Pandemic Parables: Behind the Scenes

Pandemic Parables: Behind the Scenes
Thursday June 11th 2020

I have been discovering things that have been going on behind the scenes in the hospital in Frederick, where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August.

One was in the bowels of the basement. 

Let me explain. 

At Christmas the chaplains acquired an electric tea kettle. We weren’t allowed to have one before and I was never able to discover why. The answer was way above my pay grade. 

But the previous banning made the gaining a delicious thrill. 

I travel with an kettle in the trunk of my car and use it frequently when I am on the road at Storytelling festivals and the like. 

An English woman hates to be caught short when it comes to a boiling hot cuppa. 

As I use a kettle incessantly I was happy to be the one in charge of filling up our new prize. 

This turned out to be a more difficult task than I expected. 

I couldn’t find an ordinary spigot anywhere. 

The water in the taps in the restrooms only comes out when you wave your hand in front of a magic spot and only lasts for short spurt - which is not conducive to kettle filling. 

There is a wall contraption to replenish drinking bottles with filtered water, which is a couple of football fields away near the front lobby. 

And there was a regular bend over and slurp water fountain near the Chaplain’s office with a high arc of a jet. 

Aha! The answer!

I discovered the best way to capture this water was with my old, tall, blue, plastic jug with a lid. 

Stay with me folks!

All went well for a time. I regularly and happily trotted out to fill the jug until one day I realized that the water wasn’t clear, it was decidedly murky. 

Algae looking murky. 

Green round the gills. 

How long had it been like that and I hadn’t noticed?

Had I poisoned the chaplains?

Had boiling the water been enough to stave off premature death?

I scrubbed out the jug. 

From then on I made the trek to the front lobby frequently, armed with my trusty blue container. 

My Fitbit daily registered 10,000 steps in no time. 

Then construction started and the passage with the abandoned fountain was a no go area for everyone until a few days ago. 

Now groups of people are wandering around admiring the changes. 

I suddenly realized I should save future fountain drinkers from inadvertent disaster and inform maintenance of their possible impending doom. 

I headed for the basement and the works-op office, took a wrong turn in the labyrinthine maze below, and got lost. 

Very lost. 

And I had no breadcrumbs with me. 

I passed by curtained off areas that to my surprise revealed glimpses of an abundance of plastic shrouded hospital beds, many that were already made up. 

I presumed this hidden supply was preparation for a wave of virus patients that we continue to pray will not come now or in the future. 

I trudged past open steel doors that held a myriad of hissing gurgling pipes and mechanical wizardry. 

Then I walked by a room that had many huge, white bags piled on top of each other. From a few of these, soiled cloth gowns spilled. 

I recognized them as the PPE that had been made to replace the disposable garments that seemed to disappear nationwide at the beginning of Coronavirus. 

Even though I didn’t see machines I realized that this must be the laundry.

I knew that gowns were being made. I had seen a few nurses wearing them, but I hadn’t thought much about the logistics of cleaning them. 

I did vaguely know that hospital used to have a designated laundry. Then they started to send sheets out to an outside facility and began to use disposable gowns. The in-house laundry was no longer needed and was dismantled. 

However the commercial facility couldn’t cope with the additional work of cloth PPE. 

I had heard that somehow the hospital had fixed the problem and the gowns were being washed in-house. 

I presumed the laundry was back. 

This must be it. 

By chance I turned the right way, stumbled upon the maintenance office, told of my water fountain fears, and, with their direction, headed back upstairs. 

Later I passed by the volunteer conference room. There, on the enormous table that can seat twenty four well fed people, were several huge, white bags. The same laundry bags as downstairs but with clean gowns. The volunteer department secretary and a fellow worker were folding and folding and folding a never ending supply of cloth PPEs on top of that huge table. Then they stuffed them in bags to be distributed to the medical teams. 

“What an incredible job you are doing” I gasped, my eyes agog. 

“What a huge amount of work.”

Without breaking her rhythm  the secretary responded:

“We’ve been doing something with these gowns for weeks.  I used to be a master seamstress so I came up with a basic pattern.  Then for eight hours a day for many days a group of us were ironing sheets. We gave those sheets and the patterns to cutters. Then the pieces were distributed to people in the community who could sew. Four thousand seven hundred gowns were cut out.”

“Four thousand seven hundred?” I gasped “That’s incredible!”

“And five thousand face shields, and five hundred goggles,” the secretary continued. 

“The hospital has a new annex a few miles away that used to be a State Farm office. We took over the cafeteria, which is huge. We had plenty of room to social distance. It’s been great fun. We’ve all really enjoyed the work and the company.”

Her friend nodded in agreement smiling happily. 

