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Post by ripx187 on Apr 16, 2020 12:09:00 GMT -5
Howdy friends. I just wanted to tell you all that I love you, and let you know how things are going over here on my side of the computer. For those that don't know, I work in a long and short term care medical facility in the environmental services department (I clean all common areas). Things are rough, but all considered we have managed to keep COVID19 out. Our policies change on a daily basis, but we are still striving to keep as much compassion inside as we can. It is terrible, we had to lock everything down so that family cannot visit inside of the building unless the resident is dying. It is tough.
Our original plan was to not take new admits, but the State has, of course, altered this plan. If COVID does enter the building, all of the residents will lose their lives, it is terrifying! Since the hospitals want as many open beds as possible, they have utilized us by moving patients into our rehab center. We currently have it locked down the best we can and are treating it as a COVID Unit, but we aren't specialized in this area.
My wife is also working hard, she is a nurse on the frontline whose job it is to collect plasma, and she cannot stop during this crisis and must deal with donors who sell their plasma for a bit of cash. Her company is working on creating a vaccine.
One of my children is working as a clerk in the local grocery store and gets to deal with people as well.
Maybe more later, it is already time to leave for work. Please take care of yourselves.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 16, 2020 12:44:27 GMT -5
Wow! ripx187 that is intense. I will pray and be praying for you and your family and those you care for. |
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Post by simrion on Apr 16, 2020 14:08:48 GMT -5
Prayers, positive thoughts and keep as safe as humanly possible.
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Post by ripx187 on Apr 17, 2020 15:43:16 GMT -5
I have years of experience working in facilities such as this, the nations most vulnerable. I have worked in some very bad places which were understaffed and my coworkers over worked. I have seen abuse in all of its forms, but I don't think that I've ever dealt with anything quite this sad before. It feels like our residents are in prison, that their rooms are their cells. Loneliness, boredom, isolation, lack of exercise. These things are taking a toll on our elderly. I know that as a team, we are doing the very best that we can to aid them but since it all has to be one-on-one and we are so out numbered, this task is impossible. All we can do is put on brave smiles, give our compassion, and work much harder than we are getting paid for.
We don't have enough supplies. We all have to wear masks, but there aren't enough to go around so we have to keep our masks as clean as we can for a week. A lot of sewers got together and together they were able to make us over a thousand masks just this week! That allowed us to give all of our residents one as well so that we can get them out of their room. Yes, it has problems. It is more of a feel good measurement, the weave on the cloth is probably to large to stop the virus from getting through, and many of the residence don't have their noses covered, which is important. Wearing those things takes practice; I can finally go all day without having to take mine off and still do the labor without blowing up.
Outside of our nursing home the government has put up a huge tent in one of our parking lots. It is empty right now, but I assume that it will be used as a testing site. If this pandemic has taught me anything, it is that capitalisms is an evil system. As it stands, testing kits are in short supply and I want to say that the cost to those being tested is at least $250, but as usually the hospitals can just charge what they want. In order for this to work, these tests need to be both accurate and free, which isn't going to happen. The healthcare in the USA is and always has been appalling. The things that the hospitals get away with are illegal, the pharmaceutical companies . . . don't even get me started on them. These are the monsters who are making a buck on all of this. Last year featured a common story of a man waking up from a heart attack to find out that his wife had spent all of their retirement savings on him. I really hope that this will change the status quo and give us a better system, the virus went after the workers, the people whose blood keeps our society running. Many of the folks who were hospitalized are never going to make enough money to pay the bill. Paying the bills right now is a scary subject. As a gamesmen I can see the value of our bills collapsing. Our government is in deep. They spent too much time trying to tell us what we can and can't do, which isn't their job, and when it came time to get us through a real crisis that justified the funds that we have given these people, they fell on their face.
I have always believed that a government should live it fear of the people, but this is not what we have and it shows. Ego maniacs who still refuse to work with each other. Again, this way of life cannot sustain itself. The government must be held accountable for their failings, they will not be, but they need to be. The possibly that we are witnessing the death of a world power is a very good possibility. We are headed into some very very dark times.
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Post by ripx187 on Apr 17, 2020 17:17:51 GMT -5
Sorry for my rage. It is hard not to be mad. I would like to give you some tips on what you can do at home and expose some misconceptions that we have in regards to many products.
