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March 30, 2020 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
44:55
"I'm a Nurse - and TERRIFIED of #Coronavirus!" Freedomain Call In
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*Tryk* *Tryk* *Tryk* *Tryk* *Tryk* *Tryk* *Tryk* *Tryk* *Tryk* *Tryk* *Tryk* *Tryk* *Tryk* *Tryk* *Tryk* Hey, how's it going?
Hi, thank you so much for taking the call.
I'm so excited right now.
You are very welcome.
I'm sure we can do something useful.
Do you want to start out by reading the email?
Okay, so I'll start out with the email?
Yeah. Okay.
Hi, I'm contacting you because I'm a brand new nurse and the coronavirus situation is extremely stressful.
I'm considering quitting my new job because of the risk I'm at, and I was hoping you could help me make that decision because it's weighing on me so heavily.
My circumstances are as follows.
I was hired as a psychiatric nurse and started working at a hospital.
I'm a new graduate with no experience in the field.
The hospital I work at is now at full capacity with corona patients, and there are no more respirators left.
My unit is a psych unit, so we do not have the normal things like a medical floor does.
Although other hospitals have stopped admitting patients into psych units because of the coronavirus, our hospital continues to admit new patients to the psych unit.
This morning, we admitted our first patient with a pending COVID test, and she is symptomatic.
Although no one from administration is talking to us at all about any of this, my assumption is we will begin to care for these patients.
The hospital is basically out of equipment.
Our floor has not had hand sanitizer for weeks, and we have been using shampoo as soap at the only two hand sinks we have.
Nurses on other units taking care of these patients have told me that they are reusing the N95 mask for days and do not have any gowns.
They have described the scenes on these floors as something out of a horror movie.
We have two employees so far that have been intubated, one a man in his 60s and the other is a 30-year-old male as well.
I want to quit so badly because of the lack of regard for the healthcare workers.
I am terrified of getting sick and then the hospital not being able to treat me.
I have a three-year-old son and my husband at home, and I would never be able to forgive myself if they got sick.
I know my mind tends to go to worst-case scenario, but we are seeing healthy people becoming critically ill at the hospital, so I don't think I'm being too irrational.
My husband's company just suspended work until further notice, so we will not be getting any income if I do quit, but we do have enough in savings for at least six months of living expenses.
My husband's advice has been to do what I think is best, but he would also have said he would not be upset if I did quit.
Both my husband's son and I have sacrificed so much for me to become a nurse and start working.
Our plan was to have my husband stop working and stay at home with our son once I was acclimated to my new job.
So although I do think the chances are high of finding a new nursing job, I feel like I may be throwing all of our hard work and sacrifices away.
I have been in a constant state of panic and I've been following the coronavirus since the beginning and I'm kicking myself for still going ahead and getting a job at a hospital before all of this.
Can you please talk me through this?
Thank you. Well, that is a hell of a story.
And I'm so sorry that your launch into the career that you've wanted for so long and that your family so depends on is now caught up in the clusterfract of incompetence that has characterized general medical situations like hospitals and the requirements for, I mean, no sanitizer. This is madness.
Reusing masks over and over again.
No end in sight.
So can you, just do me a favor, can you step me through I mean, early February, you said you got the job.
Can you step me through the progress?
And feel free to go into as much detail as you want.
Step me through the progress of how this began to manifest.
Because, you know, February 3rd was pretty early date, right?
How did this begin to manifest in your professional environment over the last two months?
Well, I have to say there has been so little talk about it.
We've had nobody giving us any kind of insight as to what's going on on the other units of the hospital.
So for the first two weeks, I wasn't in the hospital.
I was doing training, like an orientation type thing, off the job, you know, at a different building.
But when I got into the hospital around February...
There was no talk of the coronavirus at all.
Everything was as usual.
And manageable, right?
I mean, it's calibrated for a certain number of patients and it was manageable when you started, right?
Yes, totally. It's a 455-bed hospital.
So, you know, didn't see any chaos at all.
It was fine. And...
And then just me knowing about it and constantly watching your videos and some other videos on it, I knew about it.
