Courage and Hope

[ID: Painting of a solitary tree on a hill with the words "Be strong enough to stand alone, smart enough to know when you need help, and brave enough to ask for it." Attributed to Mark Amend]

I am a member of a Facebook Group called 'Twin Cities Mutual Aid Network." It's made of over 2,000 members of people down on their luck, and other people who have the ability to help them. Most requests are for $20 for gas, $100 for a security deposit, $50 to help give a little girl a birthday party. Those who are able to donate typically give $5 or $10, a micro-donation amount, and when everyone pools their money these needs get met. 

The pandemic has been unequally unfair to low-income workers and to women, and it is primarily these people who make up the Facebook group, not people like me who are doing fine through all of this.

One of the challenges of this group is that those asking and those giving are going entirely on trust. Donors trust that those who are describing their situations are painting a real picture of what they need, and because there's no way to verify that, the donation amounts are small. The administrators do a good job of monitoring this — one person was kicked out of the group for asking for assistance for her kids but was using photos of her friends' kids to get help (she doesn't have children).

I noticed a man continuing to post throughout asking for assistance. First it was to help pay for repairs for his car, then his car got towed because it sat so long in one place, to money to pay for a hotel so he could have a place for him and his daughter, to money for a security deposit on an apartment. Each time, he never received quite enough to get by. 

He and I got connected via messenger and started chatting. He needed way more help them he was ever going to get in micro-donations. I asked if he would be willing to meet, to tell his story, so that I could rally to get him more meaningful support. He agreed.

We met at Fat Nat's Eggs in New Hope, close to his cousin's apartment where he was staying the night. I asked if he would entrust me with his story, so I could write about his situation and create a GoFundMe page for him. He agreed. You can read the story here, and make a donation if you'd like.

Some of the things he told me brought me back to Dr. Ibram Kendi's book, Stamped from the Beginning, which I read this past summer. 

When he was a senior in high school, he was accused of being involved in an incident that occurred at the school. Chandan was physically intimidated and interrogated by a police officer about his involvement in this incident, roughly pushed up against a wall with his hands forced behind him.  As Chandan points out, if the police had evidence they wouldn't have needed to intimidate him or attempt to get him to confess to something he hadn't been a part of. This is a 17-year-old boy — Chandan is a slight figure, tall and slim. Would a white teenager have been treated so roughly? Because of this incident he left school and never earned his high school degree. He was certain that the police were going to continue to harass him until they eventually charged him with something.

Now, during this pandemic, Chandan is looking for work. He had heard from an acquaintance that a hotel near him was hiring a slew of housekeeping positions because they anticipated that business would start to return soon. He and his friend, a woman, both put in their applications the same day. She was called the next day for an interview and hired on the spot. He was called the day after and interviewed. The hiring manager told him, "If I don't call you by the end of the week, please call me and I'll let you know." Chandan did as he asked and when he talked to the hiring manager on Friday of that week was informed that all the positions had been filled. The manager used this tactic to fill all the positions with people other than Chandan and then turn him down. I'm not sure if Chandan was being discriminated against because of his race or his gender, but once again, he didn't get what he needed.

He and I spoke of his hopes for the future and for his daughter, who is cute as a button. It takes great courage to ask for help and abundant hope that you'll receive it. I am hoping that Chandan gets the help that he needs through this endeavor.

Slowing Down

Throughout this COVID-19 pandemic, I've been in almost daily contact with my sister Kristi who is a nurse at a local hospital. The emotional and mental toll of preparing for a pandemic is taxing to her and other front line health care workers, even though right now her hospital has a few COVID cases and many empty beds waiting for a wave of patients. Hopefully that wave doesn't come — Minnesota has experienced fewer cases than neighboring states and has done a great job of using social distancing and other tools to keep infection rates down.

She and I were commenting on an interesting phenomenon that's occurring through all of this. Currently she has a standing weekly video conference chat with a group of friends from her years living in Indiana, and another weekly chat with her high school classmates who are scattered across multiple time zones. These are friends who see each other once every few years, even though they still consider themselves close.

She also initiated a video call with relatives from our dad's side of the family, people we enjoy seeing very much but do so only every couple of years. My close group of local friends are gathering every week; previously we were lucky to get together once a month.

We joked that both of our social calendars are now busier than they were before, even though everything is happening online and not in-person. Which begs the question...

