COVID19 life Parenting

Day 25: A Lighter Week

April 9, 2020

This week has been relatively calm, work-wise. I haven’t had much telemedicine. I am not covering call. It has given me the chance to a) sleep a lot and b) catch on administrative GME things. Next week will be filled with a lot more patient care (both via video & in the hospital) but at least other things should be (mostly) under control by then!

Current shape of the day:

Write post & work out

Do some work (admin or tele patients)

Help kids with school

Do some more work (go to hospital if needed & come back to do notes/etc)

Lunch with kids

Do some more work; take walk outside if possible between meetings or tele patients

Wrap up around 5:30 pm

Dinner around 6 pm

Kids watch show or we take a family walk around 7 pm

Kids bedtime ~8:30 pm

Hang out with Josh, watch show or read

Last night was Passover. Since having children, the entire Passover experience has been a fragmented one for me (chasing kids around while civilized conversations mostly just happen around me) so . . . I didn’t really feel like I was missing much!

Josh did a very nice job retelling the Passover story to the kids (in regular language not flowery seder-style) and they did the traditional hunt for the Afikomen (matzah that gets hidden — though I think some people have the kids do the hiding & the parents find it!).

It’s weird. I feel much calmer than I have in quite some time, even though I am on call next week and the hospital is preparing for a surge. I guess I am settling in. I also have in my mind that this is going to last until mid-June and then be mostly over. I hope that ends up being true.

5 Comments

  • Reply Worry April 9, 2020 at 3:51 pm

    Thank you for your daily posts. Helps a lot.
    I fear you are super optimistic about the June idea. I do not see anything that implies we have found really good tests for antibodies to the virus nor that we are anywhere near the capacity for widely testing for active carriers of the virus. Where I live we have currently tested 6300 people in a county of 1,160,000+ people and testing is still limited to ONLY people showing acute symptoms and some active first responders and medical front liners are still not able to be tested.
    I am not a doc but that doesn’t bode well in my opinion.
    I am old enough to remember when we finally had sugar cube anti-polio vaccines available and distributed them widely but that took A LOT of time and could be done in an oral dose …. the lines to get flu vaccines in my area each fall are long and there are still shortfalls in supplies.
    This will need to be MUCH more widely and easily available than normal flu vaccines and we will need way more available to be taken AFTER testing for antibodies across the vast majority of the population, because we need to know who does NOT need a vaccine first I would think.
    MAYBE we will see a reduction in cases and deaths by June but the issue and need for social distancing and isolating …. well. I am not hopeful. AND, OH MY, I HOPE I AM WRONG. Would love to hear why I am wrong!!!!!!
    Please keep writing and please both you & husband and all your readers: Stay careful and healthy!

    • Reply Sarah Hart-Unger April 9, 2020 at 4:34 pm

      All very good points. I only based June on the expected peaks data I have seen. And it is certainly more of a hope than an actual guess 🙂

  • Reply Bathwater April 9, 2020 at 4:00 pm

    You are lucky to get so much outdoor time . Yesterday it was beautiful outside and I stopped working early to spend about two hours outside walking biking. Today I am watching it hail and it is 39 degrees.

    • Reply Sarah Hart-Unger April 9, 2020 at 5:08 pm

      Aghghg that is so tough! I’m sorry! We have been lucky so far but we are also headed into hurricane season soon. Blah!

  • Reply Laura April 9, 2020 at 4:05 pm

    Thanks to your habit tracker idea, I’ve been journaling during this time! It’s helped so much seeing that there are some days I feel anxious and out of sorts and other days much calmer! Like you, I feel way calmer today despite all the unknowns and stresses coming up. It’s so interesting to follow along with you and Laura to see how two unique planners are dealing with this unusual time. I think the habit tracker and using planning tendencies to focus on the known and the present has been so helpful!! Thanks for the daily posts!

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