.
A tough will counts. So does desire.
So does a rich soft wanting.
Without rich wanting nothing arrives.
Tell him too much money has killed men
and left them dead years before burial:
the quest of lucre beyond a few easy needs
has twisted good enough men
sometimes into dry thwarted worms.
Tell him time as a stuff can be wasted.
Tell him to be a fool every so often
and to have no shame over having been a fool
yet learning something out of every folly
hoping to repeat none of the cheap follies
thus arriving at intimate understanding
of a world numbering many fools.
Tell him to be alone often and get at himself
and above all tell himself no lies about himself
whatever the white lies and protective fronts
he may use against other people.
Tell him solitude is creative if he is strong
and the final decisions are made in silent rooms.
Tell him to be different from other people
if it comes natural and easy being different.
Let him have lazy days seeking his deeper motives.
Let him seek deep for where he is born natural.
Then he may understand Shakespeare
and the Wright brothers, Pasteur, Pavlov,
Michael Faraday and free imaginations
Bringing changes into a world resenting change.
He will be lonely enough
to have time for the work
he knows as his own.
~Carl Sandburgnding to George and Maddie, holding space for everyone’s grief as word spreads and reality settles in…and in…and in.

Patti’s dog knows something is wrong. Normally exuberant, even Mooch is circumspect tonight, quieter than usual, attentive but distanced. He was Lora’s favorite, and that’s saying something considering there wasn’t a dog alive that Lora didn’t love. He seems to sense that this is not the time for play even though he can't possibly know why. Or does he?

Friday, July 3

I’m still trying to process everything that happened last week. I don’t know if I ever will. Even though I have attended the dying many times before, I find that every instance is uniquely sacred. I have been reflecting on the transcendental power of friendship, of pure love, and the unimaginable strength it supports. Aside from the confusion and grief we experienced last week, what stands out for me is the rock solid courage and will that Lora’s friends summoned up from some unknown reservoir. I bow down to the four women for what they took on in order to respect and honor Lora’s wishes. At times like this we are connected with the suffering of all mankind. When someone needs to lean on us, we learn to lean back, and that’s the only way we remain standing when it is all over. All I can say now is I hope all these promises about heaven and life-everlasting are true. If not, this was a waste of a beautiful soul.

At the last minute we had to change the venue for Lora’s services in order to accommodate everyone who wanted to be there--her young students and their parents, colleagues, friends and family. I was deeply touched but not surprised by their devotion to her, given her magnetic personality and boundless sense of humor, her energy, kindness, and gentle spirit.

I was also touched by the Rabbi’s first reading at the service. Afterward I asked him where I could find it. He showed me a Reformed Jewish prayer book that held the prayer. Then right before my eyes he opened the book, tore out the page, and gave it to me.

“You should have this, then,” he said.

O God of life,

amid the ceaseless tides of change

that sweep away the generations,

Your living spirit remains

to comfort us and to give us hope.

Around us are life and death,

decay and renewal,

the flowing rhythm that all things obey.

Our life is a dance to a song we cannot hear.

Its melody courses through us for a little while,

then it seems to cease.

Whence the melody, and whither it go?

In darkness as in light,

we turn to You, Lord, the source of life,

the answer to all its mysteries.

Can it be that we, Your children,

are given over to destruction

when our few days on earth are done?

Or do we live on in ways we cannot know?

Only this we have been taught,

and in this we put our trust:

from You comes the spirit and to You it must return.

You are our dwelling place in life and in death.

Wednesday, July 8

Today I met with my pastor. Many people are suspicious of Catholic priests, especially considering the recent scandal in the Church, but the ones I know are bright, dedicated, and doing the best they can to live up to their vows. I trust this man. And something is bothering me. This is the problem. I’m worried we did the wrong thing when we made the decision to take Lora off life support. And I feel especially guilty because as a physician, the others looked to me for guidance. So the decision kind of rested on my shoulders. I have this nagging thought that, had we given her a chance, she might have pulled through. God might have intervened to save her life. He has the power to do that kind of thing, right? But we took the power out of his hands. What if we were wrong? What if I was wrong? I’m dying inside.