Why weren't we doing these things before?

Video-conferencing has been around for years, easy-to-use, cheap and effective. Yet we've never done a video conference chat with our extended family, nor she with her high school classmates.

The difference is that now, in these troubling times, everyone is realizing that the most important things in life aren't things. Each of us has been forced to slow down our lives, to stop scurrying from activity to activity, and to take time to breathe. All of our friends who are much busier than us, with multiple kids in multiple activities plus their own functions to attend to, suddenly have nowhere to go and nothing to do. What better time to check in with friends whom we think of often but speak to rarely!

Honestly, this little pause in life has been a rare gift. Our family eats every meal together, but instead of rushing off to finish homework or work on a project, we sit around after the meal and talk. We tell funny stories to each other and laugh. Oh my, how we've been laughing! Such a treat.

I hope that when this is all over, when we can go about our lives without fear of making each other sick, that we remember these moments and cherish them. And, I hope, we continue to make room in our lives for the people who matter the most.

There Are No Emergencies During a Pandemic

My sister is a floor nurse at a local hospital and is on the front lines of the COVID-19 epidemic. Mom and I keep checking in on her, knowing that, right now, work isn't just physically draining but also emotionally exhausting for her and everyone she works with.

The hospitals protocols are changing almost daily, with new information and as they prepare for the onslaught of COVID patients. One of the things that's in the news right now is the need for ventilators and for N95 masks. N95 masks are a certain kind of mask that keeps out the smallest particles and are the recommended personal protective equipment (PPE) to keep health care workers from getting sick while treating COVID patients. They are in short supply right now. And then there are the ventilators — hospitals want to have on hand significantly more ventilators than they usually own for this epidemic. This has been a point of much discussion in the news, with people speculating why hospitals would need so many more ventilators. I mean, other flu varieties don't require this many people to be ventilated, why now?

Kristi explained in a phone call with our mother and I, and here's the reason:

There are no emergencies during a pandemic. 

Nothing, not your loved one being unable to breathe or having a heart attack, is worth risking the lives of healthcare workers who are there to save them.

During normal times, if someone presented to the hospital in severe respiratory distress, they would be put on a bipap machine. It's like a c-pap machine that people use for sleep apnea, only with pressure on both the exhale and the inhale. Patients can be in a regular hospital room if they are on a bipap machine.

Except...

While someone is on a bipap machine their breath is aerosolized, airborne in the room for others to breathe in. Without enough N95 masks to protect health care workers, chances are high that those treating these patients will contract the virus.

If the person's breathing continues to worsen and their oxygen levels don't rise, then they are put on a ventilator, which is a much more serious intervention. The patient is heavily medicated because a tube is shoved down their throat. Without sedation, patients will try to grab at it to remove it,  possibly damaging the airway. During the intubation procedure of someone who has COVID, everyone in the room is highly at risk for being exposed to whatever virus or bacteria the patient may exhale, so personal protection equipment is essential. After the intubation, a machine breathes for the patient and they are typically in the ICU so their medication and oxygen levels can be closely monitored. It is not pleasant.

During the coming epidemic, hospitals are skipping the bipap stage and going straight to the ventilation stage. Why? One, because they don't want to expose their caregivers to the disease by aerosolizing the virus with bipap machines. Two, if the patient worsens, the care team will be frantically donning their protective equipment outside of the room while the patient is in distress, unable to breathe. By the time the care team is able to enter the room, the person may be unconscious, suffer irreparable brain damage from the lack of oxygen, or have died.

From a nurse who was on the front lines of fighting the Ebola epidemic: There are no emergencies during a pandemic.

There is no rushing into a room during a code blue, nurses and therapists surrounding a patient and providing life-saving care. There is no treatment without first taking precautions that the patient may — MAY — have COVID if any symptoms are present. Right now hospitals beds are being taken up by people who are waiting for test results to rule out COVID, since it currently takes 48 hours to get results back. Until a patient is known to NOT have the virus it is assumed they do, meaning that each time a nurse enters the room they must gown up appropriately. It takes much longer to care for patients now than when a pandemic isn't going on.

So yes, there is a shortage of ventilators. There is a shortage of N95 masks. And scientific data is behind all of the changes that hospitals are making to reduce mortality during this pandemic. Science and facts.

*NOTE: This was published with the input of my sister. It is not a reflection of her opinion or that of her employer, only mine.