So I would talk about it with some other nurses because initially I was on a medical floor.
They gave me a four-week training on that floor.
They would talk about it from time to time, but all the nurses brushed it off.
Everyone kept saying, it's the flu.
Why is everyone worried about it?
And then I would say the first week in March, one of our administrators came to the medical floor I was training on, and they showed us the proper equipment to wear if we have to take care of one of these corona patients.
And that if we do choose to travel, you know, it will be...
If we go to a high, you know, an area that's, you know, one of the higher risk areas, we would have to use, like, our vacation time to quarantine for 14 days.
So everyone...
No one took it seriously at all.
Everyone was worried about their vacations and stuff like that.
And then after...
That was really it.
I mean, that's as far as I heard anything from the administrator.
So then I went to the psych unit and I was asking everybody, you know, are we still emitting patients from the ED? Because nobody's able to get tests here either.
Wait, wait. Sorry, what do you mean nobody's able to get tests?
You mean just in the psych ward or in the hospital as a whole?
Unless they're showing up to the ED... Very symptomatic, you know, coughing, fever.
They're not getting a test.
So, yeah.
Sorry to interrupt, but why?
Is it because they don't have the test?
They don't think it's important? Like, why would the test be without in this situation?
That's all that I've heard is that there aren't enough tests.
Okay. So, they have to be reserved for people who are very symptomatic.
Okay. Yeah, so I was asking around a little bit, like, you know, are people getting tested before they get sent up here?
Because, you know, it was really starting to escalate at that point, but nobody's still taking it seriously.
And that's really how it's been going.
Our new thing on the unit this past week is that all employees have to take their temperature and At the beginning of the shift and at the end of the shift.
And that if it's over 100, we have to let the manager know and then they will tell us what to do.
But I don't know what that is.
I don't know if it's go and get a test or go home.
I did actually end up calling out one day last week because at that point, as far as I knew...
I was going according to CDC guidelines, which at the time was if you have a fever, runny nose, and your healthcare worker, stay home.
So I had a low-grade fever, and I decided to stay home, but then my manager actually called me and said that that wasn't the right thing to do, that unless I have a 100-degree fever over, I should report to work.
Oh, okay.
Now, what happened to the intake metrics over the course of the last month?
You say things were pretty normal up until early March, this being close to the end of March.
What happened to the intakes and what happened to the, I guess, the number of beds being occupied and how that played out?
Okay, so I can say the first patient that we all heard about was probably...
I want to say probably about March 15th, 16th, that was the first confirmed patient we heard about.
And that was just through word of mouth, through other nurses and stuff, not through administration.
And today we are at Full capacity, been at full capacity for about five days, which means every floor but my unit, which is maybe 20 beds, and then the labor and delivery unit, which is about 20 beds.
So something like 300 patients within a matter of a week and about two weeks.
Yeah. And was that like one big wave or was it sort of a slow trickle up or what?
It seems like one big wave.
They're saying that they're getting about three or four patients every hour in the ED. And they still have to give them the test and everything, which I'm hearing is two days for the results.
So they bring them in, they test the patients, and then they put them on precautions as if they do have it.
And they're called PUIs, which is patient under investigation.
And so you're supposed to take all the proper precautions, all the necessary equipment.
You would do the same as if you thought that they had the coronavirus.
And how long did it take from the first trickle to being at capacity?
It really feels like 10 days, probably 10 days, honestly.
Absolutely.
Now, at-capacity means, of course, over-capacity, because I assume now what happens to people who show up when there aren't any beds?
Right. Well, we have two tents they put outside, and then I have had off yesterday and today, but from what I've heard, we opened a building across the street, which was supposed to be for even more beds.
So people are still being taken care of, they're just being put in, was it more temporary facilities, is that right?
Yes, yes. Okay, okay.
And I guess people are now taking it a little bit more seriously?
Yes, but even still on my floor, there is such like, I mean, every, so as of last week, we had to start wearing surgical masks that, you know, the whole hospital had to start wearing them a week ago.
Um, So that's as serious, really, as they've gotten about it.
But I would still say no managers have spoken to us about it.
It's just becoming more serious with us, the nurses, feeling nervous.