Washing your hands is your best defense. You want to use cool or warm water, not hot. Keeping your skin intact is important! Hot water causes small burns and dries your hands out which causes little cuts that viruses can use to get inside. Wash your hands vigorously for 20 seconds. Count it in your head. You also want to rinse your hands for 10 seconds, if you are using that anti-bacterial soap you've got to rinse pretty vigorously as well to get that crap off of your hands it can cause irritation and dryness, which will expose you to everything that you touch; and we touch everything. If you are washing your hands in a public area, don't touch the faucet with your hands, use a paper towel to turn it on and off, and for gods sack, don't touch the part of the towel that contacted the faucet, everything that you washed off of your hands will be right back on there.
Speaking of handwashing, Purel and other hand-sanitizers are a joke. What kills the bacteria on your hands isn't the chemical, it is the friction. Purel also dries your hands out and leads to cracking of the skin.
At home, you are fine; but going out in public places you at risk. Viruses aren't magic, they need an entry to get you. These entry places are broken skin including burns, acne, and all cuts. You'll want to cover these. Other entry sites are your mouth and nose, with the nose being the biggest culprit. Cover your mouth and nose with a mask and leave it covered. C19 is airborne and can float as a mist for some time before it reaches the floor. 6 feet is how far it can get away from you if you cough or talk, sneezes extends this radius considerably. DO NOT SNEEZE WITHOUT COVERING IT! Another entry site is your eyes. Unless you are working in close contact with somebody you probably don't need to worry about this one, just try not to touch your eyes.
In regards to your environment, sterile environments are actually more harmful to us than you think. We need to keep challenging our immune systems, the cleaner our environment the more likely it will be that we will get sick. There are surfaces that you want to focus on, countertops and tables are a big one, your floor is covered with nasty things that you can't see, which is fine. We don't prepare food on the floor. Chemical cleaners like to say that they kill 99.9% of germs, and they do! But, you have to know what you are doing to get it to do that. Chemical cleaners aren't magic. You can't just spray it, wipe a couple of times and kill all of those germs, it takes a bit.
Clean the area first, wipe off bits of food and hair into the trash and then spray the cleaner. Just like the hand sanitizer, it isn't the chemical that cleans it is you. Wipe that stuff down! Friction is going to get it done, and once it is visibly clean we are going to dry it off with a paper towel and spray it with the chemical cleaner again. You really should get the readers out and read the label, but typically we need to keep this surface wet for 10 minutes, the chemical is going to burn up the 99.9%, if it dries before the 10 minutes is up then it didn't work, you might have to spray it again depending on how dry your house is. After it's been allowed to sit there, then we can dry it with a clean paper towel. The area is sanitized until it is touched again, so do this before fixing dinner and after you are done. Don't forget to wash the chemical off of your hands because those cleaners are having a reaction on your skin.
Disinfect things that you and your family share. Things like TV remotes, telephones, cupboard knobs, handrails, door handles, everything that you can think of. Clean them first, dry them and then spray it again and let it dry on its own. You could go insane doing this, but doing it once or twice a day should be good enough. You do want to share this stuff with your family, you are a herd and all of the fun stuff that the 8-year-old brings home from school will increase your immune health. I don't know if you realize this or not, but kids always get sick the first month after returning to school after summer vacation. During the summer we choose our herds, so once they do go back into a public environment they get exposed to new stuff. We've been sterilizing and quarantining ourselves for at least a month now, your immune system is going to be compromised from that, and vulnerable. PLEASE BE CAREFUL!
Oh, yeah. Don't disinfect your computer with liquid cleaners, it will fry them. Liquid and our only door out of our cells don't mix. There are special cleaners for electronics, but I don't think that we can safely sanitize laptops properly so don't let strangers use your computer.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2020 23:49:58 GMT -5
I have years of experience working in facilities such as this, the nations most vulnerable. I have worked in some very bad places which were understaffed and my coworkers over worked. I have seen abuse in all of its forms, but I don't think that I've ever dealt with anything quite this sad before. It feels like our residents are in prison, that their rooms are their cells. Loneliness, boredom, isolation, lack of exercise. These things are taking a toll on our elderly. I know that as a team, we are doing the very best that we can to aid them but since it all has to be one-on-one and we are so out numbered, this task is impossible. All we can do is put on brave smiles, give our compassion, and work much harder than we are getting paid for. We don't have enough supplies. We all have to wear masks, but there aren't enough to go around so we have to keep our masks as clean as we can for a week. A lot of sewers got together and together they were able to make us over a thousand masks just this week! That allowed us to give all of our residents one as well so that we can get them out of their room. Yes, it has problems. It is more of a feel good measurement, the weave on the cloth is probably to large to stop the virus from getting through, and many of the residence don't have their noses covered, which is important. Wearing those things takes practice; I can finally go all day without having to take mine off and still do the labor without blowing up. Thank you and those like you for the work you do. My aunt is 37 days away from being 99 years old and she is in a nursing home and stopped being able to walk last fall. My sister who lives there, goes and stands outside the window and talks to her on the phone. She did not like no longer being able to take care of herself and she is still pretty sharp, so she is getting cabin fever. At least she understands why it has to be done. She always watches the news. I think there is going to be a new standard for what adequate stocks of medical supplies means. |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 18, 2020 0:17:15 GMT -5
That was very informative. No place you have ever eaten in public has ever cleaned the tables like described. How many of us have had our plate placed on the table by someone who was probably sick. Wow!
