#shes also an anti masker working at a nursing home | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

skippyv20 · 4 years

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I would like to request a prayer for all essential employees working in the hotspot areas of the US. I am also asking for special prayers for the healthcare workers in the hotspots. My daughter is an ICU nurse in a hotspot tourist town. The hospitals are quckily becoming overwhelmed but the tourists keep pouring in. Where she works the ICU unit is full, 90% of those patients are on ventilators and every day they have 3 to 4 patients in the ER on vents waiting for an ICU bed. Sadly, at least one or two ICU beds have become open every day for the last week due to a patient losing their battle with Covid. All the hospitals in the tourist towns in my state now require ICU nurses to work mandatory overtime - and before Covid their nurse to patient ratio for a patient on a ventilator was 1-1. Now they are assigned two to three patients on ventilators or three to four patients on BiPaps and they work hard providing the best care they can. Far too often they have worked tirelessly with a patient towards being removed from the ventilator only for Covid to suddenly overwhelm their system and the patient is fighting for their life. Every shift she worked last week at least one patient lost their battle with Covid - one day they lost 3 patients. Elderly or middle aged - young, athletic and very healthy - Covid does not care - it attacks and kills from all races, gender, economic status, age and health status.

The National Guard has been requested to send medical personnel to 6 counties in my state to help the hospitals that are overwhelmed. My daughter and the nurses she works with strip out of their work clothes in their cars or garages - wrap a towel around them and step into the shower with the towel and scrub themselves clean before touching anything or anyone in their house. They worry about infecting their loved ones and becoming infected themselves. The emotional toll of losing so many patients from Covid is enourmous - they are fighting an enemy they cannot see and too many people refuse to wear a mask or social distance to slow down the spread of Covid - it is insanity to the highest degree.

I am so furious with the anti-maskers , fake news - fake numbers and conspiracy believers that post non-stop on Facebook Covid reports. I am furious with my governor for opening up the state before we met any of the CDC recommendations, for not issuing a mandatory statewide mask requirement and for pushing to open up our schools in the fall. The percent of tests positive in my state has averaged 20 % for the last week and my governor’s solution to bring down the numbers was to ban alcohol sells in bars and restaurants after 11 p.m. - as if only drinking water or a soft drink gives one immunity from Covid. 🤬

I know people are tired of hearing about Covid but I hope they do not forget to keep the healthcare workers in their prayers. And wear a mask when out in public ! 🙏❤️

Great post! I’m so sorry you are all going through this madness. I think it is so sad, that people aren’t stopping to think of the people behind the scenes. The fear these nurses have for their loved ones, their patients...and themselves. The fact there are these people out there screaming this is all a hoax...and two people that said that, have died from Covid-19. I think that says it all. God has ways to get his message out. We are not being responsible for each other. That is what the sad truth is. You don’t care about wearing a mask...don’t! Stay home! You go out in public, wear the mask! How hard is that? We don’t want to live in fear, we have a solution...wear the mask. I think it is also sad how quickly people are forgetting all the healthcare workers, still facing what they are facing. Exhaustion....fear! What about them? We should keep them all in our prayers. We should be persistent in praying for the end of the coronavirus. We should be worried about each other. I’m so sorry you are all going through this. Prayers on the way...🙏🏻❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

#Ask Skippy #submission

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larrykrakow · 3 years

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2020: A Year Of Turmoil And Struggle

New Post has been published on https://theprogressivemind.org/2020-a-year-of-turmoil-and-struggle/

2020: A Year Of Turmoil And Struggle

For some of us, 2020 was worse than it was for others. We faced one of the worst health crises in our history and it still rages on today as people start receiving vaccinations. It also represented the worst of our cultural divide, something extremely troubling to someone like myself. I was always proud of my simple life without having a need for extravagant attire or fancy cars. I can find happiness within myself and with my wife, but this year was different. The events of 2020 were bound to hit all of us no matter how immune or isolated from the danger that we felt we were.

The 2020 clock could not run out soon enough.

In my personal life, I started out by suffering from a nearly deadly case of Covid19. My 96-year-old grandmother succumbed in a nursing home to the disease and my father passed away from cancer. In many ways, this year seemed to find ways to slap all of us in the face, but it also highlights our resilience as a species. It was quite tough when my wife had to watch me pass out in our bathroom. That was the moment of fear for her, all alone in our house during a quarantine period. Had I not pulled through, she would have been left all alone in an apartment with all of my personal effects. Just imagining how tough it would have been on her is something I cannot quantify.

