Pandemic

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.