Wait, so you got the conversation about...
Coronavirus back in the day, but since the hospital has been overwhelmed and has had to spill over into temporary quarters, you haven't had any sit-downs or approaches from the managers about, here's what's changed, here's what we can expect, here's what you should do, or anything like that?
No, not at all.
And I don't know if that's because at the time when we first got that talk, I was on a medical floor, and now I'm on the psych floor.
We've had no sit-down type of talk about how this is all going to be handled at all.
And this is a tough question to gauge as a whole, but how is the morale of the people in the hospital?
Yeah, it's pretty crazy.
It's bad. It's bad because they have sent so many workers to work from home.
So like all the social workers, any office personnel, everyone's working from home but the doctors and nurses.
So, and no visitors allowed, of course, for about the past week.
So you walk in and it's just so, it just feels horrible.
Everyone is avoiding each other, you know, trying to stay away from each other.
Yeah. Yeah, it's like we're all, for me too, especially because I've been trying to learn, I can't, it's constantly in the back of my head, so, and I notice that now more with the nurses, like this past week, we're all just kind of, no one's laughing, you know, there's nothing, the morale is not good, not good.
Have you been given, I guess, if you haven't had any meetings with the managers, has anyone told you what the expectation is for the caseload going forward?
Nope, not at all.
So I got, and I looked at the emails from work this morning, and that was when I saw that we admitted the first patient, because one of my fellow nurses was asking our manager, what do we do?
This patient is We're, you know, we're in the intake room, which is a separate room off the unit.
And she said, this patient is under investigation for Corona and she has symptoms.
And she said, do you want us to bring her on the unit?
And our manager replied, yes, bring her on the unit and just make sure she's in a room by herself.
And that's, that's it.
So none of us know what to do with, you know, these kind of patients.
It must be rough, of course, for the patients as well.
I got an email from somebody who was admitted or they admitted themselves to the hospital because of coronavirus symptoms.
And they're like, man, they'll put you in.
You can't see anyone. Like, you're completely isolated other than, of course, the nurses and doctors.
And you kind of get warped into another dimension socially.
And I'm not sure that's particularly clear to people as a whole.
Yeah, I would agree.
Yeah. Right.
And has there been...
No, let me not ask that question.
That's a little bit too on point.
So when did you first start to think that the system, if not your system, your future there might be overwhelmed or it might be time to, as my friends used to say, get out of Dodge?
Yeah, I would say it was really like the first week I came onto the psychiatric unit because I was just starting to follow.
It was nothing that had to do with being in the hospital and hearing things.
It was more me knowing what was going on and how fast it was accelerating.
And then I was kind of feeling like, oh wow, I'm in too deep at this point and I really don't know what to do.
Also because a friend...
A friend's mom really went out of her way to get me this job.
So that's, you know, that's been making my decision harder.
I mean, it would be helpful if you had some basic facts about how it's going to be dealt with, how the increased caseload is going to be dealt with, what's going to happen.
I mean, certainly if it gets to the point where you can't practically provide much care to people, then your job as a nurse becomes a bit more extraneous, right?
Right, right. Right.
And of course, the big fear is that you then, I mean, by the time you develop symptoms, you might have already had the virus for a week or two, right?
That's why you got the 14-day quarantine.
And so the whole terror of this thing is it's asymptomatic nature for a week or two, or I've heard even longer, right?
So you could pick it up, you could bring it home.
And of course, I know you're scrubbing and I know you're washing and I know you're sanitizing and so on.
But that is the big fear.
Is there anything else that's going on in your mind that, I need to know in this part of the conversation?
I don't think so.
It's really just the being that someone went out of their way to get me this job.
That's been one factor for me.
The money thing, I'm not too worried about because like I said, we do have some savings and I don't feel like that's all too important right now because of the panic I feel.
And, no, I would say that's probably all the info that's important right now.
Okay. All right. So, as you know, I don't tell anyone what to do.
That's sort of not the job, right?
But I'll tell you my approach to making these kinds of decisions.
It's actually kind of simple.
Run! No, kidding. No, my approach to taking these kinds of decisions is Is I look at the cost and I look at the benefits.