On the other hand I have an 80-90 pound house dog and I garden. I also struggle at housework so it is not super-sanitized. So maybe that is not such a bad thing after all.
Seriously, that was pretty eye opening.
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Post by mao on Apr 18, 2020 6:05:21 GMT -5
ripx187 My wife prob has the virus and she got a false negative, she works in a hospital and has similar problems,. So I know what you are feeling. God bless'
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Post by ripx187 on Apr 18, 2020 11:40:23 GMT -5
ripx187 My wife prob has the virus and she got a false negative, she works in a hospital and has similar problems,. So I know what you are feeling. God bless' It's like bugs. Somebody mentions bugs and we feel them crawling on us. It's just such a scary thing. The Mrs. and I both have a feeling that we got it early in the year. She had to go to the ER for meds, I went to the Doctor's office. It was a cold with lots of coughing and sneezing and it wasn't over in the normal 1-2 week period. After 3 weeks with no change I finally bit the bullet and went to the doctor and it still took a month before all of the symptoms went away. Did I catch a bad cold, was it the flu? I don't know. Going to work in such a delicate environment, you are terrified and paranoid all the time. What is a minor inconvenience to me will be deadly to somebody else. It's like the enemy within. The funny thing is that my current game was a global pandemic as the campaign theme which I was designing since last year. I have no interest in running that now lol. |
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Post by ripx187 on Apr 18, 2020 11:51:08 GMT -5
That was very informative. No place you have ever eaten in public has ever cleaned the tables like described. How many of us have had our plate placed on the table by someone who was probably sick. Wow! On the other hand I have an 80-90 pound house dog and I garden. I also struggle at housework so it is not super-sanitized. So maybe that is not such a bad thing after all. Seriously, that was pretty eye opening. The stuff that they use to clean tables is way more powerful and expensive than normal chemicals are. Not to say that they don't take shortcuts, but they usually do use leave the table wet after they're done bussing it, that is why. Also, animals and gardening are perfect ways to keep a strong immune system. Kids in the country who are covered in filth all day are healthier than city kids who live in cleaner environments. |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 19, 2020 2:09:41 GMT -5
I grew up on a farm and from about 12 or 13 until I broke my leg at 28, I had rarely even a cold during that time, but when I broke my leg I had been entirely off the farm for quite while living in the city. I got sick a lot for about 3 years after breaking my leg. Although over the years I was usually working with livestock anytime I went to visit family.
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Post by landbeyondbeyond on Apr 22, 2020 3:09:06 GMT -5
That all sounds so tough. But without you guys in healthcare doing all that you, across the globe, we'd all be so much worse off. Thank you.
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Post by El Borak on May 2, 2020 4:14:10 GMT -5
That all sounds so tough. But without you guys in healthcare doing all that you, across the globe, we'd all be so much worse off. Thank you. Cool avatar landbeyondbeyond. |
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Post by El Borak on May 2, 2020 4:14:53 GMT -5
ripx187 how are you doing, how are things going with work and with life in general?
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Post by ripx187 on Mar 19, 2021 8:30:28 GMT -5
It has been a long time since updating. COVID did get in the building and we dealt with it. I kind of think that the loneliness and paranoia is in some ways worse. I have a funeral to go to today so I can't spend much time here. My family here has been safe, we had nobody get sick. I've started and restarted this post many times now, and I keep deleting them. I can write up a more detailed post later . . . maybe. Things are very sad but they are getting better.
