Pandemic Parties

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve had time to really sit and gather my thoughts. Every day is new and different, and I’m actually enjoying the extra time I get with my family. Yeah, we live pretty far from most of our family members, but during this time of ‘social isolation‘ we’ve actually connected via Skype and Zoom parties more than we have ever done. We’ve done several happy hour parties over the past few weeks, and many casual FaceTime calls.

For those of you who have your closest family and friends living nearby, the inability to see them in person must be devastating. However, for those of us without the ability to see our special people on the reg, this uptick in virtual hangouts has been a real blessing. Today we were able to chat with our parents, siblings, and my grandma and uncles to celebrate Easter remotely. Yes, I very much would have preferred to make the trip and see them in person, but this was a pretty good option when traveling is off the table.

When you’re feeling alone, just remember your friends and family are just one FaceTime call away. Happy Easter everyone!

Working From Home

Didn’t I say things are rapidly changing? Yesterday was my first day working from home. As a clinical pharmacist, I’d never imagined having the ability to work from home, but as the COVID situation has evolved, so has the way I do my job. I was able to login remotely, work up patients, call in to rounds, precept my resident, verify chemotherapy orders, and follow up on clinical issues with the rest of my team. In the afternoon I had some issues accessing my drives, but after about 45 minutes on the phone with the IT department we were up and running.

Working from the couch, with dogs begging for attention all day was a bit of an adjustment, but having Shawn and Liesel around for lunchtime and a couple quick sanity breaks made it all worth while. I do miss my dual monitors and it’s only been one day, but I’ll get by without that luxury if it means keeping my family and coworkers safe. I wish it could be every day, but I will be alternating weekly to keep one person from each disease group on site during business hours. It may not be exactly what we had hoped for, but it is a huge step forward in protecting our workforce to hopefully stagger those out sick instead of risking everyone getting sick at once.

In other news, completely unrelated to COVID, Liesel sprouted her first tooth yesterday! Our little monkey is growing so fast!

STAY HOME

Last night, Governor Dewine’s stay at home order went into effect. The news made Cleveland look like a ghost town, but I question how many people and cars are typically out at midnight on a Monday… maybe more than I would have imagined. What I can say is that my drive to work seemed fairly average. Maybe everyone was headed to the hospital to work, but the garage wasn’t very full when I pulled in at 7 am. I’m not saying people aren’t following the stay at home order, I think it’s too early to tell. I am nervous that local businesses aren’t taking it seriously as one of the local breweries has started delivering beer to people in their homes. I know they’re trying to keep their business afloat and my hope is that they are taking proper precautions to keep their drivers and the community safe, but the amount of apathy I have witnessed towards the pandemic leaves me feeling a little disgusted and afraid of what is to come.

The cutest coworkers

It is fair to feel like your freedoms are being taken away, but what is the point of having the freedom to come and go and do as you please if you risk no longer being able to share your life with friends and family? I know we’ve all heard the same thing about younger people not having as severe an illness as older or immunocompromised patients, but why risk exposing your loved ones? Last week I asked our baby sitters to stay home for a couple weeks for their own safety as well as the safety of my infant. I go to work every day and risk exposing myself, and have no intention of making this spread more quickly by having additional people in the house. With that decision came some consequences, especially for Shawn who is still working at home but now must balance work and childcare without the help of our sitters. I am trying to leave early as best I can to help out, but that doesn’t work out every day.

Shawn has to present to his colleagues on strategies for staying productive while working from home, since he’s been doing it for the past 3 years. Here are a few of his tips:

The rest of the WFH crew

• Wake up at a regular time

• Shower and get dressed as if you were headed to the office

• Meal prep your lunches (I pack his when I pack my own)

• Have a designated space for work and keep it that way

• Try to establish reasonable work hours (this has been a struggle as sometimes when you get to be at home you feel obligated to respond after hours because you’re technically still at the office)

Everyone is trying. I wish I could stay home, while most of you are wishing you could be out and about. Nobody wins unless we can flatten the curve and keep our families healthy and safe. Keep trying, and don’t stop moving forward.

Life On The Pharm

Well I made it through day 8 of my 12 day stretch at work. Yeah, that’s right, I’m still going in to work to care for my patients. Cancer doesn’t just go away during a pandemic. If anything our patients need support more than ever since they are immunocompromised. My days just look a lot different now.

Lines for COVID testing

Note, that parking lot is not for parked cars but for amusement park style lines for testing.

So how has my job changed over the past two weeks? It’s been a rapid progression toward this new reality. First we started changing to all virtual meetings via Skype. A few days later we started restricting patient visitors. It started out as a limit of 2, then 1, and now none (except peds, labor and delivery, and some hospice patients). Drive through COVID testing resulted in massive lines of cars and restrictions on who should be tested were put in place to conserve supplies. Elective procedures have been canceled to save hospital resources for the expected surge of patients. We started limiting the number of caregivers allowed in one room at a time. Chairs were removed from break rooms to keep people spread out and water fountains were turned off to limit the spread of COVID. Every morning when I walk into the building I am greeted by a police check point and have my temperature checked. On Friday our team started rounding virtually and educating patients over the phone. I find myself only leaving my cubicle for bathroom and lactation breaks. Awesome.

How do I feel about the changes we’ve been facing? Scared that I am going to get sick and drag the virus into my home exposing my family. Frustrated, that despite basically working remotely from my cubicle, I am still required to come to work and risk exposure. And at the same time, extremely grateful to have the ability to be useful in this time of crisis and to know my job is secure while others face uncertainty about their position and financial stability.

If I can keep focused on the blessings we have we will make it through this, whether we get sick or not. I am urging all of you who read this, please stay home and encourage your friends and family to do the same. It isn’t going to stop the virus from spreading, but it will slow the rate to a more manageable degree and allow those who require hospitalization to get the care they need. Let’s stick together and keep moving forward, even though we all feel a little helpless and stuck at the moment.

OMG We’re Back Again

Well, I did it again. We fell off the blog train for about a year and a half. Looking back on our last post it’s hard to believe how far we’ve come and how much has changed. Even the picture of Logan is almost unrecognizable because she has grown so much. So what brought me back? I was recently asked to contribute to a community blog documenting our experiences with the coronavirus pandemic we’ve found ourselves waist deep in and it got me thinking, why look at a small snapshot in time when I can revitalize our blog to document how our family is doing during this insane time.

To briefly get you up to speed on our lives, Shawn is still doing well, we’ve had some fun in Cleveland, we welcomed Liesel into the family in September, and we’re now preparing for another chapter in Rochester, MN. I will save another post for Liesel, because she is truly the best thing in our lives and deserves more than one line and photo.

In the coming days I will share my experiences here at the Cleveland Clinic during the first major pandemic in over 100 years. How the Clinic is responding, and how we as a family are dealing with these changes. It’s been tough, and will probably get worse before it gets better, but all we can do is keep moving forward.

Check out my guest post on Chelsea’s blog “Life in Social Isolation” for a preview of what’s to come.

https://www.life-in-social-isolation.com/post/guest-spotlight-thoughts-from-a-pharmacist

Stay home, stay safe.