So this is not, you know, should I steal from the elderly?
This is not like a big moral decision.
Although there are moral elements involved, you know, the oath that you took and the seriousness with which you take your medical duties.
But I kind of look at the costs and the benefits.
And you have to look at the emotions on the far side of it.
Because this is, again, not a foundational moral question.
But this is a question of you want to help people.
And if you stay, right, there's a couple of options, right?
If you stay and you help people and you don't get sick and you don't infect anyone and so on, right?
Then that's a good decision, right?
Right. I mean, tell me if that's not.
I mean, I assume you want to take care of the people who are in need, right?
Yes, definitely. And getting into this, maybe this is important to actually now that you're You mentioned it.
I always wanted to be a psychiatric nurse.
That's what I wanted to do.
One of the reasons being because, you know, this stuff...
I would never imagine something like this happening, but I was just more interested in the psychiatric side of nursing, more so than the medical side.
And yes, but it also feels like, okay, if I could be going there and helping people who are actually sick, then maybe this would feel...
It's somewhat okay because I'm helping the people that are actually really sick.
But when I'm up there helping psychiatric patients, it just feels so odd with the crisis going on, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, I get it.
That's sort of fiddling while Rome burns kind of thing.
But of course, you are helping the patients, but indirectly, in that you are taking care of the psychiatric patients who need taking care of.
And because you're doing that, they don't have to pull someone else.
So you are helping the patients, but it's just not direct, if that makes sense, right?
Alright, so there's a plus, and I actually will draw this out sometimes, and whether you want to do that or not, this is sort of my way of making these kinds of decisions.
The plus of being there, helping people through this pandemic...
That's not an insignificant plus.
I mean, because you really want to help people and it's kind of exciting and it's living history and, you know, it's a story you can tell until the day you die and people will buy you a round of drinks, right?
Because you were on the front lines helping.
And listen, my guess is that it's probably going to spill upstairs into the psych ward at some point, and you're going to have to deal with more than what you're dealing with.
But you will have kind of stood your ground in the midst of a pandemic.
You would have helped people.
You would have, you know, fulfilled your oath and honored the position.
And there's real pluses in that.
Of course, if there weren't, you'd be like, come out of here, right?
Like if you worked at some 7-Eleven and, you know, people were coming in and coughing on you, you'd be like, no, this is minimum wage.
I'm out of here.
I'll come back later, right?
So, from a scale of 1 to 10, and this is, like, it's a total gut sense thing, right?
On a scale of 1 to 10, what's the plus of staying if you don't get sick?
That would be, for me, like, if I don't get sick, the plus for me would be close to a 10, probably, like a 9, yeah.
Okay, alright. That's important, right?
So that's your pull to stay, and you've got at least some categorization of it at the moment, right?
Now I'm going to say something that may have you adjust your scale.
Maybe it won't, maybe it will, right?
Okay, so that's your plus to stay, and I get the money is important and all of that, and where does the money rank on that sort of 1 to 10 scale?
Well, like a 2.
Okay, okay. So we've got a 9 for staying and a 2 for the money, right?
Mm-hmm. Now, what about the feeling that, you know, someone got me this job and they pulled strings or they helped me out and I would kind of be betraying that trust if I left?
Where does that sit on your scale?
Like a seven.
Oh, okay. So the money, not too big a deal, right?
All right. Okay. Let's make a little note here, put a little dollar beside the two.
Okay. What are the other pluses?
That come into your mind about the staying, like the drive to stay?
Really just that I know what the other nurses are going through and that, like you said, I guess alleviating anything from what all the nurses and doctors are going through would be, you know, that would be a really great thing for me.
Okay, and what's the number on that?
Probably like a 8 or a 9, yeah.
Okay, okay. I'm going to put an 8 if that's alright.
We can almost revisit it, right?
So it's supporting your fellow helpers, right?
Yes. Okay, okay.
Alright, now, this is where I say that the scale might adjust itself a little bit.
It may not.
Okay, so there are...
There's a couple of different scenarios, right?
So one is you don't get sick.
