I have never known March to last so long….

In so many different ways……

It is hard to look back a month and see any chance that in one month we (the world) would be all staying home. I also never thought a month ago that the first of April would come along and I would still need knee high boots to get to my compost. THIS IS MY garlic field. Everyone else’s garlic is already up.

We are pretty thrilled to be up on the property, FINALLY HOME SUITE HOME….. 5 months since we left the place. Can you believe all that snow? My Dad who lives 200 miles north of here said the other day “you guys should move up here, we do not have any snow”. We finally got enough snow moved that we could get all the way up here with the motorhome.

Someone else is pretty happy too…. This is how Tucker LOVES to sit, with his butt on a stair above, and great way to watch the world go by.

Such an exhausting job…..

So I am working from home, and this is my office. The plan is that all doctors will deal with calls about their own patients in the nursing homes… and then if someone absolutely needs to be seen by a doctor, we have designated different doctors to each facility. I am currently covering for another doctor who manages the “pathways to home” program. To my American friends, it is pretty much the same as Skilled Nursing facilities. SO I am the designated doctor for Ponderosa. So I guess I am not really on the front line. I have been going in once a week. Overlander is the facility I am director at, but someone else will be designated there while I am at Ponderosa.

My heart really goes out to the nurses in the care facilities, who have to dress, change, toilet, feed, and put these patients to bed. I had a patient this past week whom I was quite worried about with regards to Covid, and although I had my good old N95 mask from Canadian tire, they had nothing to protect them. We are getting word that supplies will be coming to Long term care facilities this next week, but it is sad how long it has taken. Fortunately that person did not have covid.

I am not as thrilled with the ministry of health and the Chief medical officer, as everyone else is…..to me, the nurses are the real heroes, caring for all of these people in nursing homes (Long Term Care facilities) at a very scary time. I wish they would have put a greater priority on protecting the nursing homes (and thus the staff), earlier.

SORRY for the rant, but if you know someone working in long term care, please give them a thank you.

There is talk that the supply chain might be interrupted and food that we are “used to” being able to get from Mexico, will not be coming for a whole variety of reasons. So I think it behooves (is that really a word??, spell check accepted it) us all to grow something, grow anything, grow lots…. because who knows what will be going on come summer. So Janet, what do we have here????

WELL….. WE have artichokes, and a variety of peppers… but today… I have started Tomatoes. LOTS of tomatoes…

But still no garlic …. well except… in the big black plastic compost bin. But these might be onions….. from last year…

But no sign of garlic here

Watching for snow to melt, I guess is like watching paint dry… only it takes MUCH longer.

Also watching charts, Covid charts… New case rates, Death rates, rates per million population…. watching them go up, and up. I keep thinking that Canada is dropping a bit… but then today new cases when up a lot.

Well here we are and just sitting at home, doing nothing, seems to be the very best thing to do despite everything we have been conditioned for our whole lives. Get out, be active etc etc etc. Suddenly I have to tell myself not to feel guilty for doing nothing. There is still 2 feet of snow, but since it has gotten warmer, we can no longer walk on top of the snow without snowshoes.

I listened to a show on NPR this afternoon and cannot overstate how very lucky I feel. They were talking about the situation in India, right now. The most populated country on earth, but a country with nowheres near the wealth that a country like China has. It is totally frightening to think of all of those who will die of this.

I think that people need to take a time like this and have discussions with loved ones about whether they would want to have CPR, and more importantly whether they would want to be intubated and put on a ventilator. Very few people have had these discussions with older loved ones, but it is more important than ever right now.

The thing about this virus, is that when normally we can provide help with breathing with Bipap ,(which is not invasive) … if a patient comes in with the symptoms of Covid and their breathing is getting difficult, and they are not oxygenating…. the doctors have no choice but to intubate and put someone on a ventilator, unless you have made it clear to your family that that is not what you would have wanted. Bipap is not being used, during pandemic because it aerosolized the virus, spreading it to others. So the only option now is to put a person with breathing difficulties into ICU on a ventilator. These are very important discussions to have now, before you are faced with a harder decision. So for right now, if a person comes in the COVID and their breathing becomes difficult and they have never told anyone what their wishes would be, and their substitute decision maker does not know their wishes, they will be put onto a ventilator for who knows how long. (This is despite age, other diseases, or prognosis of other diseases)

We are really enjoying it out here but missing baby Talon…… As you can see, just 30 miles away.. NO SNOW.

We are expecting a cold spell for the next several days, so ken is putting the “tin foil” around the windows……which I hate, but keeps the warmth in on cold nights. This is where Tucker sleeps ….. when he sleeps indoors…