I explained the situation as well as I could. He was nice enough to reassure me that this was God’s will. That God put me there to help the others make a decision that would have been impossible for them without my understanding and advice. That knowing it would have been Lora’s choice, we did the right thing. Still, I will never be sure. I guess I still believe in the possibility of miracles. I hate to think we robbed Lora of hers.

*

I chose to share this piece because this scenario is playing out in emergency rooms and intensive care units all over the world today. With one difference. When Lora died, we were present for her. We were present to support and comfort one another. We surrounded her bed shoulder to shoulder, and heart to heart. When Covid-19 patients enter the hospital, they are surrendered into the care of total strangers, people who have no knowledge of their character, their spirit, or their genius. Many of them die unattended. Friends and family lack closure. All they have to offer are tears. 

All that remains is the story of a life.

"Every secret of a writer's soul,

every experience of his life,

every quality of his mind,

is written large in his words."

~Virginia Woolf~

jan

how to wring humor out of troubling times

bamboo

"The human capacity for burden is like bamboo,
far more flexible than you'd believe
at first glance."
~Jodi Picoult~

It shouldn't surprise any of us that people are responding to the Covid-19 crisis the way they are...with worry, fear, sorrow, resentment, and anger. Some have suffered through the illness themselves, while others have watched loved ones suffer and die because of it. People have lost their jobs, and therefore, their income. Some are stuck at home with an abuser. The kids are starting to get on their nerves. They've had enough.

"There is nothing worse

than thinking you are well enough.

Don't turn your head.

Keep looking at the bandaged place.

That's where the light enters you.

And don't believe for a moment that

you are healing yourself."

~Jelaluddin Rumi~

What might come as a surprise is the fact that some people have found ways to wring humor out of these troubling times. It may seem inappropriate to trivialize the tragedy unfolding around us by making jokes about it, but this is another example of the duality that keeps our heads on straight. Some of us are well, some are ill. Some are scared, others are unconcerned. Some look on the bright side, others are stuck in the dark. 

I had to smile at a few posts that appeared this week.

.

If you're not ready to entertain humor yet, maybe you can appreciate something of beauty, or sweetness. 

If it's still too soon for that, you could simply go to the window and inhale the fragrance of honeysuckle, or check out the tender new growth down in the woods, or listen to the birds singing their little hearts out. 

If you simply can't muster a smile right now, don't worry. It will come. You will get through this. You'll know it the next time--or the first time, if it hasn't already happened for you--someone or something brings a smile to your lips. 

"It is both a blessing and a curse

to feel everything so very deeply."

~David Jones~

jan

why this? why now? why me?

Yesterday was pretty much a perfect day for me. It helps that I appreciate solitude, so social isolation is comfortable for me. It also helps that I don't suffer food or financial insecurity...I don't like to cook and I'm not "a shopper."

That said, I got up early in the morning, had a bite to eat, spent an hour in meditation, and took my (almost) daily five-mile walk in the brilliant sunshine under a cloudless blue sky. While listening to beautiful music. Spring treated me to vibrant shades of translucent green. No one else was out.

It would have been a totally perfect morning except for one problem. The rest of the world is suffering. The majority of humanity is either sick, worried they will get sick, or grieving for someone who has been sick. People are scared. Angry. Broken. It hardly seems fair. It makes you wonder. It keeps you guessing. Why this? Why now? Why me?

"There are times when explanations,

no matter how reasonable,

just don't seem to work."

~Fred Rogers~

But such is the duality of existence, the inevitable interplay of joy and sorrow, of pleasure and pain, of hope and despair. The struggle between attraction and aversion, between surrender and control, between humility and pride. Between "can" and "can't", "will" and "won't."

Today is a different kind of day for me. A wave of sadness crashed on shore this morning.

One of my best friends brought her husband home from the hospital. To die. It had nothing to do with Covid-19. He has not been well for a while. There was nothing more the doctors could do for him. The sad thing is that my friend will be alone with him at the end.  She will not be comforted or supported or cheered by the near presence of family or friends. She will be alone.

"We're all just

walking each other home."

~Ram Dass~

As the tide of sorrow recedes, though, it will leave a few sweet consolations behind. The comfort of knowing that she has these last few days or weeks together with him. That she is able to bathe and feed him herself, to tell him everything she needs him to know, to kiss him goodbye.