Now, as far as I understand it, obviously, if you don't get sick, if you knew ahead of time you weren't going to get sick, then you would stay, right?
Yes, definitely. But of course, you don't know that, right?
And so let's say if you get sick and you get knocked out for a couple of weeks, But, I mean, you'd have to quarantine at home, I assume, or something like that, right?
So, we got all our pluses, which is sort of the 1 to 10 thing.
Now, let's dig in the hole.
Let's go to the minuses. So, the minus 1 to the minus 10, right?
If you get sick, and I want to say all it does, like it's not important, but all it does is knock you out for a couple of weeks.
And then I guess you're bulletproof.
I mean, I don't know. There's been some indications of reinfection, but let's just say you're obviously going to be stronger against the virus since then.
So what's the minus, minus one to minus ten of you getting sick?
So if I were to get sick and it would just knock me out for a couple weeks, I wouldn't care.
I wouldn't care about that.
I don't know how I put that on the scale.
You've got to care a little bit.
It's not fun being sick, right?
No, right. Okay, so it's really not fun being sick.
And you can't parent, right?
And all of that? Well, that's another big part, yes.
I can't parent if I'm feeling really crappy.
Minus 10 would be what?
The highest? Oh, minus 10 is an asteroid strikes.
No. Like, minus 10 is you bring a virus home and your family gets really ill and it's just horrible.
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to say like minus four.
So minus four.
So you get sick for a couple of weeks and you self-quarantine at home, but your family doesn't get sick.
All right. So that's minus four.
So you and your husband get sick, but not your son.
Yeah. That would be...
Because that's tough, right?
Because then who's going to be doing the parenting, right?
Yeah. Right. That would be like a minus nine.
Okay, minus nine. Now, you know the next one, right?
You can count. What's the next one?
No, what's the next one?
So the next one is you get sick.
Your husband doesn't get sick, but your son gets sick.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Forget about it.
Minus ten? Minus ten, for sure.
Well, it can't be quite a minus 10 because there's something even worse, which is you and your husband and your son get sick.
Right. Right?
Right. That's got to be the minus 10, right?
Yeah, yeah. So that would be at a minus 9 then.
Okay. All right.
Now, you know how you had...
I said you were going to recalibrate, and I think you will.
I could be wrong. So you had, as helping people, plus 9, right?
Now, if you're on the same scale, then you've got you and your husband getting sick.
No one there to parent your son.
And your son being exposed, but let's say your son doesn't get sick.
So you and your husband getting sick, you know, badly for a couple of weeks.
That's at minus nine.
Is that, you know, like the seesaw games you play, like you get one person at the end and one person at the other, you go up and down, little seat things on the plank over the pivot.
So if you've got helping people as plus nine on one side, is it really going to balance out you and your husband getting sick?
In other words, the plus nine of helping people, does that balance out the minus nine of you and your husband getting sick?
Yeah, probably not.
I would think not. I mean, I'm not you, right?
But it seems to me that it's more of a minus if you and your husband get sick than the plus of helping people.
Yes, yeah.
And the way that you know that is you think of yourself just on the other side, right?
So you're helping people and that's great.
That's a plus of some kind and a significant one and I respect and honor you for that dedication.
So you're helping people, plus, plus, plus.
Then you and your husband get sick, and you're wretched, and you've got to make some arrangements for your son, and your son would have to leave, right?
Your son would be, I mean, your parents or his parents or whatever, right?
Your son would be taken away, and at the age of three, I think you said he was, he's not going to really figure out what's going on, right?
So this is going to be pretty upsetting for him, right?
Oh, yeah. Okay, so that's significant.
So the way that I sort of think of these things, I say, okay, well, if my husband and I get sick, am I going to regret having gone to work?
And I think yes, definitely.
And that's how you know the minus nine is bigger than the plus nine, right?
So if we've got you and your husband getting sick at a minus nine, what do you think the helping part becomes in that sort of plus or minus thing?
Yeah, really low, actually.
Well, yeah, it's a lot lower, right?
Yeah, a lot lower. Okay, so I had a four or five or something like that, right?
