Category: Health

By Dr. Gabriella Kőrösi

It is been over a year now since the first COVID-19 case emerged in China, Hubei province (Jeanna Bryner, 2020). Nobody knew this back then of course. I was trying to think back what I was doing last November around that time. I finished writing a book and I been looking for a job. I went to the store when I wanted, I met with my friends and family freely. I had no second thoughts on how many times I was going to the store or a restaurant. I was preparing for my children to come home in January. There was no thought of a pandemic. Life was just going on as usual. Day to day living. Getting together with family was just as easy to pick up a phone or text and set a meeting time and place. Seems so far away now. This past year felt very long. It has been much longer than any other years before. I know this is true with every trauma in our lives. This situation that the pandemic created is very different. The trauma from the pandemic and its effects hit close to too many to count. Closer connections cannot happen now except with family members who we live with and people at work. At least we can see them through social media platforms and outlets. I believe that the pandemic has been taking a huge toll and trauma on a lot of people’s mental health and emotional wellbeing.

 Nothing to this scale had been here to change the way we live in our lifetime before. While in war and certain diseases where we know that casualties happen the deaths and sickness during the current pandemic are on an unimaginable scale and the numbers are still keep growing. It is good to know that there are a lot of people out there who are working hard to stop the pandemic. A vaccine is been produced, and that brings hope to many. Multiple companies, organizations and individuals been working very hard to come up with solutions to help save more people. I sincerely thank you. A vaccine will unfortunately not reach everyone in time. Now people still get sick, now people still die every day. Our current numbers are not looking very promising. Coronavirus cases today reached 66,823,450 people with the death toll of 1,533,662 people and recovery of 46,214,372 people worldwide (Worldometer, 2020). Cases are still increasing. Lot of people are still sick at home or in the hospitals. Many hospitals are working too close to capacity.

In Oregon, Washington, and California there are new travel advisories recommending for people not to travel outside of the state unless it is related to people’s job and if someone travel to any of these states self-quarantine for 14 days is recommended to help cutting down the spread of COVID -19 (OHA, 2020). I know many other states and countries also have similar recommendations. The CDC alerts people on the increasing cases and recommends not to travel if possible, stay 6 feet apart, wear a mask, stay away from crowds, and wash your hands frequently (CDC, 2020). Nothing new, nothing we all have not heard before. It gets strenuous. It is tiring of just sitting at home and not being able to resume normal daily activity. Based on other pandemics before this one they do take a while before things can be normal again. While there were pandemics before that lasted about a year like plague of Justinian, yet it killed over 30-50 million people, the Asian flu H2 N2, H1 N1 and the Hong Kong flu were other examples, some of them lasted at least 2 years or more (Medical News Today, 2020 & History, 2020). The black death for example lasted four years between 1346-1350 caused the loss of 200 million lives and the sixth cholera pandemic lasted 24 years between 1899 -1923 (Medical News Today, 2020 & History, 2020). They did not have the technology we have today to help save people. Hopefully, we are about at least halfway in this pandemic depending on vaccine effectiveness and distribution to the public. Some of the diseases before like the flu today kept coming back and did not fully disappear for along time. The great plague of London for example kept coming back every 10 years killing about 20% of the population between 1348-1645 (History, 2020).

What can we do to stop the spread? We can learn from previous diseases when they did the same thing we are doing now. Staying away, quarantine and lockdowns. Vaccinations like in smallpox. We can follow exactly what is recommended by the CDC and local health authorities. It is not easy. Especially for people who feel well. It is still important to keep in touch with people even if it is just through phone calls and screens. Many people are getting creative how to stay connected. When looking at history 1.5 million people and their death might not seem that much. Those examples were from many hundreds of years ago. I have hope that with technology, quick vaccine development and precautions we can stop this pandemic.  One COVID swab, one vaccine and one quarantine at a time. In the meantime, I live my modified life just like everyone else. Mine entails working as a nurse, coming home after work, and maybe going to the grocery store.