"Whatever is good for your soul,

do that."

~unknown, but claimed by many~

Today I'm going to walk by the lake. That usually helps.

jan

a grim reality

The Covid-19 pandemic has touched each and every one of us in ways we couldn't have imagined just a few weeks ago. From disbelief to fear, from illness to exhaustion, from annoyance to anger to grief to guilt, it has invaded every aspect of our lives. We weren't prepared for schools and businesses to close. We believed our health care system was infallible. We never thought we'd have to worry about affording or procuring food and supplies. We thought we were pretty safe.

"Expectation is the root

of all heartache."

~William Shakespeare~

It has been a challenge to reconfigure our lives just when things were going so well for so many of us. It isn't easy to home school your children, or to work from home when you've never done it before. It's annoying, if not maddening, to have to clean and sanitize everything you come into contact with over and over again, to don a face mask every time you wander outside, to worry about every cough or sneeze. It's unsettling to witness family members and friends taking ill. It's downright scary to think it could happen to you.

But this is the worst thing, I think. Worse than social distancing. Worse than quarantine. Worse than watching the emergency room door close behind someone you love because you are not permitted to be with them in the hospital. Worse than abandoning them to their fate.

"Love knows not its own depth

until the hour of separation."

~Khalil Gibran~

The worst thing is knowing that the person you love may be left to suffer alone. That they could die unattended. That there will be no loving presence at their bedside to support and comfort them. No song or prayer to see them off. No funeral. No burial. At the end of life, they may be assigned a body bag in a refrigerated truck, and, as we learned just today...some will end up in a mass grave. A grim reality that offends everything we hold sacred.

As if it weren't hard enough to have watched family and friends fall ill, suffer, and die, how will we ever bear the heartbreak of coerced separation? The void of utter helplessness? How will we survive the tidal wave of bitterness, despair, and sorrow we feel?

What is the way through? How will we rise again? 

"I am wounded but not slain.

I will lay me down to bleed a while.

Then I will rise to fight again."

~John Dryden~

What would you do if someone you love died like this? How do you dignify and honor a life that passes abruptly, cruelly, unjustly? 

How do you want to be remembered if it happens to you?

"When someone you love
becomes a memory,
the memory becomes a treasure."
~author unknown~

jan

look for the helpers

Something changed for me this week. I downshifted from disbelief, frustration, even outrage, to sadness, a deep penetrating sense of helplessness and despair. Covid-19 hit a little too close to home.

One of the nurses I worked with for many years got sick...reminding me that most of my colleagues and friends are at high risk because of their age, or if they're still young enough to be working, because they are exposed to the virus every day. Without adequate PPE.

A friend who has diabetes, end-stage liver disease, and worsening heart failure was denied hospitalization because the risk of exposure to Covid-19 was too great, a certain death sentence.

A distant relative who lived in Italy took his own life this week for reasons we can only imagine.

My daughter's obstetrician recommended an elective induction next week so as to get her in and out of the hospital before the case load peaks where she lives...and before her husband is banned from the delivery room. Not to mention that today is her birthday.

My grandson missed his fifth birthday party today, too...

which is no big deal considering the incomprehensible toll the pandemic has taken on patients and their loved ones, on health care workers and first responders, on teachers and parents and the children they care for all around the world. Still...

"It is both a blessing and a curse 

to feel everything so very deeply."

~David Jones~

And then there's this. I'm used to being on the care-giving side of the equation...not on the receiving end. The thought that I would put someone at risk delivering my groceries, or running an errand for me, or, God forbid, taking care of me if I get sick...the thought of it worries me. It scares me. It saddens me. And, it leaves me feeling guilty...not being able to help, not being able to do my part with the skills I possess.

Instead, I've called all my closest family members and friends this week to check in on them. I've created get well cards and birthday cards, printed them out, and mailed them off without venturing into a store, or settling for e-cards (well, maybe one or two...). Why I've sat in mindful meditation for hours, launching loving kindness into the universe. You do what you can.

"Do what you can,

with what you have,

where you are."

~Theodore Roosevelt~

How is it going for you? Who and what are you caring for today? Remember to be kind and gentle with yourself, too. 