Yeah, a four. Now, so what's interesting, so let's say that you go to work, you help people, plus, plus, plus, three to four, right?
Now, if you get sick, will you regret having gone in to help?
I mean, if I got sick and it wasn't life-threatening, no, I wouldn't regret it.
If it was life-threatening, I feel that I would regret it.
No, no, I get that.
I mean, we're just going to go with the vast majority of the coronavirus cases, which is pretty nasty, pretty unpleasant, but they're not jamming intubations down your throat, right?
Right. Okay, so if you were in there and you helped a lot of people, And, you know, maybe you saved some lives and you just, whatever it was, right?
Or you at least kept the crazy people from jumping out of windows or whatever it is, right?
Right. So, I don't mean to get overly technical with you here.
Okay, so you've gone through the battle, you've helped some people significantly, and you get sick.
You know, I could see how that could balance out.
Like, yeah, it sucks that I got sick, but man, did I do a lot of good, right?
Yeah. Mm-hmm. So, you know, I can sort of see, like, you had you getting sick at a minus four, and if that balances out helping people, then maybe the helping people is a plus four, right?
Yep. And then, so the sick is the minus four, right?
And this sounds awful, but this is the way I categorize things.
It really, really is quite helpful, right?
Now, so you said that the person who helped get you the job, that that was like a plus seven for you staying, right?
Yeah. Now, this person who helped get you the job, that person really cares for you, right?
I don't know. I would like to think so.
Well, they care for you enough to help you get a job, right?
Yes. Now, if you had helped someone get a job, would you feel, you obviously would feel pretty bad if that person got sick on the job you helped them get, right?
Yeah, that's true.
Mm-hmm. So just thinking you've got to stay because someone got you a job is assuming that they would rather you get sick than, you know, nobody's talking about quitting nursing.
You can take a hiatus, and we'll get to all of that afterwards, right?
But the person who got you the job probably doesn't want you to get sick, right?
Yes, that's true. I mean, let's hope that would be a pretty nasty thing to want, right?
All right. So I'm going to knock that down with your permission, right, to maybe a two or three instead of a seven?
Yeah. Okay.
So what we've got here is helping people is three to four.
We can make it four.
It's fine. The dollars is like a two.
So we got six.
And then, you know, two to three for the other person.
So we've got seven or eight, right?
That's your pluses to stay.
Now, if you just get sick, that's a minus four.
you would get sick, then you've got more pluses to stay and fewer minuses for getting sick.
However, of course, if you spread it to your husband or to your son, then there's no calculation here that makes that a plus decision.
Right.
And in terms of like kicking yourself later, this is, you know, I'm kind of...
Philosophy is real good for like throwing something over the hill and seeing where it lands in And if you project yourself forward in time, and if you get your husband sick or you get your son sick, look, I think I understand the kind of person that you are.
You're the kind of person who's like, hey, man, if I get sick, I can handle it.
But if I make someone else sick, I feel really terrible, right?
Yes, yes. Because you're a nurse.
And it's a lovely thing.
It's a lovely aspect of your personality.
But your husband has a choice, right?
So you said your husband is like, you know, do what you feel is right and I support you either way, if I understood it correctly, right?
So your husband can make that choice.
Yeah, your husband can make that choice and he can take that risk.
But your son cannot.
Right. Your son has no capacity to really understand the risks, to understand the dangers, or if you tried to explain it to him using exploding voodoo dolls, it would traumatize him probably more than you getting sick, right?
Yes. So, when it comes to those kinds of decisions, it's sort of like, you know, guys have these decisions like, I'm 40.
I can afford a motorcycle.
I have children. Should I get a motorcycle?
It's like, well, you know, if I fall off the motorcycle, you know, I can handle being in traction for a couple of months or whatever.
It's like, yeah, but, you know, and maybe your wife's kind of okay with it, like you'd stop whining and complaining and looking at pictures of motorcycles or whatever.
But, you know, it's really about your kids, right?
I mean, it comes down to those decisions that you have to make regarding Your children...
Now, of course, I know, as you know, that children seem to be relatively less affected by this virus.
So that's part of the calculation.
But if you get sick, the odds of your...
