Covid-19 – Dr. Plastic Picker
 

Tag: Covid-19

CDC said a hug is okay now.

March 11, 2021

by drplasticpicker

It’s been a hard year for the entire world. Initially at the beginning of the epidemic, I was giving mini-COVID updates and blogging more about COVID issues. But soon enough other MDs were writing about COVID. The number of voices in that sphere were more than adequate. So I stopped. I like to go where I am most helpful and needed, so I continued to keep up to date with what I needed to know as an outpatient pediatrician regarding COVID-19 issues and continue to work on environmental issues.

But it’s been a long long year. I don’t like to dwell on things that I can’t make a difference in. My heart goes out to everyone who has lost family, or sufferering any post-COVID sequelae. Mostly my heart is sad for all of the children who have suffered at home in isolation: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, anger, suicidal gestures. It has been all there and still is. I didn’t blog about this as much, because I’m living this with my patients in clinic most days. I sit there and listen to them, and refer to therapy and try to make helpful suggestions. Being quieter now, and really being able to listen to people really helps. Only if one is still, do the butterlies, birds and bees dare to come close. It took me a long time to learn that. Much of my nervous energy is gone.

After one year of lockdown, this is what happened to our country (from this morning’s New York Times).

COVID-19 TOTAL REPORTED ON MARCH 1014

US Cases 29.2 million TOTAL 58,530 TODAY down 16%

Deaths 528,82 down –30%

Hospitalized 43,151 down –30% https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

The death toll is staggering. The ripple effects we are all feeling, even if no one in our immediate families have died, we won’t fully realize for decades. There is still a long road. But after a year, in our own house the four adults are vaccinated. Mr. Plastic Picker and I are both physicians and vaccinated with the Moderna in January. His parents who live with us and near their 80s are vaccinated and past the 2-week post second vaccine dose and should have full immunity. Outside of our home, my parents are vaccinated with number 2 and making their own decisions about risks and I can’t control them. And someone else close in my family is at higher risk and has an appointment 2 hours away to get her first vaccine. I told her when it’s your turn, get your shot.

(more…)

This dish was real. Easy and fast, and nutritious.

January 5, 2021

by drplasticpicker

COVID-19 is surging in the great United States of America. Between seeing patients and talking on the phone with families and catching up with them, I realized the common thread to all of yesterday’s conservations is that we are all living in this grim historic moment of COVID-19 infections and deaths. In pediatrics, we expect to see the wave of MIS-C (Mulitsystem Inflammatory System in Children) soon that occurs in about 1 out of 6,000 pediatric COVID infections and earily presents like Kawasaki’s disease. Our other Assistant Boss whose name rhymes with bong sent out a reminder to update our order panels with the labs that we have to order. I will do it today after the Pediatric Infectious Disease lecture at 8am. I didn’t give away some of my evening after hour clinic shifts for the next two months, because I know I need to be in the trenches with everyone else. So I’ll have my order panel ready as well.

(more…)

Drive Through Car-Wash. Drive Through COVID-19 vaccine? Why not???!!!

December 30, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I got my COVID-19 Moderna vaccine yesterday on the 30th of December in the year of our lord 2020. My mantra in life is to be honest and I was honestly happy and I posted on my facebook page just personal one about my happiness and the requisite picture. It was a happy day because the four people I had worried about the most got it in the first group about probably a week before the rest of the department.

It was interesting that some people said congratulations. I’m not sure what they meant but it was in a positive way. But why do we congratulate those who have received the COVID-19 vaccine in the first wave? Is it for some reason they are more deserving? Or did they do something special to get the vaccine first? Someone posted outside of our department that they are grateful to be one of the first 2 million to get the vaccine? I absolutely did nothing to deserve to get the vaccine yesterday. I texted and sent messages to advocate for four MDs and their corresponding nurses to get the vaccine in a timely manner as befitted their risky work situations. I made no mention of myself. I heard nothing from upper management after my messages as Assistant Boss on behalf of those four people, but I know that my messages were part of a cacophany of messages they were receiving. This drama is playing out all over the country. The roll out has been interesting, but really we are just part of a large system and all of us are trying to make sure we are recognized and acknowledged as part of the system. But the slow wheels of the big machine are moving and everyone will get vaccinated lickety-split.

(more…)

This was a gift Dr.Jill Gustafson left for me on my office desk, and it smells wonderful.

November 16, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I honestly thought I was the only one who was a bit off these days. I chalked it up to post-election euphoria dysphoria. You know the feeling after being so happy, and then you crash emotionally. I was it a semi-catatonic state and only able to blog and tend to my vinegar and plants (which since I’m planting radishes – doesn’t require much of anything). I was able to finish clinical care, but my imagination and motivation for bigger projects both at work and with the climate began to ellude me. I became incapacitated with worry two nights ago because I worried about my right 2nd toe. The medial side of my toe had a paronychia and it had became inflamed. I was worried it was becoming infected and upset at my feet for once again giving up on me (I have had plantar fasciitis and achilles tendon issues and chronic ankle instability). Why was middle-age doing a number on my poor toe? I have been trying to treat my feet well with good shoes including two sturdy pairs from Goodwill and a new Nike Air-Pegasus sneakers? Was it the litter-picking? Was trying to get an extra bag that morning while street picking too much for my toe? I was mad at Mr. Plastic Picker for not caring about my toe, and glared at the puppy for loving Mr. Plastic Picker more than me. That night, I just scrolled through Instagram and worried about my toe. I could do nothing more for the earth nor for work, because of my right 2nd toe paronychia. I ended up applying some peroxide to the area and trimming the nail, and went to bed.

