We have something called SOC at work, Service On Call. It is basically one day a month where we are on standby to go in and work a shift. I try to see my SOC days as an opportunity to get some change of environment for a shift, maybe work with someone I have never met and even learn something. It is just good to have a new influence sometimes from your regular station and truck.
I had my SOC day Saturday and was called in to work on a truck in Gun Barrel City. I worked a shift on this truck about a year ago, got SOC’d that day too. I worked with a guy that was my partner for a couple of months back when I started at the station in Jacksonville. He is a super nice guy so I knew it would be a fun shift. We also had a student with us from Navarro College. I enjoy having students on the truck. In the middle of the shift another truck came to the station to change crew and out popped this sweet face!

She really made my day when she got so happy to see me and jumped out her truck to give me a hug!

The shift went by pretty fast even if I had to stay for 1.5 hour until my relief could get there. Then it was just to go home, put a laundry on with the uniform and go to bed.

Yesterday was back on my regular truck in Mineola for a 24 hour shift. Last two shifts has been super busy so I was mentally well prepared on another rough day. But it wasn’t really rough in the same way. It turned out to be a rough day due to Covid.

The night before I had been advised that a very good friend of mine, whom also works in EMS had been hospitalized due to Covid. He probably contracted the virus while on vacation and had already been in the hospital for three days. My shift started with a text from him that he was about to be intubated and put on a ventilator. My heart just dropped! He is the sweetest man, an awesome paramedic and it breaks my heart that he is now fighting for his life. Suddenly I felt so helpless and powerless. I know of his wife but I don’t know her personally and I can’t imagine what she is going through. It was like this hit a little too close to home for some reason. I got really mad but I don’t know what I was mad at. I don’t want anyone to go through this! To come to the point when you have to be intubated it’s just horrible.

Tried to focus on my job which went okay on and off. We transported a couple of covid patients, they were stable though. But we picked up two patients from a local nursing home. The second patient we picked up at 5 am this morning. This patient had just come back from the ER 5 hours earlier and it was when I for the first time with my own eyes saw how this virus is not just affecting the patients but how it is affecting caregivers. I witnessed staff that was beyond exhausted. They tried to keep it together but they just couldn’t. They are understaffed, they don’t have the right PPE to do their jobs, they are afraid to contract this virus themselves, they don’t have the right training and probably not good leadership of how to deal with this awkward and rough situation. Three employees watching us load up a patient for the second time of their shift, trying to understand what they could have done differently while tears running down their cheeks.

We have dealt with this virus for months now. We all became a little “comfortable” with the situation and then the second wave hit and it hit hard! This virus doesn’t care of who you are, what you do or what color of skin or eyes you have. You can only try to protect yourself as much as you can. And if you work in a healthcare environment, dealing with Covid, and you don’t have the support from your leadership team… it will tear you apart.
I am blessed to work for an amazing company that gives us all protective equipment that you possible can think of. Masks, respirators, gowns, gloves, you name it. But this very moment was very real to me of a side of the virus that now has been forgotten. It was so much “thanks to healthcare providers” when the virus first hit a couple of months ago, that has now gone away and the situation has become the new normal, and it is easy to just ignore the fatigue that is occurring now after months of this shit.

I had a conversation with one of my supervisors in another matter and we came in to talk about this experience I had. And we both agreed that it is so easy to go blind of the fact, don’t want to face reality and we both really feel for these employees trying to do their absolute best but don’t have the training or resources to do it.

All this made me really think about myself. How I need to avoid gatherings if possible. Well, if I’m not at work I am anyway just at home or at the gym which is probably quite good at this time. My personal opinion is that a surgical mask will probably not help but I wear it simply because I am not in the mood of argue. A friend told me yesterday that a doctor he spoken to had noticed that patients that work out, exercise and try to be a little mindful of their health seems to not contract the virus as easily and if they do they recover faster compared to a person whom doesn’t. And that is also considered to a person without underlaying health issues. Any kind of health issues will affect in different ways. But it a little bit inspired me to keep on working out on my days off and continue doing what I am doing.

So instead of sitting here and writing this blog, maybe I should get my ass up from the chair and to the gym…