Or even if you're a carrier, right?
Because you could have this virus, not get sick, but pass it along to your family who does get sick, if I understand this correctly, right?
So if you...
Yeah, if you get sick, the likelihood is that...
You're going to expose and probably infect your husband.
You're going to expose and perhaps infect your son.
And you're not going to be able to help people anyway.
And this might already have happened, right?
This might already have happened. Because you can't get tested, so you don't know, right?
Right.
Nope.
So it's hard to see the plus side of staying.
That having been said, let's look at sort of down the road, right?
So as far as I understand it, Trump has now extended the sort of...
She says the peak is going to be in a week or two, and I think that the suggestions for significant social distancing is now extended to the end of April.
Now, there will be, of course, a big demand for nurses when the peak of this thing has gone down.
I mean, there may be a second wave, but, you know, by then there may be a vaccine, there could be a cure or something.
I mean, there seems to be this stuff cooking around that can be pretty helpful with curing and so on.
So... As far as that goes, you getting a job?
Well, I think that there will be a big demand for healthy nurses after the peak of this thing has gone because I think a lot of nurses are getting kind of sick, right?
And some of them may not feel like going back to a hospital for quite some time.
Some of them might take early retirement.
I mean, I know that there's a lot of honor and a lot of I'm going to step up and help and so on.
But there are also sensible calculations.
If somebody really gets knocked on their butt by this thing, they may not be rearing to get back on the horse again, right?
Right. Right. So it doesn't seem to me, again, you know, I'm just some guy on the web, so you know your industry far better than I do, but it seems to me that healthy, intelligent, compassionate nurses will not be in low demand come, you know, May, June, right?
Right. So, you know, taking a hiatus, so to speak, right now is...
It would seem that the numbers point that way.
And I know that sounds like, who is math to order me around?
It's like, but these are kind of like your priorities, right?
Your priority is your family and your priority is your son.
And particularly because your son is young and can't participate in the decision points.
You know, if your son was 10 or 12 or whatever, You could sit down and work through this stuff with him and he would have some understanding.
But, you know, at three, he's kind of like a balloon in the wind when it comes to making these decisions.
So I kind of look for, you know, I always step into the little toddler shoes and say, okay, well, if I was your son, what would I be advocating for?
And I got to tell you, my friend, your son is like, please, mommy, don't get sick.
Yep. And I can't believe I didn't think like that because that's so true.
We're not used to thinking like that because all of our attention is out there on the world and people who are pushing and jostling us around with needs and so on.
But it's also, of course, and as you point out, like you are in the psych ward, which is not immaterial, but as you say, it's not a frontline situation, right?
Right, right. And also me being on orientation still, I'm not that helpful because I can't even take on my own patience.
Right, right.
Yeah. Right. So, those are the ways that I sort of try and work things out.
It's really, really important in life to not have regret.
Now, here's the good news, right?
The good news is, let's say you take a hiatus, and obviously you won't get sick, or at least I'm sure you won't get sick.
Still always a possibility, but let's say you take a hiatus and you don't get sick.
You won't have any particular regret other than sometimes you'll, you know, 3 o'clock in the morning, you'll wonder, ah, have I stayed?
If I'd stayed, it would have been an incredible experience, and it will.
I mean, it will be an exhausting, exhilarating, powerful, terrifying experience to go through this process in the hospital.
And there will be part of you that says, you know, you know, right?
Now, of course, if, and this will be reinforced if very few medical workers get sick.
I don't know. Have you looked at the latest numbers on that, the number of doctors and nurses who are getting sick?
I haven't. I just know that the floor that I was on, getting medical training before the psych floor, I think I've heard something like four or five of them had gotten it and they had been out.
Out of how many? Out of maybe 20.
Oh, really? Yeah.
A 20% to 25% infection rate?
Yeah, and that was a couple of weeks ago, so before it got really bad.
Okay, see, you could have started with that.
I could have asked that too, right?
But, okay, that's, you know...
Yeah.
Come on. You got a three-year-old at home, right?
Yeah. You got a 20-25% infection rate.
You can't help patients directly.
Right. And...
And we don't have like a...
