Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

Late night and all is well.

For now.

It’s the calm before the storm as I lay down for the night after a busy evening in the Florida Room and in and around the house in general getting ready for what might be the start of the wave that is about to crash down upon the community hospital where I’ve worked as a Technical Partner—formerly Emergency Technician / “Glorified Orderly” since 1994.

That’s something like the pun on the USAF Medical Service Specialist / Bedpan Commando that I was before that from 1986 to 1993. But I digress.

Got word from a co-worker a few hours ago that several nurses in my department have contracted the Coronavirus and are very sick. And a few more have quit. I’m afraid now. Not so much for myself but for the people I work with and the many “regulars” we’ve taken care of through the years. The thought of loosing any of the old folks—patients or family members some going back to the early days- who keep asking me “When are you going to retire?” has really been bothering me lately.

I anticipate that tomorrow will be busy. Probably on the ugly side. So I did my weekly aquarium water changes a day early to get those out of the way and have air plants and bromeliads and jungle cacti down in the buckets and tub to soak for several hours to ensure they are adequately hydrated in the event I get busy and don’t get to mist them for a few days.

Sunday I moved most of the outside turtles to their summer enclosures where they should be able to fend for themselves a while. They are in the process of coming out of hibernation and won’t start feeding for a few more weeks. So they’ll be ok.

The “P-Squares” and areolata seem to be acclimating to life on the Turtle Table in the Florida Room so I’m going to leave them there. The room is getting up to 80 degrees now when the lights are on so I’m thinking it is now the better option over the cage with the 60 watt bulb which might overheat or cause them to dry out too much- especially if the water in the plastic rock pool dish evaporates completely.

Maybe it won’t be that bad. I will have to come home to bathe and wash clothes and sleep just like I did during Desert Storm- though home then was a dormitory a block away from the base fitness center where my unit set up the 250 bed contingency staging facility. But you never know what might happen and I might be too tired sometimes to do much when I get home or get sick myself.

I’m going to do my best not to let that happen because a lot of people are going to be depending on me—patients and fellow staff. Got to be extra careful and get plenty of rest- which is why I decided to put the Diaries on the back burner for now. I got much of it written with some great pictures too but will need time to put it all together. Probably a couple weeks or a month from now. The ER docs were saying they expected the wave to peak in the next two weeks as of late last week. Hope they are right.

Hope the editor, fellow writers and readership take care and stay alive and well. There is much argument in regard to this crisis; whether or not the actions being taken are justified. Never the less it should be taken seriously. I know some of you fall into the high risk category with preexisting medical issues like heart disease, diabetes, over 60 etc—so you don’t want to get this disease. I’d like to be able to meet some of you someday.

Take care.

Addendum

My shopping trip Friday: Got a new system for sanitizing incoming groceries.

Using a clean cement mixing tray originally purchased to be a turtle enclosure (but never used) to hold incoming for decon. I take items out of the bags and wipe them down with the same 10 percent bleach solution used to sterilize reptile cages / turtle tubs and water and feeding bowls.

The “clean” items are placed in a busing tray (another item repurposed from the reptile hobby which I’ve been getting from Sam’s Club to have on hand for raising baby turtles) There they can air dry before putting them away.

My PAPR mask; issued to me during the Ebola scare several years back. Luckily I didn’t throw it away like many others did theirs. This is what the hospital originally intended and wearing and sanitizing your own mask makes better sense than sharing like it makes sense for paratroopers to pack their own parachutes!

I got a plastic container to put it in like I’ve been doing my shoes for many years. For the shoes worn on duty this has long been considered best practice in the nursing and care giving professions. As of last night I started keeping those in my car and I’ll be changing them there in the parking lot instead of the locker room and tracking germs home from the hospital!

This Coronavirus thing has turned me and everyone else around me into germaphobes. My hands have never been cleaner!

The recommended protocol is wash hands for 20 seconds with ordinary soap and water. That is the time it takes for the soap to break down the lipid membrane that encapsulates the genetic material of Corona and most other viruses. And bacteria and other pathogens as well. It’s always been best practice in medicine before and after patient encounters and best practice in day to day life when you get home from work or shopping and especially before eating or handling food or touching your face.

These instructions are outdated. Now we are putting masks on all patients and are required to wear them at all times in the patient care areas and even at the nursing station. This will provide some measure of protection in the way of reducing transmission between staff many of whom may already be infected and may never even get sick but can spread the virus around. The objective is to reduce the impact of this thing on the health system and to protect friends and family who fall into the vulnerable categories- who could get very sick or die from this disease. Most people will only have mild symptoms but the loss of any life is bad and having a lot of people down with illness or being quarantined will diminish productivity in critical sectors like health care or the trucking industry that is probably working overtime to move goods to keep the store shelves stocked. And the people at Walmart and other grocery chains hustling to keep up with the craze of panic buying so the rest of us might get enough stuff to get through the week! Things will get really bad if that happens.

This crisis—even if it turns out far less apocalyptic than feared serves a good reminder how dependent we are on supply chains and cooperation of other people we’ll probably never meet who keep us in food and other goods and services. It’s also a good lesson for why green policies and socialism in general will be a disaster for America. It’s a foretaste of life under the Green New Deal in which chronic shortages of food, energy and other life essential stuff will become a way of life. And can you imagine something like this Coronavirus pandemic or other disaster on top of self inflicted economic hardship and malaise?

I was skeptical of President Trump’s insistence last week that we had to get the entire economy up and running sooner than later. At first it seemed grossly premature. However after reading Sarah Hoyt’s article last issue that portends the possibilities of actual hunger or even famine if things remain shut down too long I come to realize at some point we have to get moving again and even be willing to face a little danger in our day to day lives for the sake of maintaining civilization which would be a terrible thing to loose. Maybe not by Easter but soon. This may be the World War II of our time but Americans had to work and fight then or else we would not have made it.

There is the possibility of total meltdown that could be the tipping point into the mind of dictatorship those on the Left fear that Trump will establish; except it will be the Left that will be in charge! Yikes! That’s usually how it happens. It will require some extra vigilance to make sure the Plea of Necessity is not exploited to this end during the course of the crisis.