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Post by hengest on Mar 19, 2021 10:16:56 GMT -5
It has been a long time since updating. COVID did get in the building and we dealt with it. I kind of think that the loneliness and paranoia is in some ways worse. I have a funeral to go to today so I can't spend much time here. My family here has been safe, we had nobody get sick. I've started and restarted this post many times now, and I keep deleting them. I can write up a more detailed post later . . . maybe. Things are very sad but they are getting better. Stay safe, and we'll be glad to hear from you again when you have time. |
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Post by mao on Mar 19, 2021 10:57:00 GMT -5
It has been a long time since updating. COVID did get in the building and we dealt with it. I kind of think that the loneliness and paranoia is in some ways worse. I have a funeral to go to today so I can't spend much time here. My family here has been safe, we had nobody get sick. I've started and restarted this post many times now, and I keep deleting them. I can write up a more detailed post later . . . maybe. Things are very sad but they are getting better. We al need a bunch of prayer, what is your first name so I can better pray for you? |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Mar 19, 2021 18:05:53 GMT -5
It has been a long time since updating. COVID did get in the building and we dealt with it. I kind of think that the loneliness and paranoia is in some ways worse. I have a funeral to go to today so I can't spend much time here. My family here has been safe, we had nobody get sick. I've started and restarted this post many times now, and I keep deleting them. I can write up a more detailed post later . . . maybe. Things are very sad but they are getting better. We al need a bunch of prayer, what is your first name so I can better pray for you? How about we just pray for him, God knows who he is. If he wants to give us his name he will, but lets not make that a requirement for anyone on here. |
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Post by ripx187 on Mar 20, 2021 12:08:19 GMT -5
Things are better than what they were; because we had been infected and took covid patients from the hospital to give them more room to work, we were the first in town to get the vaccine. We have opened up a bit, but the psychological trauma of isolation has had its toll. Now that the residents can come out of their rooms, they don't want to. Staff is not immune to this, because we have isolated ourselves too so that we don't bring anything into the building. I go to work and I go home. I have started venturing out a bit, going back to restaurants and finding ways to visit with friends. I've always had social anxiety but right now, it is over the top. This is just reality right now.
At work, we always have a lot of turn around; this is a hard job! But replacing the people who have quit is difficult because human resources has to follow strict guidelines about the size of orientation and the flow of people coming into the building. We can't hire people fast enough and all departments are suffering with unrealistic workloads. The amount of work that I'm doing is pretty crazy, and since the state isn't helping us pay for PPE, the county is demanding that we all test twice a week but aren't paying for the tests, this all comes out of our budgets and there isn't enough money for us everyone to work the overtime necessary to get all of our work done. It's frustrating and sad.
I try to get out of there when my 8 hours is up, but this rarely happens. I give almost everything that I have to work and trying to make it a nice place to live, but it is labor. When I am at home I spend time with my wife and kids or play videogames just to focus on something else for a while. My online presence is pretty limited, I log on in the morning while I am waking up. I check the MeWe group, play a game of sudoku, look for art on Pintrest and post it to the MeWe group. I try to think of something short to write about to stimulate conversation, but it isn't much. I check it again once I get home just to see if I need to delete anything, and that is it.
I do pop into this BBS, but not as often as I should.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Mar 20, 2021 21:10:24 GMT -5
"Snip" I try to get out of there when my 8 hours is up, but this rarely happens. I give almost everything that I have to work and trying to make it a nice place to live, but it is labor. When I am at home I spend time with my wife and kids or play videogames just to focus on something else for a while. My online presence is pretty limited, I log on in the morning while I am waking up. I check the MeWe group, play a game of sudoku, look for art on Pintrest and post it to the MeWe group. I try to think of something short to write about to stimulate conversation, but it isn't much. I check it again once I get home just to see if I need to delete anything, and that is it. I do pop into this BBS, but not as often as I should. All of the people doing jobs like you do are heroes and you deserve to unwind as best you can. Wish you had the funding and staff that you need. Funding priorities boggle the mind sometimes, oftentimes to be sure. You pop in this BBS when you can and we are always glad to see you when you do. Hopefully there will come a time when you have more time. I think I asked you, but can we re-post your MeWe stuff here? Oh, you are at 996 posts, four more and you join the 1000 post club. Why don't you pick one of your best MeWe posts here for your 1000th post? No rush! Really glad to have an update of where things are at for you. Hang in there and we are praying for you! |
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