a wee little panic attack this morning...

 woke up and just got myself all worked up. i have a thermometer and a pulse ox at the bedside and i just got imagining symptoms and that i had covid.  crazy really.  i have a small stash of xanax for flights that i got last year due to anxiety in flying...post landing in crash positions years ago.  i got myself so worked up i decided to take one.  it totally helped. 

 i am currently on call.  i've heard of this in other hospitals. the calm before the storm.  i'll take it.  many hospitals have emptied out quite a bit in anticipation of the influx of covid cases. so until/when/if that happens we will be a bit fluff for a bit.  that is even with them putting folks at the doors to check temps and working with the other local hospitals to man the testing stations. 

 todays report is 2300 tests done, 69 positive cases, just 1-3 hospitalized.

 our numbers are still climbing but not as rapidly as some of the larger urban areas in the lower 48.

 i do not see myself as an anxious person at baseline.  oddly, when i am in the actual emergency situations in life, i remain quite calm.  it's anticipation that can undo me. 

 some of my emergency situations that i have remained calm for....the plane crash situation.  the pilot came on during a commercial flight (after we had aborted our landing) and said, "listen to your flight attendants and prepare for crash landing".  this is not what one wants to hear. we flew around a bit to dump fuel and to see what landing gear we had down i think.  in the end it was a gentle landing as he slowed the plane and didn't use the brakes.  we were in crash positions and the flight attendants were repeating over and over, "brace, brace, brace, don't move".  my panic/anxiety hit me days later.

 i also remained calm when i was sleeping in my car in a campground and woke to a grizzly bear clawing/biting his way into my car.  i have remained calm when the entire face of a glacier came down while i was in a kayak on the water in front of it...we rode out the rather large waves that came towards us, dodging ice bergs...several more, not to mention being in many situations as an icu/picu nurse.

 i have worked myself into a panic before.  most memorable for me was at the Don Sheldon mountain house cabin.  i made the mistake of reading the log book.  that cabin is on a mountain top outcrop, surrounded by glacier.  my friend woke up and i wrote a note, "i am having a panic attack"...we went outside, as it was light all night, and she helped talk me down.  not sure if it was the height or the grandness of it.  the beauty and setting are awe inspiring but also panic inducing.

 i slept a bit more after the xanax this morning and took the dogs for a walk at the dog park. 

 social distancing of course.

 the pets have been a great distraction and comfort.

 Miss Breezy Chatterbug and Sir Covi Cat are beginning to come together more....i do think they will be buddies soon enough. i think the dog walk gives them the space to work out some of that without the dogs intruding.

 Covi Cat is moving around more without having the dogs chase him anytime he moves. i suspect the dog walks help with that.

 i did order masks and face shields from the China web site. pretty pathetic that this is even necessary.  there are healthcare workers getting this at a fairly rapid rate.

 the tests are still not readily available, which would help us know more where we are at and how big of a problem any one community has.  people have been waiting in long lines all day with fevers in New York to be turned away without getting tested.  it's pretty crazy. 

 this administration is a huge fail in all this.  as someone said, he can't tweet nastiness to a virus. the virus can't be beat the way he is used to beating things.  he can't sue the virus, he can't tweet mean things, he can't work up a rally of support.  he must be missing those rallies. i don't think he's had any...can you imagine? i'm sure he would still get his cult like followers to show up in droves...but there would no doubt be a round of covid positives post this. 

 he is no match for covid. he's trying to act like he has it all under control, but you can't control a virus.  he keeps trying to toss all the responsibility back on the governors and the individual states, but ultimately, it will reflect on him and his administration. he destroyed the task force that was created to deal with this exact thing....a pandemic.  the Obama administration set up a plan and his administration hated all things Obama so they just tossed it aside and the people who created it and were experts.  they refused to listen to anything during the transition or read anything that was given to them to help them out....and they were given more than any other administration probably was...but their ego and arrogance are now their downfall.

 they are still stubbornly clinging to their power despite the death and mayhem around them.

 New York has gone to using one ventilator for multiple patients because they don't have any other choice.

 one urban area after another will fall prey to the virus.  each community will be overwhelmed by it.  they will put a band-aid on the gushing river of blood.  we are generally at capacity in hospitals at baseline...add on one major virus threat.  we still don't know how to deal with it.

 new york has had more ems calls than they did on Sept 11.

 there really is not way to escape the virus at this point. 

 no doubt that is why my anxiety as well as many others across the globe spiraled out of control this morning.  i may need another dose of xanax before this deal is over. i know that when the time comes, if i am in the ICU, i will just go into work mode and deal with what is there...there will be time to release the stress later.

 in those crisis situations i find that while i am calm in the emergency there is often a time down the road that my body releases the stress.  i remember with the bear about a week later, i had a day where i just couldn't stop crying.  i had no reason to cry.  i didn't actually feel upset or anything really....but my body was just releasing that stress.

 i actually had to call out sick because i literally could not control the tears.  it was ridiculous. 

 it was several days after the "crash" landing that i had waves of panic.

 today was anticipatory panic.  in a way it would be easier to just get this virus and be done with it...i'd be more open to that if i knew how my body would react to it. but none of us really do.  some folks are totally asymptomatic, others have mild symptoms, others have more serious symptoms, some need hospitalization and still others die.  that is the anxiety of it....the not knowing.

 i had influenza A a few years back.  it was pretty miserable but it still felt like a bit of a known entity.  and yes, folks die from that but generally you know who is most vulnerable.....with this.  it can be random. some fairly young and healthy folks end up dying. 

 so i am on call and hoping that tomorrow i will be back to my normal state of anxiety over this without the panic.  it's a constant stress for us all.  made worse by the fact that this administration totally and absolutely sucks and that our hospitals cannot promise us the gear we need to be as safe as possible.

thankful for A.  that little bottle with a few pills of xanax... B. an on call night C.  comfort shows and pets to keep me focused on something else D. fresh air and dog walks.