#Were you there Steve to set up Ipad zoom calls at literally any time of day or night so families and patients could see each other maybe for

[redrobin-detective]

Do not tell me I don’t have to wear a mask in public anymore. Do not tell it’s “safe” now or that the CDC says this or that. Do not look at me, with my mask on of my own volition and tell me it’s okay because it wasn’t and still isn’t okay. 

It wasn’t okay when my hospital was bursting to the brim and I was working 4/5 shifts a week just so we could stay afloat. It wasn’t okay when I watched people die, suffocating, crying, in pain and then simply had to move onto the next patient and hope I could save this one. It wasn’t okay when I’m using google translate in between times in the unit to look up the phrases “I’m here” “this is your medicine, it will help you” “just stay calm it’s okay” to my non-english speaking patients even though I knew it was all a lie. It wasn’t okay when I’d sometimes want to rip off all my PPE because the gloves and gown and PAPR hood was the last thing my dying patient would see and feel and it was bad enough they were dying but to die alone in a sterile bubble with latex and plastic between you and human skin.

Things are better now, we have a vaccine, we have down trending numbers (in some areas) but do NOT smile and patronize me and tell me I’m being silly for wearing a mask when I saw first fucking hand how absolutely devastating this disease was. 

#covid19 #ding dong I still have covid trauma #my block is having a 4th party and I was the only one in a mask #and all the middle age housewives and husbands are smiling pitiyingly at me #my mom is loudly proclaiming i'm "just being crazy' for still wearing a mask out #I'm fucking sorry Karen how many people did YOU have die in your arms #Pam did you sleep on the couch in the resident's lounge in between shifts bc you were so damned exhausted #Marty did you have people gripping at your gown scared and alone and you know you will be the last person he sees #Were you there Steve to set up Ipad zoom calls at literally any time of day or night so families and patients could see each other maybe for #the last time #fuck you and your white fucking privelage #you who got to work from home and call the pandemic a Vacation #i was on the front lines and I saw fucking everyone young old black white rich poor just be devastated #so I'll wear my mask as long as I damn well please