I noticed that the gown she was folding had a pretty blue and white trim around the neck. 

“How lovely” I said pointing it out. “What a pretty addition.” 

“At first the volunteers didn’t have binding and so they used what they had at home, said the friend. “So quite a few of them have a touch of something around the neck. But some have appliqués on them. Occassionally volunteers went all out and added rabbits or lambs. Something to make the nurse smile when they opened up the gown. Something different.”

I came by the volunteers office the next day at noon. They were still folding. The lovely volunteer director had joined them. 

“What a never ending task” I said. “You are all incredible!

“They use nine hundred of them a day,” said the director. “So that’s how many we are folding. We’ve been at it since eight this morning and we’ll keep on going until the end of the day. And we’ll be doing it again tomorrow. And the next day. 

Of course at some point the volunteers will be allowed back in and then we’ll have to go back to our former jobs. But until then we fold.”

“I saw the bags of used gowns downstairs in the basement,” I said. 

“Yes,” responded the secretary. And do you know they  clean them all in one ordinary sized washing machine and an industrial sized drier? They have people running those two machines twenty four hours a day.”

I left slacked jawed. 

I saw the maintenance man that I’d met in the basement. 

“I went up and looked at that water fountain,” he said. “It’s not used much, even before the hallway was closed down, so it’s got a build up of acid, of minerals. That’s what was causing the green tinge. It’s not harmful - but I cleaned it out anyway.”

I thanked him, relieved I had not poisoned the chaplains. 

Somehow the fountain, the laundry, the volunteer office, and the sewing community all started to flow together in my mind. 

Like the fountain, I realized, we have had fears of death and doom that haven’t come to pass. 

Impossible problems have been resolved. 

The PPE situation looked dire. But thanks to the ingenuity, creativity, and generosity of so many people in this wonderful community working behind the scenes, a solution was found. 

A friend of mine often quotes a saying from her Quaker background. 

“Way will open.”

May that be true for all of us. 

May the fears of the future that have rocked our worlds and kept us awake turn out to be as harmless as sediment. 

In every situation where there seems to be no way, may doors swing wide giving us a hope and a future. 

May we come to know in new ways that the Lord of the universe, who loves us more than we could dream or imagine, is working behind the scenes of our lives. He wants us to be fulfilled, to be fully alive, even more than we do. 

And that means a way will indeed open. 

And it will be good.

Amen.

Pandemic Parables: Approaching Normal

Pandemic Parables: Approaching Normal
Saturday June 6th 2020

Things were inching back to being normal this week at the hospital in Frederick, Maryland where I’m working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. 

Three months after the hospital swung into action to prepare for a deluge of Coronavirus patients we have now crested the hill and are heading back down the other side of that dark, dangerous, destructive mountain. 

At the peak of Covid-19 we had thirty seven virus patients in the hospital. Yesterday we had thirteen with an additional four under investigation. 

Although we grieve the thirty five patients that have died, we rejoice with the one hundred and fifty four virus patients that have been discharged. 

In addition more have been treated in the Emergency Department and sent home to recover without being admitted into the hospital. 

I noticed one change that happened imperceptibly. The hospice nurses are no longer in their scrubs but are back in their own, beautiful, colorful, infinitely more flattering clothing. 

“No one told us to start wearing scrubs, or indeed to stop wearing them,” 

said my friend, the ex Navy nurse practitioner who has now recovered and is back at work after being being felled by Covid-19. 

“It just happened. In the beginning I wore my hair up Navy style and started wearing scrubs because Covid-19 was an unknown and frightening entity. As soon as I got home I washed my scrubs and showered. It felt safer to have a uniform. But now things feel different. I have literally let my hair down. The virus is still here, but we know so much more about it. The tension is starting to ease.”

She paused for a moment and looked around at the others: 

“We didn’t talk to each other about the change. We just all started showing up in regular clothing.”

“We have been through an intense, exhausting time," said one of the other hospice nurses. “It was too tiring to choose professional work-wear every day.  Or to put on makeup. All of that takes a lot of energy. It was much easier to wear scrubs.”

She continued:

“It has been so emotional. We have been with patients who are dying when their families couldn’t be there, holding their hands, massaging their feet, praying with them. We’ve been on the phone with their families giving them updates, feeling their grief and anguish. 

We’ve been coping with our own anger and sorrow that it has to be this way. 

Our world became so much more difficult. In the hospital and outside”

She paused, then explained:

“You couldn’t just stop for groceries on the way home from work for example because people would glare at your scrubs as though you were a walking source of infection. That got old.”

“Things are approaching normal now,” she continued. “Everywhere places are starting to open. This was my way of trying to grab hold of normal and make it happen in my life. Trying to force normal to really be here. But I’m still too tired to wear makeup.”