Stay safe out there. Six feet away.

www.gabriellakorosi.org

References/Resources:

CDC (2020) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

History (2020) retrieved from https://www.history.com/news/pandemics-end-plague-cholera-black-death-smallpox

Jeanna Bryner (2020) Retrieved from live science on 12/5/2020: https://www.livescience.com/first-case-coronavirus-found.html

Medical news today (2020) Retrieved from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/148945#history

Oregon Health Authority (2020) retrieved from https://govstatus.egov.com/OR-OHA-COVID-19

Worldometer (2020) retrieved on 12/5/2020 from: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

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By Dr. Gabriella Kőrösi, RN, MN

In our environment everything moves and changes continuously. Even things that we wish it wouldn’t like viruses and bacteria. Trees and plants grow and die, the water and air elements around us move constantly. We live in harmony with most of the things around us including viruses and bacteria. We have millions of them in our bodies. We need them to be able to function properly. When our bacteria are out of balance in our bodies, we get sick. There is some ignorance to think that the coronavirus will stop mutating just because we want it to stop. There are thousands of different strains of coronavirus exists. They been around for a very long time. Now that it made the jump between animals and humans again it will be harder to stop the strains that harm us. After all it just wants to survive.

Viruses, Bacteria and Fungi been around for a long time. Their “goal” or programing is to replicate and survive. They do not have a brain or can not control their actions. Yet, they seem to be smarter than us. They find their way into our lives. The question is: can we be smarter than them? I was talking to my mom yesterday and she alerted me to a new COVID – 19 mutation in Mink in Europe. I know it was just a matter of time before it happened. Mink apparently – as it is reported by the BBC and WHO – is susceptible to coronaviruses. It has been known by governments in Europe that there was a mutation in the “cluster 5“in COVID -19 and the relevant information was just released a few days ago. The worry is that this could compromise the vaccines that are being developed now. The WHO released a report 6 days ago about the variant strain of SARS-CoV-2 that was identified in Denmark in September and reported in the beginning of this month. In the 12 cases that have been identified in humans in Denmark there is a combination of mutations that are concerning (WHO, 2020).

As of this moment we had 52,612,545 coronavirus infections and 1,292,258 deaths around the world (Worldometer, 2020). The infection rates are spiking. Questions in my mind are: What have we learned in the past year about the coronavirus? What have we done to prevent it harming us? Have our measures been effective? What have learned from the way we live? Currently there is a lot of efforts and billions of dollars spent on vaccines against the coronavirus strain that we now know as COVID -19. Vaccines are not perfect, and they do not always work. Also, there are many people who are not ready to take the vaccine if when it will become available. We are also having to do our part as humanity to outsmart the viruses and bacteria that wants to harm us. We can develop as many vaccines as we want against the coronavirus that might or might nor work just like the yearly available flu vaccines. We have to change our thinking and the way of our current living, the way we treat our environment including plants and animals if we would like to survive. The question is are we as humans willing to make those sacrifices?

Everything is interconnected around us. The way we live, the way we treat our environment backfires on humanity. What is it that we can do? The Dalai Lama offered a warning yesterday to all of us on NPR to save our environment and one thing we can do to help is stop eating animals (NPR, 2020). Maybe if we can treat animals and our environment better viruses would stay where they belong. In the wild.

What are you willing to do for humanity?

11/12/2020

References:

Helen Briggs BBC News Retrieved on 11/12/2020 from  https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54867653

WHO (2020) Retrieved on 11/12/2020 from https://www.who.int/csr/don/06-november-2020-mink-associated-sars-cov2-denmark/en/

Worldometer (2020) Retrieved on 11/12/2020 06:42 from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

NPR (2020) https://knpr.org/npr/2020-11/dalai-lama-offers-warning-climate-change

Recommended links:

