Pandemic life

Of course, as a nurse, I’m obsessed with this pandemic. I am so grateful that with my age (nearly 60), overweight status and fairly advanced COPD, my current nursing situation is probably worlds safer than grocery store clerk. 8 hour night shifts in 2 client’s homes, mostly at the house where fairly strict quarantine measures are going on. Conversely, I feel both guilt and (because nurses ARE a little crazy) some envy that I’m not deep in the local ICU with my fabulous daughter. I was a soldier once, but nursing is my vocation. Covid 19 should have been my war, but I was sidelined.

So, I’ve been supporting where I can. I knew my daughter didn’t want a stinkin’ homemade mask, but I offered and she almost grudgingly took a few scrub caps with her to work, somewhere around their first two or three positively diagnosed patients. Phone call the next morning, “Mom, your caps are a hit!”. Apparently shit hit the fan. The infectious disease doctor had a fit when he found no head coverings or shoe covers on the floor. He spotted her cap and asked if I could make him one. Then all the working nurses were asking, then a supervisor was asking about outfitting the hospital staff because they were all sold out online. Of course I am a slow sewer, working full time, and unable to promise the hospital, but I thought I could do her ICU. Caps and caps and caps and caps. Then the opinion on fabric masks for the public changed. So I was sewing caps and masks and masks and masks and masks. I didn’t stop to get many photos, none of the caps.

You know how it goes. Pretty pretty fabrics, all the colors and prints, different patterns like some alternate quilt fabric universe where maybe quilt making was suddenly illegal. You know how it goes. I would get tired of those masks, pull some patterns and fabric for another project, but! Another critical request for masks from people I cared about would come in and escape plans screeched to a halt. A nurse at Rhiannon’s hospital has a quilt store and brought in fabrics for mask and cap use. Onto the cutting table. Free downloadable patterns! Onto the table. Man, that dog needs diapers or I’m going to kill him, fabrics and patterns, onto the table, till my table and stash wall looked like this!

Ok, so the mess behind the table and on the shelves isn’t covid’s fault. Mostly mine. Still, if I weren’t “essential” and I was quarantined....well, I think I read that didn’t cause mass cleaning across America so I guess it would still be a mess. I’m mostly ok with it, I find fabric when I look for it.

Something I don’t begrudge: Though I made my masks and caps free, I’m happy for people who sewed and made money. Especially any who had income affected by the virus. Maybe not so much people who had no need for extra cash.

I seem to see some blooming with the kids in my client’s houses, benefiting from home schooling and strangely less stress. Again, I am a little envious of their time off. Still, I’m very glad my income didn’t drop. 

I saw a downloadable diary I thought would be so cool to use and record how this pandemic has affected me, I thought, how cool! But those damn masks were what I would hit when I slumped out of bed, however many times I tumbled out in my sometimes unhealthy night shift style. I see people writing in blogs they’ve left alone for years, or more frequently in ones I enjoy regularly. I thank all those people and thought I’d throw my own entry out there.

One more thing before I go, Herman Stokes III I’m glad I found you again, so sorry that you’ve gone. You deserve that beautiful Jesus you saw so clearly.