Today felt a little different.

It isn’t like there were fewer patients who were sick on my service, in fact there were close to a record number.

But it felt different.

It didn’t feel like we were being overrun, like we would drown in a sea of Covid patients. There were a lot of them, old folks coming in and quickly dying, younger folks coming in and lingering with fevers and shortness of breath, and younger people – wide eyed and frightened as we walked around them in hazmat suits and unavoidably stand away from them as they cough and puff for air praying they wouldn’t end up like that guy over there on a ventilator.

I think it has to do with knowing what to do, what to expect. Sure, we’re making it up as we go along, but hell, so is Fauci and the NIH. it’s just that we’re doing pure battle against a foe that we now know a little about, we see some patterns emerging and feel we have some idea how the bastard operates.

We are all still scared out of our minds, but we have a plan and as long as you have a plan you can do anything.

Morale is surprisingly good on the inside. Where a year ago, there was education done to “teach everyone to be nice”, the staff bends over backwards to be kind, informative, and loving to patients and their families. The families, in turn, are the most grateful I’ve seen in over thirty years. Where in the past no one acknowledged each other in the halls or pretended to look at their phones, we’re all looking into each other’s eyes (all we can see with the masks on) as we pass each other in the halls, saying each other’s names aloud almost like an acknowledgment that we are still together, still ok, still alive.

I will praise our Hospital Administration (not something that folks often do), as throughout this catastrophe they have been transparent , communicative, and responsive. Most of all, they were THERE with us. It is easier to forgive silly oversights when we all realize that we are all just trying to get something right that has never needed to be done before.

Finally for today, I want to thank Chris Brennan MD for gifting me a Tyvex “bunny suit”. Our team (Palliative Care) usually spends enormous amounts of time with our patients, holding hands, talking, and being present to them In this time of patient and staff isolation families ask us to be with their dying relatives, but we can’t. There are only four of us for the whole hospital and that would mean long term exposure to Covid patients with only the barest minimum PPE. So we use what PPE we have and run in and run out. This suit will allow me to sit with our sickest patients and witness their struggles with them. Thanks Chris.