My other hero. (Part 2)

The second of two posts about my baby sister Jessica, ICU nurse and badass.

Apr 13, 2020

I spoke to Jessica yesterday. I called to wish her a happy Easter and to see how she was holding up. She is doing pretty well. A little bored. A little lonely. She made chicken and rice for her Easter meal, which turned out pretty well considering that she didn’t have all of the ingredients that our family’s recipe calls for. You mean you don’t have 2 cans of cream of celery soup just lying around? If you do, you can make chicken and rice like my family does.

A hearty, stick to yer ribs Sunday casserole recipe that feeds a family of five with leftovers.

I asked her about work. Her hospital has had its first Covid death late last week. While she has not personally been assigned anyone with Coronavirus yet, she knows that it is only a matter of time. The hospital is eerily quiet, because people are avoiding going to the ER until they are gravely ill. Because of this, the non-Covid patients that end up in the ICU are incredibly sick, so work has been pretty intense anyway. Her hospital is doing ok on PPE for the time being, but her old hospital, which has far more Coronavirus cases, is already rationing masks—issuing one per week, not one per shift, one per week—this is a disaster waiting to happen/currently happening. She is being incredibly careful to do as many tasks as possible every time that she has to change her PPE, because she knows that a regional hospital like hers is not going to be a priority whenever the inevitable shortages begin.

So terrifying.

A few different Covid surge strategies have been discussed by her hospital’s management; her administration seems to have settled on one that makes sense to Jessica. I am glad that she seems to be ready for the challenges that are coming her way soon.

But that is just how she is. Nobody in my family has a good poker face, but after years of frontline healthcare work, Jessica does this better than anyone else. She feels the strong emotions that come with doing a life and death job, but she has trained herself to keep her emotions from spilling out to her patients. I am glad that the patients at her hospital have a highly skilled, well-trained, and caring professional to take care of them. She is a hero to her patients and to me personally

Truth.

That said, I want her to be given the right protective gear, and I hope that the environment that she is working in is safe. Worrying about this keeps my whole family up at night—except for Jessica, she’s up all night anyway working overnights. Her life these days is working all night, going home to sleep, chilling with her cat and going back to work to do it all again. She has only been to work and home and to buy gas for several weeks now. She made a big grocery buy before the shelter-in-place was given, so she doesn’t really need anything. She did say yesterday, “Apparently my biggest hobbies are going out to eat and driving to and shopping at non-essential stores.”

My wedding in October 2016 seems a lifetime away.

Jessica and my mom have been living together for the past several years, but due to the risk of Jessica being exposed to Coronavirus, Mom moved in with Juliana temporarily. Jessica was originally going to stay with a friend, but she thought twice of it and was seeking a short-term apartment before the decision was made to move Mom in with Juliana and Curt. This way Jessica can fight this pandemic and then come straight home to a shower and throw her scrubs into a washing machine without having to wait a turn. This is such a relief to me.

In a more lighthearted recent past.

I have been so worried about Jessica that I forgot how much of a badass she is. She will handle this crisis to the best of her ability. I hope that the absolute idiots that are ignoring all safety protocols in the North Texas area will have a change of heart, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Fools were going to church yesterday like nothing was happening, Wal-Mart is always packed, and people are still having gatherings of people that don’t shelter with them in huge numbers, and let’s not even get into how few people are wearing gloves and masks. I am furious and saddened beyond all reason by this. They are going to make their hospital system overwhelmed. They are going to put undue stress on an already taxed system. They are going to put my sister and so many like her at undue risk. I just want to don a 4XL hazmat suit and start slapping fools.

This one will do nicely, thank you.

I know that y’all are following proper isolation and social distancing, but please speak up to those among your friends and family that are not. I’m going to put a link to the video I made a couple of weeks ago, about staying home. There is also a link to a clean/sfw version you can share with your family members or friends that get upset about swear words or in a professional environment.

Please keep Jessica in your thoughts and prayers. She is literally irreplaceable.