2020 was a tough year for many of us. Although we can highlight many ills of our political dysfunction, we have to be mindful of personal stories. Pictured here are my parents, my wife, my in-laws, my sister, and my nephew. Unfortunately for us, there is now an empty chair. It would have been nice for many families to have the ability to say goodbye to family members as their end came near.

When my grandmother passed, it was just a disappointment, but by that point, she had lived a long and fulfilling life. In a way, it is better that she went first because my father who also happened to be her oldest son was nearing the end. No parent should ever have to hear of the death of one of their children, no matter how old.

When my father was nearing the end, it was tough to be able to come and see him. The pandemic stoked a lot of fear even though I had already been through it. In the final year of his life, I saw him on three separate days. The final one would be in November as cancer was eating him from within. He had a lot of pride and did not want to be seen in his condition. When he was told by his doctors that there was no further treatment that could have saved him, he had told my mother that he would have liked to see my wife and me. Sadly, about an hour after saying that to my mother, he had severe pain and had to be rushed to the hospital. He was put on heavy-duty medications that knocked him out and he never woke again. Although 2020 was near the end, it continued to ravage the Krakow family.

This was the year of turmoil.

With every passing day, we would become more and more numb to the suffering of others. It was as if it was expected. Nobody had the will or desire to change the system that caused so much pain. As my personal life went on and life in the world went on, it was easy to draw a parallel. It was easy to feel that a terrible curse had been cast upon us.

There was no Thanksgiving, something that had occurred in my family since before I had even become a thought. In retrospect, we all know that we could have controlled this pandemic if everyone in the country had agreed to wear a mask for a few months. It would have meant that even if my mother did not cook dinner on Thanksgiving, we could have all met and had one more time with my ailing father. In a way, I feel that the anti-maskers robbed us of our final days.

2020 was built on history.

Sure, I had an abrasive father that was tough to handle at times, but he always came through for us and I believe that he loved all of us in his own way. As he grew older, I felt that we grew closer, especially after introducing my soon to be wife. Going back over five years now, I was in a hospital bed with my then-girlfriend at my side. I had a major illness that had taken over 20 pounds off of my thin frame. My parents came down for a visit. I think at that moment, my relationship with my father had changed for the positive in a way that I could never comprehend.

Now, only to find out that the final year of deterioration for my father was upon us, we also faced the politics of hate and division that created circumstances for us to be apart. In fact, my wife and I from the time we got together until the start of the pandemic would take a drive up to visit my parents a few times every year. I was particularly taken by the fact that my wife and father would be able to sit and talk for quite some time.

Politics impact our lives.

Now that we lost much of that time towards the end, I realized that the divisions in America have put us in this position. The politicization of masks and shutdowns took away the last few chances my father had to see his only son. It took away the ability for my wife and me to come and spend a day with people that had been with me all of my life. Our society is infected with a lack of trust in the basic things that sustain us and a view that anyone asking for a little bit of self-sacrifice is oppressive. Is it really oppressive to wear a mask when thumbing through merchandise at Walmart? Is it really oppressive to be asked to eat at home? Is it oppressive to be asked to do takeout for a few months? I think that would have given people like me more of a chance to enjoy the things that are important in life.

Our politics are denying us basic things in life, the basics of seeing people in our families. Our politics are denying us access to the treasures of our country. We have been so divided up along racial and cultural lines that we are unable to process how bad things have gotten for us on the ground. In the waning days of my father’s life, we all were asking people to wear masks including in the butcher shop where I work. We asked people to be ready for the vaccine yet some nut jobs believe that the government will use the vaccine as an excuse to implant some tracking chip.

To me, put it plain and simple, masks, vaccines, and shutdowns are measures that we as the most advanced species on Earth have at our disposal to make sure that we live on. They are not something that should be used by any politician. In fact, I believe that many Republican governors are responsible for the virus resurging in my state. My wife and I had to forego seeing my father in his dying days. We had to forego seeing close friends for way too long.

Who is to blame for making 2020 tougher than needed?

We have to stop for one second and think if it is the people that hold twisted views of our world. I don’t like to blame the so-called deplorables. They are not the leaders of our society. They are the working-class stiffs who hold values that were taught over generations. As their children become more educated and in tune with technology, they will start to dwindle in numbers. Society has a way of fixing long-term problems. It may never completely be fixed, but it will get better. There will be more mixed families and hopefully more educational opportunities. Maybe there will eventually be a greater appreciation of what is important because we live finite lives. Whatever we leave behind as we pass will be our own choosing. Hopefully, this pandemic has taught us some lessons.

I would like to close this post with a request. I want to help any of you bring healing to yourselves. Please share your story in the Facebook Comments section below. This is where you are allowed to vent your feelings. Your struggle matters.

#2020

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