Don't get sick, mommy. Don't get sick, mommy.
Sorry? No, and maybe there wouldn't be that high of a rate if there was proper equipment.
But there isn't. Yeah, but there isn't.
And I think we could sit here and grab all day about how just appalling that all is, given that this thing has been known about since December.
Right, right. That's what kills me.
Yep. Right, right.
Yeah, that is so helpful.
Yeah, so if you take a hiatus, then you will occasionally experience some what-ifs, and what-ifs are fine, right?
The road less traveled, the what-if, you know, what if I'd stayed and I'd had that great memory of supporting all these people in this wild time, and, you know, I get all of that, right?
But if even before the tsunami, you got a 20 to 25% infection rate, man, the tsunami hits, protocols get shaky, you know, people get more sloppy because they're so busy.
I hate to say sloppy, you know, but it's just the reality, right?
I mean, people are falling over, you got to pick them up and masks slip and, you know, and as you say, you don't even have any hand sanitizer, for God's sakes, right?
So there will be a certain amount of You know, it's like the guy who doesn't go to war every now and then.
He's like, oh man, down at the Legion, they're having a lot of fun telling war stories.
It's like, yeah, but there are a lot of them there who aren't telling war stories either, right?
Right. So, whereas on the other hand, if you do stay and get sick and, heaven forbid, make your family sick, heaven forbid, make your son sick, I don't think there's any amount of While I was standing with my brothers and sisters at the front lines, that will make you feel better about any of that.
And avoiding that kind of regret, I think, is pretty important.
I agree.
I agree. All right.
So there's my decision.
Thank you so much.
Listen, and I say this because I know that there are going to be people out there, you know, who need services and they're going to be upset at this conversation.
And I completely understand that.
And there could be certainly other situations, you know, if you were single, if you didn't have children, if you were an experienced nurse who was training others, who was on the front lines, who was, you know, completely dedicated to and you had the equipment and you had the masks and so on.
You know, that might be a different, I mean, I think it would be a different calculation, different situation, but I'm always there for the interests of the child.
And you could say, ah, yes, well, the patients have children, too.
And it's like, yeah, well, that's all well and good, but this is your son.
And I don't think anyone can fault you having a little bit more loyalty to your children than somebody else.
Yeah, that's right.
Is there anything else that you wanted to mention or anything else that you wanted to share that you think people would find interesting or need to know about what's going on?
Well, I just know that in my area, people are still going out.
Like, you know, nothing's going on.
There's so many people on the road.
So, I do really wish people would stop doing that.
That's really all I can share because it's really a nightmare.
It is a nasty virus, right?
It really, really is.
I mean, it's nothing...
They're saying that...
Other nurses that I've spoken to on some of the other units taking care of these patients, they're saying that when the patients begin to not be able to breathe, they're getting paralyzed with a combination of three drugs.
I'm not sure which one.
they're paralyzing them to reserve their oxygen so that they can, you know, have much less oxygen demand on the body.
And that when they're getting the x-rays, the chest x-rays, their lungs are completely, completely white, which means they're absolutely filled with fluid, which.
Oh yeah.
Then you see these silvery patterns on, on these x-rays that in some cases could lead to a permanent lung damage.
Yep.
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
All right. Well, listen...
Sorry, go ahead.
No, I just want to say, if anything, it needs to be taken more seriously, if at all possible.
Okay. Well, will you keep me posted about how it's going?
Listen, I really, really appreciate the trust and the delicacy of this question.
Was this a useful way to approach it?
Oh, my gosh, yes.
Thank you. Because right now, I'm not having the easiest time rationally thinking.
So thank you so much.
You're very welcome. You know, the triage of regret is really, really important, and thank you, of course, for everything that you are doing.
And listen, you will do, right?
I mean, your husband's going to stay home, and you're going to have an amazing career.
You're going to be helping tens of thousands of people over the course of your career.
I hugely appreciate that.
Nursing is one of these entirely unsung or undersung situations and occupations, and you're going to do some incredible stuff, and I just want you to be around to enjoy it.
I appreciate that and please keep me posted and give my very best to your family.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate your time.
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