A member of their team was there carrying her guitar. She sings over patients as they are actively dying, easing their transition. My nurse friend went with her to care for a far-too-young, non Covid patient with hours to live who had been listening to the sound of waves crashing on a deserted beach. It was recorded and sent by a grieving family who were stuck overseas, unable to travel to be at the bedside because of Coronavirus restrictions. 

This beach was the patient’s favorite spot in the world. The waves’ rhythmic lulling; the sound of singing; a gentle, affirming, caring hospice nurse’s touch, as well as their colorful clothing, would be among the last sights and sensations they would experience on earth. 

All in a regular day’s work for this team. 

Elsewhere too things are approaching normal. 

The nurse managers are starting to wear their white coats again. At the beginning of the pandemic they were told not to wear them so there would be no impediment to frequently washing hands up to the elbows. They look far less vulnerable now that they have back on their old symbol of authority. 

For the same reason medical staff who always had to wear removable sleeves covering up arm tattoos were, post-pandemic arriving, not allowed to wear them.  

Suddenly intricate beautiful designs on bare arms were everywhere. 

This is one group that has not gone back to the old normal and are reveling in their ink-baring freedom, hoping it lasts. 
It felt so odd the first time I saw the change; odder to walk through those open doors; and oddest to visit a patient in what were previously all coronavirus rooms. 

A hospitalist who always made his home at one corner of the reception counter is back in the same spot after having been absent for the isolation duration. 

Had he really ever left?

I felt I was in a time warp! Did the last three virus soaked months really happen?

Early in the week I baked what will probably be my last two loves of pumpkin bread until next Fall. I gave one to 3A to celebrate the ending of their isolation era. And one to sustain the nursing staff on 3B (a different wing on the same floor) who now have virus patients down one corridor. 

The staff there are still learning the Coronavirus ropes. 

The lovely, tall, Jamaican, janitorial worker from 3A - the one with the kind eyes - was over there. I saw him explaining to new cleaners the intricacies of Covid-19 cleaning.  

That man is rock of goodness. 

“It’s a bit stressful,” said a charge nurse when I asked how it was going. “There is a lot to learn with the virus patients. No one tells us what to do and then complains when we get it wrong. It gets frustrating at times.”

I nodded, understanding. Do and then learn from what you did wrong is a model for the chaplaincy course that I am doing. The Clinical Pastoral Education credits are set up on this principle. "The patient is the book."

And yes, it can be very frustrating. 

I was glad I made them prayed over pumpkin bread as solace. It was the first time I’d done so for this section. 

It was well received. 

“They charged on it like a herd of water buffaloes," a nursing assistant told me. “Until all that was left were the crumbs.”

Music to my ears!

The one constant in the hospital during this time is change. Expect the unexpected, and be prepared for the worst that could happen. 

In preparation for the Racial Justice protest march on Friday, every parking lot in the hospital, except for the ones in front of the Emergency Department and the Main Foyer were blocked off.  The head of security wanted to make sure that if the Protest turned violent, patients and staff would be kept safe and there would be clear access for ambulances and cars bringing members of the community needing help. 

As with the expected overwhelming Coronavirus surge, the worst scenario didn’t happen. Thank you Lord for answered prayers!

The protest was a great success, and peaceful. 

But it felt good to know that the hospital was prepared just in case.

We are moving towards normal. 

Transitioning is difficult. 

Sometimes violent as we are seeing throughout America at the moment. 

This week a friend in England, who is soaked in a wonderful form of Celtic Christianity, wrote and told me that she feels far less safe now that things are opening up. She felt that lock down was a prevention, and coming back to normal makes her feel very vulnerable. She said she feels weepy a lot of the time and recognizes that in the past this was when deep prayer was going on inside her.

I like the idea that my current tender emotional state means that my spirit is rocking in prayer. It makes the tears that these days are always close to the surface, seem so much more understandable and worthwhile. 

And as a dear friend and prayer partner taught me many years ago, prayer paves the way into the future God wants us to have. 

A good future filled with prosperity, hope, and success. 

In this time when we are approaching normal, may we have inner strength and fortitude to face whatever lies ahead.

This is a season of great shaking, great change. May justice and righteousness prevail in our lives, in our institutions, and in our nations. 

May all our prejudices and biases (and we all have them) be gently exposed and swept away. May we be healed in the deepest parts of our hearts and lives. 

May we become all we were meant to be. 

On the journey to normal may we hold close to the words that Joshua spoke over the Israelites so long ago. 

It was when they were wondering how on earth they were they going to enter, let alone conquer and occupy the Promised  Land. 