Dr Zack Bush Virome https://zachbushmd.com/knowledge-virome/

Dr. Michael Greger www.nutritionfacts.org

Dr. Gabriella Kőrösi www.gabriellakorosi.org

View at Medium.com

View at Medium.com

Ways to believe in yourself

            Life and events are continuously changing around us. Now, many people are stuck at home with a virus sweeping across all countries in the world. Our life events are like an everlasting swirl of colors, imagine a swirl in a lollipop where bright colors represent good things, and dark colors represent everything else that might not be so good in someone’s life. It is not all bright or dark it is a continuous mixture of events. Not all bright might be good and not all dark is bad. It depends what each person decide to do with those events in their lives. I had a conversation with a friend a few days ago. She is a nurse and she is working as a nurse during the week. She just also decided to take a part time job to work in a bakery on the weekend. She asked me if I thought she was making a bad decision taking a minimal wage job. I told her no. She is following her heart. She loves to cook. She loves anything related to cooking. I think she is doing a wonderful thing following her dream. I have heard from many people before who started one profession and ended up doing something different because of financial reasons, life events or family obligations. Sometimes our dreams are placed on hold. I like to write. She likes to cook. My sister being home during the pandemic helped her realize that she likes to paint, and she is good at it, she enjoys it. Many people had bought her paintings in the past few months. This was not something she planned on, it just happened. She was stuck at home and started to paint. When my friend was talking about taking a cooking job, and when she tells me about what she baked this weekend, a new cooking experiment or when my sister talks about her paintings and the process of painting for both of them their body changes, their eyes lit up. It is pure joy, excitement, and happiness that I see in their eyes and in their demeanor. Following their hearts and dreams. I feel the same when I write, make something from wood, spend time with family and friends and help others, complete a project, plant trees, and play in our garden. I look at these events as small pearls. My friend and my sister just placed a pearl in their life. A pearl that is bright and shiny and helps light the way. They both believed that they could do something, they were not afraid to try it and went for it. It might have taken them some time to get there. The question is how someone gets there. How can anyone believe in themselves enough to try something new and productive that makes them happy? It is not easy. Many times, there are obstacles. Time. Money. Circumstances of life. A pandemic that locks people in their homes.

What would be the first step to believe in yourself? I think this is not a straight path. It is different journey for everyone. I do think that every single person can help support and encourage others to believe in themselves. When I started to work on a big project before like doing a PhD dissertation or writing a book, creating, or organizing a new service or an event, collaborating with others and talking to people seemed to be extremely helpful. Putting ideas out to my family and friends and like minded people in my community and my school helped to start to roll the small pieces that build up a pearl. A pearl starts from nothing. Starts from waste and becomes this beautiful, amazing piece of art. I think to believe in yourself it is a continuous building process just like making a pearl, building a deck, or working on any project. There is the first step, the foundation that needs to be poured, but before everything starts the soil needs to be evened out and all the materials collected, and the perfect place need to be decided upon. It can be easy or difficult. Each person is different. Each circumstance is different.

The first step is to talk about it. Talk about your dreams, talk about your hopes. Talk to your family, talk to your friends. Talk to a teacher, a co-worker, a social worker. Just talk to someone in your life. Start to build the pearl. Some pearls are just as easy to start like picking up a paint brush, others need more groundwork. Sounding yourself with people who believe in you will also help you believe in yourself. Do not give up. There is no failure just a roadblock. I worked on a project that took about 2 years to launch. It finally happened. It is working wonderfully in my community. There were many times when I was not sure it was actually happening. Especially when the pandemic hit. I had people and organizations around me that still believed it was possible. I could have not done it on my own. It was my dream, well one of my dreams to make a clubhouse for mental health support in our community. There was no way I could have done it without the support of my family, friends, and many other people in my community. Now it is running beautifully.  It is all started by talking to people. Then I found people who believed in the project and helped to make it happen. I am forever grateful. I have a shining pearl in my life because of it.

Ways to believe in yourself also start with opening the road and believe in others. Supporting others achieving their dreams can help you realize your dreams. Let’s take the first step.

I believe in you.

www.gabriellakorosi.org

Gratefulness

Dr. Gabriella Kőrösi, PhD, MN, RN

           I been thinking for a while to write about gratefulness. It is a very emotional topic for me. Gratefulness is on my mind every day. It is so personal that I have not thought about writing about it openly. Something switched in my thinking about a week ago. I was pondering upon my next topic for a blog. I was having a wonderful conversation while sitting in a comfortable and welcoming space with my acupuncturist discussing different topics. We talked about health, the world we live in, the importance to bring positive thinking and actions to our world, our place in the world, our feelings, interactions, and connections to others. It was a beautiful sunny day. I was thinking that I am so grateful to be here, to be in this exact moment, at this exact time to have this conversation. I was grateful for the nice day and was looking forward to my session. I been searching for the right words how to describe gratitude and gratefulness since that moment. I knew I have to write it. It is time to be open and express deep and intimate feelings about a core principle of my life. The word finally come to me as I was waking up this morning, just as I was thinking about all the things that I am grateful for.

            I was thinking that first of all I am grateful to be able to wake up this morning. I am grateful for the ability to open my eyes, to see the world and my surroundings. I am grateful for my family, my spouse, my children. All my sisters, cousins, their children, and spouses. I am grateful for all my friends and their families. My parents. I would not be able to be here without them to experience this life. Thank you for having me, mom, and dad. I love you both very much. I am grateful for all the doctors and nurses who took care me when I was born and throughout the years. I would not be able to be here without them. I was born way too early to survive on my own. I am profoundly grateful for the health care workers who took care of me, I truly would not exist without them. I am grateful for all the cells in my body that operate endlessly as a smooth working machinery, they function continuously at every moment of my life to form my body, my organs, my muscles. I just would not be able to exist without them. It is like a magical musical. A continuous opera that keeps going on and on with an amazing symphony as long as we live and beyond. I am grateful for all the people who touched my life throughout the years, friends, co-workers, classmates, professors, teachers, and their families. I am grateful for all of you. People who I interacted with at any time at any place. They all formed who I am today. Thank you. There are really no words that could express how grateful I am.