"When I was a boy

and I would see

scary things in the news,

my mother would say to me, 

'Look for the helpers.

You will always find people 

who are helping.'"

~Fred Rogers~

jan

how to acknowledge reality and still spread compassion

When the Covid-19 pandemic is just a memory, those of us who survive will all have stories to tell. They will include tales of fear, isolation, and sorrow. Some will recall moments of relief, laughter, and kindness. Most will never be told.

"O, what an untold world

there is in one human heart."

~Harriet Beecher Stowe~

It isn't too early to start sharing our stories. We all want to know how other people are coping with the crisis, what precautions they're taking to prevent the spread of the disease, how they're faring financially, how the homeschooling is going, where they're finding supplies. The list goes on...

But there is more to it than that.

As a physician, I would like to hear from people who have gotten sick, and from their caretakers. Were they at high risk? Did they smoke or vape? Did they have asthma, or emphysema? Were they diabetic, or immuno-compromised, or frail? Alcoholic? Homeless? Did they follow all the guidelines for preventing illness, or were they careless, or defiant? 

"Nothing ever goes away until

it teaches us what we need to know."

~Pema Chodron~

In other words, I want to know what sets me apart from them. I want to believe I'm less susceptible because I'm healthier, or younger, or more compliant with preventive measures. 

I want to know how they felt when they first got sick. What finally made them call the doctor, or go to the Emergency Room. I want to know how scared they are, or how depressed. How they're dealing with being separated from family and friends. What it must be like to miss a loved one's funeral. To postpone your wedding. To run out of money. 

Stories like these help the rest of us to monitor our own response to this crisis, to adjust our expectations, and confront our mistakes and misconceptions. To acknowledge reality. To spread compassion.

"Every one has a story to tell 

that will break your heart.

And, if you're really paying attention,

most people have a story 

that will bring you to your knees."

~Brene Brown~

Please don't underestimate the importance of telling YOUR story. Someone needs to hear it. Pick up the phone, or dash off an email. Put it out there on social media. Talk it over at dinner. When it comes to frustration, regret, fear, sorrow, and despair, we're all in this together. When what we need are courage, compassion, cooperation, patience, and surrender, it helps to be able to lean on one another. 

"It is both a blessing and a curse

to feel everything so very deeply."

~David Jones~

jan

pre-morbid reflections on Covid-19

I'm a physician, so I feel like I need to be out there with my colleagues caring for victims of the Covid-19 pandemic. There's one problem: I just became a card-carrying member of the Covid-19 High Risk Club, so I really can't.

Those of us who are in the high-risk category because of our age, an underlying medical condition, or the fact that we're immuno-suppressed are not necessarily more likely to pick up the virus than anyone else, but if we get it, we may not be able to mount an immune response to fight the infection. What might be a debilitating case of pneumonia to a young, healthy person can be fatal to someone who is immuno-compromised. And, in a worst case scenario, there simply are not enough ventilators to go around.

Remember that even though you may not be experiencing any symptoms...you may already have been exposed to the virus by someone else who appeared healthy, but may have transmitted it to you. Likewise, you can transmit it to the rest of us even though you still feel fine. "Sheltering in place" is probably the best course of action for all of us who can.

"Sometimes you just need to

lie on the couch

and read for a couple of years."

~hookedtobooks.com~

Trust me, it's not all that bad.

Remember all those jobs around the house you haven't had the time or energy to tackle? Now you have nothing but time and energy.

Remember that book you've always wanted to write, the poem that keeps running through your mind, the song you've been singing to yourself for so long, the picture you've been longing to paint? Now might be a good time to get started.

"Dancing, singing, storytelling, 

and silence

are the four universal

healing salves."

~Gabrielle Roth~

This is the perfect time to explore the gifts of meditation and yoga.

To get out and walk. Take your camera along.

To shoot some hoops with your kids, or prep your flower beds for spring. The possibilities are endless.

As for me, I'm hunkered down for the foreseeable future. That means I may have to miss the birth of my very first granddaughter...and my grandson's fifth birthday. I wish things didn't have to be this way, but...

~i2symbol.com

This is my wish for you:

May you be well.

May you be safe.

May you be happy.

May you dwell in peace

and loving kindness.

~jasrinsingh.com~

jan