A New Year, A New Battle
January 3, 2021
It’s a brand new year and already it seems to be off to a rough start. Covid-19 vaccines are being distributed not only to hospitals and healthcare facilities but also nursing homes. However, with the promise of protection from the virus comes risks. There have been reports of doctors and nurses becoming ill after getting the shots. Whether it’s adverse reactions to the shot, getting the Covid virus or just becoming very ill. Maybe it’s the inner reporter in me but I still remain cautious. I am still refusing the vaccine because I don’t feel we know enough about it. Then we have a new mutated strain that is cropping up in various states including Pennsylvania and it is said to be more contagious than the other virus. With this new strain we have no idea whether or not the vaccine will even be enough to protect us. It’s a scary world we are living in as the death count rises and the cases continue to overwhelm the hospitals. As someone who works on the front line I am exhausted, depressed and my anxiety is continuing to escalate. I am seeing my co-workers deal with that same exhaustion and frustration. We are all tired and scared. It’s not a good feeling and to be honest I am trying desperately to find a different job where I won’t be right there facing the virus head on.
January 5, 2021
Just recently I shared an article on my Facebook timeline from Vox.com. It was an article about how healthcare workers are dealing more and more with people who are flat out refusing to wear masks. I can relate to that article in so many ways because I myself have dealt with those people. Just recently we had a man come into the medical facility where I was screening and he flat out refused to wear a mask and refused to be screened. Now if this had been several months ago we would have been told to call security. However, we were just recently informed that patients now have the right to refuse a mask or shield. They don’t have to have a medical problem, they can just simply refuse it for whatever reason and we aren’t allowed to stop them. Now as a healthcare worker this infuriates me. Now I can understand if they are on oxygen or have lung cancer and can’t breathe. However, this whole “I have anxiety so I can’t wear one.” Or my personal favorite “I don’t believe there is a virus so I am not wearing one” doesn’t fly with me. I’m sorry but I have severe anxiety disorder, PTSD and am claustrophobic and I wear a mask for 12 hours. I have to keep myself medicated in order to keep from having anxiety attacks in the bathroom and it’s doing a number on my teeth wearing one for so many hours but still I do it. I do it to protect me and to protect whoever I come in contact with. Why someone would want to endanger their health and the health of others is beyond me. I find myself so frustrated and when we are told to just let all these people refusing to wear masks and refusing to be screened in the door I am left wondering what the hell we are even doing there. That and the added bonus of being told that we are not allowed to speak up if a patient starts verbally abusing or threatening us just makes me dread going to work even more.
January 7, 2020
I was deeply engrossed in Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton book series while also taking breaks to screen whoever came in the door when I was informed by the security guard that there was chaos in Washington D.C. I switched off my kindle and turned on my news feed and saw protesters breaking into the State Capital building. There were no words to really describe how I felt at that moment. I can’t really say I was really surprised because though I am not into politics at all and though I never vote I knew that many were upset that Trump had been outvoted by Biden. So there I was trying to breathe through my N95 masks and watching thousands of maskless protesters wrecking havoc. There were deaths, destruction, mayhem and god knows how many may have been exposed to Covid 19 and what purpose did it serve? Seriously what did these people hope to accomplish? Besides endangering lives and some of them getting arrested. So here we are. Starting out a new year with a vaccine that may or may not be the saving grace that we need and a country divided by hatred. We thought we were leaving a horrible year behind but in all honestly I fear what this year will bring.