I am grateful that I was able to sleep in my bed last night. I have a roof over my head and food on the table. Then I started to think about all the people who made this possible. The millions of people out and around in the world. The people who made the bed and the people who made the sheets, the factories where things were produced. My job that allowed me to buy the bed and the sheets. The people who made those jobs possible. The places and people where the furniture was built, where the sheets were made. It is almost impossible to count how many people and how many things touch our lives. I do not know the person who made the bedside cabinet I have in my bedroom. Yet, I use it every day and enjoy its presence. I am grateful for that person, without knowing they touched my life.

It all the sudden made perfect sense. I could keep writing endlessly for months, possibly for years about all the things and people I am grateful for. The possibilities are endless. The word I was searching for just jumped out of my mind, made me smile and made me incredibly happy. I am grateful for it. Ready? The word I think the best describes gratefulness for me is Infinity. There is really no other way to put it. The possibilities to be grateful at every moment of every day are truly limitless. ∞

We are in a Pandemic. It is something I learned about in the books in nursing school. It was mentioned that it is possible. I knew a little of the history. I knew it happened before. I learned more about it in my PhD program at Walden University when I was working on my public health degree. I knew viruses exist and they can be really harmful. I knew people are doing too much damage to the environment. It always scared me what are we doing to our planet. My last post was about garbage on the beach. This is feeling like nature’s way of fighting back. I recently saw a documentary on Netflix called “Corona-virus Explained”. It is a great documentary, I can highly recommend for everyone to watch. One of the people interviewed in the documentary stated: ” Nature is the greatest bio-terrorist”. I think this is very true. I learned so much in my life going through multiple schools for nursing and then for public health, yet nothing can really prepare anyone for this. I never thought that in my lifetime I will be living in a pandemic where I have to wear a mask and stay inside except to go to work or go to buy food. Very strange times indeed.

I gave away my sewing machine a few years ago with most of my materials. Now it is an essential tool to make masks. I was lucky enough that one of my co-workers let me barrow hers, people donated materials and I also bought some materials to sew masks. The last one for now that I made was for myself. I sewed masks for anyone who needed it, co-workers, their families, my spouse’s workplace and their families, people in the community who asked me for them. 4 years ago I never thought that I will sew anything again. Things change, times change. I wonder if people will change. There is a reason why new viruses emerge. We are too much for our planet we are destroying our environment, plants and animals in it and the planet is fighting back. I think we can do better. I think we can be more humble and appreciative what we have and preserve our environment, air, water, forests, animals and plants for the future for our children and their children. I think this pandemic is telling humanity to stop the distraction. I hope people will listen. If not I fear that this is just the beginning and more and more viruses will be emerging to stop us.

My heart goes out to all families during this time. This might be a new norm, a new way of living. I know that personally I will not look at someone coughing the same again. Now someone with a cold symptom can endanger our lives. Who would have thought. There is still a lot we do not know. There is more to learn every day. I am grateful that I am still standing and my family and friends are healthy. For now of course, tomorrow could be another story. There are great resources and updates that anyone can sign up for to stay informed. This is one of those times when I think it is good to be informed. Too much information and misinformation can also be a problem. I check my daily updates from Oregon Health Authority. I check Worldometer to see how everyone else is doing. I watch documentaries and check in with people I know. I do trainings to keep up on knowledge and expertise in case I need to respond. I think everyone has their own limit of how much of the news they can take. It is important to know our limits. I take breaks from the Pandemic when I can and try to do small meaningful things to ease my mind. Like making masks, do gardening, taking a walk, check in with people. Connection with others is more important now then previously, being isolated can be very hard on people. Keep in touch. I think we can fight this by staying home and taking care of each other, being mindful of our environment and how we treat animals. Humanity can survive without eating animals. This action would decrease the risk of catching a virus. The viruses are out there; it is very well described in the Netflix documentary, thousands of them. The question is what can we do to stop the next one coming. Thank you for all front line workers for everything you do. I am very grateful. Stay safe.