(more…)

I thought this one was really funny! My kids response was lukewarm.

August 17, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I was talking to Mr. Plastic Picker last night and we both marvelled that it has been almost six months of quarantine. That is indeed remarkable. For Mr. Plastic Picker and I, we have had to go to work most days, shop for food and continue with life. But the two grandparents and our two tween/teen children have been at home mostly. We went to Michael’s once to buy supplies with my daughter. I walked to Sprouts with my son on Saturday to buy pasta sauce. We have taken the odd drive here and there to try to find a bit of green space to sit, or walk along the coast, or play basketball at a tucked away park where there has been some emptiness. The trips have been infrequent. We are always masked and mostly triple the social distance requirements. We still go on our exercise walks and runs, but we are lucky in that our neighborhood has spacious streets. We are able to avoid most people by playing a kind of pedestrian pac-mac. We did go to the dentist to get the kids teeth cleaned. I had never been so grateful that there were no cavities.

(more…)

But I was wearing double masks, facebook for 4 months?

August 7, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I may or may not have been exposed to COVID-19. I may or may not have COVID-19. I’m in the same boat as many through the world. I’ve been wearing double mask, faceshield, and washing hands at every patient encounter. We haven’t really gone much of anywhere other than work and grocery store. I have been careful.

But life happens and the COVID-19 pandemic is slowly making it’s way through our population. I’m isolated in our bedroom waiting with only the puppy visiting, and waiting for my Health Care Worker expediated test results which should be tonight. I’m taking this opportunity to review the recent Pediatric COVID-19 lectures. It doesn’t really help to worry, so I’ll just study.

(more…)

Other people are sewing hundreds of masks and making sure others have masks to wear. You decide that you won’t wear one? Yeah, you are a baby.

June 28, 2020

by drplasticpicker

My name is Dr. Plastic Picker and I am so mad at the world right now. I am mad at anti-maskers. I am mad at our national leadership. I am mad at every adult on Facebook that shared COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Yes, this is America and you have free speech. But you are also an adult, and as an adult you have to watch what you say as your words have consequences. All those words and Facebook memes have sowed doubt into our country and has fueled the spread of COVID-19. We are entering another wave of this pandemic.

(more…)

Mr. Plastic Picker wanted to spell Jettygland. We did not give it to him. Our beloved Scrabble Board, we will likely keep forever now.

May 6, 2020

by drplasticpicker

We are almost 2 months into COVID-19 quarantine, and there is positive news for the environment. Flamingos blanket the mudflats of Mumbai and turtles are nesting freely on empty beaches. Initially I thought these reports were overblown, but I’ve seen the increasing number of backyard birds and my sister describes deer and racoons taking over her Virginia neighborhood. Dr. Plastic Picker has to be careful with these posts, because hope for the environment has to be balanced with compassion for the human lives loss due to COVID-19 and repercussions of the downspiraling economy. So rather than celebrating the financial losses of the cruise and airline industries, I focus on the secondary environmental benefits of all of us living through a time of scarcity.

(more…)

The first trial at the bird house.

April 19, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I did write one non-Covid 19 post this weekend about parrots, which was very fun https://drplasticpicker.com/parrots-of-pacific-beach/. But even that post was tangentially related to Covid 19 because I only noticed the parrots because the single-use plastic gloves were around our neighborhood. That got me thinking about all the things that I have done only because of this quarantine. It’s almost the 6th week of our self quarantine, although Mr. Plastic Picker and I are still going to work.

(more…)

I think my friend Chris would have thought this picture really funny.

April 5, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Chris was my anatomy lab partner during our first year of medical school. We had the right side of the cadaver of a 90-something-year-old woman, and across from us was Felipe and Andrew. Felipe was the son of a Nobel Prize winning chemist. He was always a more morose soul, and would disappear after class. He made it through and I believe is an internist in New York. Andrew was very slim and handsome, and dated a fellow student who was beautiful and smart. They broke up before the Residency Match as they were applying in very competitive fields. I believe the beautiful girlfriend is an ophthalmologist now. Andrew stayed at one of the teaching hospitals as an academic specialist. It is ironic because he used to talk about the stock market and money a lot.

Even before medical school, Mr. Plastic Picker and I were already together and had been dating for 3 years in college. We were planning our lives together. I studied harder in the last few years of college so I could attend the same medical school as Mr. Plastic Picker. Life worked out. He was initially a year ahead of me at school, and when I was starting my first year of medical school – he purposefully took an extra year of research so that we could be in sync during our training. He was having a relatively relaxed time driving around putting on event monitors on volunteer study subjects with varying Bostonian accents. His lab was studying the effects of air pollution on cardiovascular events. He was there to support me, and talk me through the first year.

(more…)