It must have seemed an impossibility to some of them. 

They had to cross a wide river in flood and then take a territory that was already lived in and established. 

But then Joshua proclaimed over them all:

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

They held on to those words and believed them. 

And despite the difficulties everything changed. 

And in the end it was good. 

May it be true also for us. 

Amen.

Pandemic Parables: Evaluation

Pandemic Parables: Evaluation
Tuesday June 2nd 2020

Today I should be rejoicing, and if not doing a jig around the kitchen table at least celebrating in some way. This is exam week for me and my five fellow Clinical Pastoral Education classmates at the hospital in Frederick, Maryland where I am working as a Resident Chaplain until the end of August. We have come to the end of our penultimate residency semester: three down one to go. 

This is a work study program. Residents work forty hours a week either in the hospital or hospice and we get together for two hours three times a week for group work. We also spend an hour a week with our supervisor who concentrates on probing our emotional depths to bring to light and disperse hidden fears and biases. 

Our exams consist of writing an in depth paper, called an evaluation. This lays out every aspect of our work-life and learning at the hospital or hospice. You then present the evaluation to your group peers, who in turn read you a letter saying how they think you have, or haven’t, developed over the previous twelve weeks. 

Some hold back no punches. 

Your paper, and your life are then assessed by your peers and the program director, who concentrates on your deepest emotions - your feelings rather than your thoughts.  

The idea is that you do deep work in yourself, which leads you to be a better more aware chaplain when you are with patients. 

Because you have done your own internal work you are not sidetracked or triggered by a patient’s issues. 

CPE is not for sissies. 

I should be rejoicing because I read my exam paper today, the one I spent all weekend writing. Over Webex, and not in person as that is how we meet these days. It was well received. Four more chaplains will endure the process over the next two days, but my heavy lifting is over. 

But still I feel a sadness. 

A discombobulation. 

There is so much going on around us. 

Pain and hurt are swirling everywhere like a kaleidoscope on top of pandemic fears. 

The hospital though is a world apart. It is a place of healing and hope, although inevitably it also houses grief and sorrow. 

They look at outside events through the lens of how much care will the community need and evaluate how can they best provide that care. 

For example, there will be a peaceful race equality demonstration in Frederick on Friday. The Emergency Room is already preparing just in case it turns violent. 

Extra staff will be on duty. 

Negative air flow rooms are being made ready for potentially pepper sprayed patients.  

Additional PPE is at the ready. 

Our fervent prayer is that none of this will be needed. 

That peace will indeed prevail. 

And that it will be a quiet night in the ED. 

Oh Lord, let it be so! 

In Frederick and throughout the nation. 

Other kinds of evaluation are going on in the hospital as gradually people who were working at home are returning. Familiar faces keep popping up and it is hard not to hug them. 

A social worker on her first day back said from behind a mask that she was clearly not used to:

“It’s really good to be back...

I think.” 

She paused thoughtfully:

“It was really hard to work from home. But everything is so different here. It’s harder to return than I thought it would be.”

“It’s all so different,” echoed a personnel manager later in the morning. “Part of me wants to go back into hiding until the changes stop, the ground stops moving, and we can all breathe again.”

It seems that the sadness and discombobulation are everywhere. 

So I haven’t been rejoicing tonight that my evaluation is over. I have been sad. Feeling the unrest. 

Exhausted 

And so very grateful for the refuge of my home. 

I think that many of us have reached that place. 

Wanting what is good and right to prevail.

Doing our part to make that happen. Whether it is supporting local businesses, sewing masks, cooking, writing, telling, singing, marching. 

Praying. Praying. Praying. 

Believing that justice will roll on like a river and righteousness will indeed flow like a never failing stream. 

And yet at the same time wanting the ground to stop shifting so we can find our equilibrium. 

Wanting to stop being so tired.

And in my case having to dig deep inside myself to summon up the strength to do one last semester. 

So to all of you who resonate with any of these words. I want to pass on  a couple of sayings that are helping me get through this strangest of times. 

One was on a plaque in an office at work. 

I did a double take when I saw it for I felt the words were waiting for me and soared from the wood right into my heart. They were simple. A bit of a cliche - but exactly what I needed. 

“Life is tough, my darling, but so are you.”

It is. 

And we are. 

The other is an old Irish saying that I have framed on the wall outside my bedroom. 

“Courage does not always roar. Sometimes it is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying I will try again tomorrow.“

So courage comrades, fellow warriors. 

Let us be strong. 

Rest. 

Be of good courage. 

For the Lord, of all goodness, grace, peace, and love is already in our future. 

So our tomorrows will be good.

Copyright © 2020 Geraldine Buckley