Diets, Decaf & Other Dubious Deeds
- Thread starter MarciKS
- Start date
morning.
kinda cranky this a.m. throwing some coffee down my flap to see if that helps brighten things up.
i'm irritated because the actions of a certain individual on here are making some of the friends I've made on here want to leave. i don't want to leave and i don't want my friends to leave. i just don't understand why some people are so nasty to others on the internet. but i'm tired of trying to find decent places to go visit. so i guess i'll have to work around it. said person is on ignore. i'm just tired of people treating each other like crap. there's no need for it.
anyway, its gonna be another long & hot day. forecast is 90° & 90% humidity. good day to smother in a mask. ~rme~ we're not having anything worth eating at work today in the cafeteria. maybe i'll starve, too. i'm actually thinking about taking some ramen with me. it's either that or eat mash potatoes w/ gravy and some veggies & salad. then i'll be good & hungry & b****y by 3 p.m.
oh well...
have a good day guys.
kinda cranky this a.m. throwing some coffee down my flap to see if that helps brighten things up.
i'm irritated because the actions of a certain individual on here are making some of the friends I've made on here want to leave. i don't want to leave and i don't want my friends to leave. i just don't understand why some people are so nasty to others on the internet. but i'm tired of trying to find decent places to go visit. so i guess i'll have to work around it. said person is on ignore. i'm just tired of people treating each other like crap. there's no need for it.
anyway, its gonna be another long & hot day. forecast is 90° & 90% humidity. good day to smother in a mask. ~rme~ we're not having anything worth eating at work today in the cafeteria. maybe i'll starve, too. i'm actually thinking about taking some ramen with me. it's either that or eat mash potatoes w/ gravy and some veggies & salad. then i'll be good & hungry & b****y by 3 p.m.
oh well...
have a good day guys.
RadishRose
SF VIP
- Location
- Connecticut, USA
I love Sebastian, This is one I hadn't seen, so thanks!
RadishRose
SF VIP
- Location
- Connecticut, USA
Is this K-Pop?
He friggin cracks me up. You got youtube he's on dry bar comedy.
Yes. I'd never heard of it before. The karafun thing on YouTube I subscribed for popped this up. I like it!
RadishRose
SF VIP
- Location
- Connecticut, USA
It okay, need to explore it more.
RadishRose
SF VIP
- Location
- Connecticut, USA
Yes, that's where I see him.
Washington Post today
I have never felt so helpless’: Front-line workers confront loss
Doctors, nurses and first responders grapple with the enormity of what they’ve witnessed during the pandemic’s first wave
Marc Ayoub remembers the woman in her 50s who came alone to the emergency room. She went into cardiac arrest and was hooked up to a ventilator. Ayoub, a resident at hard-hit Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, tried to reach her family all night, and when he finally connected with her daughter, he had only bad news.
As he stood in his spacesuit of protective gear, holding his phone in front of the woman’s face so her daughter might see her one last time, Ayoub was indignant that this is what death had become during the coronavirus pandemic.
He looked away, trying to be respectful of the sacred moment. But he could not help but overhear as the daughter connected family member after family member, until there were more than a dozen people weeping on the chat. “Mommy, please come back,” the daughter begged. “Please.”
“I am a doctor. I spent years training to help people, but I have never felt so helpless in my life,” recalled Ayoub, 31. “There was nothing I could do for the patient or the family.”
Doctors, nurses and emergency medical technicians are supposed to be the superheroes of the pandemic. They are immortalized in graffiti, songs belted out from balcony windows and tributes erected from Times Square to the Eiffel Tower. But despite the accolades, many confide that the past months have left them feeling lost, alone, unable to sleep. They second-guess their decisions, experience panic attacks, worry constantly about their patients, their families and themselves, and feel tremendous anxiety about how and when this might end.
The unfathomable loss of more than 100,000 Americans within a matter of weeks — many in isolation, without family or friends — has inflicted a level of trauma few anticipated when they signed up for these jobs. At least 592 of those deaths were of health-care workers, according to a list compiled from news reports, social media and other sources by the National Nurses United union.
As the first wave of patients subsides, many are struggling with the death and devastation they saw close up and — perhaps most difficult — with their own inability to do more, to save more people’s lives.
A few became casualties themselves: Two health-care workers in New York City took their own lives within two days of each other in late April. John Mondello, 23, was an E.M.T. working in the Bronx. Lorna Breen, 49, was an emergency department physician at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital. Breen’s sister said she had been tormented by what she experienced. She quoted her as describing a scene “like Armageddon” and saying, “We can’t keep up.”
Ayoub said he was not surprised when a quarter of his classmates in the residency program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai revealed in a survey they had thought about suicide. “We know exactly how she felt,” he said of Breen. “We understood what she was going through. That could have been any one of us.”
“A lot of people were angry at the whole situation and the system,” he added. “How it all happened. How we weren’t prepared. The lack of support.”
Worried that the coronavirus might leave a whole generation of health-care workers with post-traumatic stress disorder, many hospitals and ambulance companies have brought in grief counselors via Zoom and started weekly mediation sessions, prayer circles and other support services. Mental health apps such as Headspace and Fitness Blender are offering free access for health-care workers. Online therapy company Talkspace donated more than 2,100 months of counseling to medical workers, and more than half of that time has been used.
Counselors seeing health-care workers describe symptoms of burnout, PTSD and “moral injury” — the effect of hundreds of decisions made each day on the fly and amid the chaos, creating conflict between deeply held beliefs and options considered inadequate or downright wrong.
Brittani Holsbeke, 31, emergency department nurse in a Detroit suburb, described sending home patients with blood oxygen levels lower than normal because of triage policies in place during the peak that raised the threshold for those who would get treated. “It got gray,” she said, especially when some of those people would show up even sicker a few days later.
Audrey Chun, 48, a New York City doctor, struggled with helping her elderly patients sick with covid-19 decide whether to stay home and die surrounded by family — or go to the hospital where they would get treatment but still possibly die, in that case, almost certainly alone. There was “no clear answer to give them,” she said.
Matt Kaufman, 51, a physician at Jersey City Medical Center, remembers the guy who came in at the peak of the crisis with minor chest pain. In normal times, it would have been “a no-brainer” to admit the man, if only for observation. But Kaufman was torn. “The concern was if he sticks around, he could get infected and be in an even worse situation.”
Images of health-care workers during the pandemic often show them cheering as a patient is wheeled out of the hospital, arms pumping, with the theme from “Rocky” or “Don’t Stop Believin’” playing in the background. The daily reality has been grimmer. In some medical centers, the ratio of deaths to discharges was as high as 9 to 1 among the critically ill on ventilators.
Signs of burnout, anxiety and frustration are widespread, especially as colleagues, friends and family members have gotten sick or died. That has provoked quiet despair in some medical workers and angry confrontations from others.
I have never felt so helpless’: Front-line workers confront loss
Doctors, nurses and first responders grapple with the enormity of what they’ve witnessed during the pandemic’s first wave
Marc Ayoub remembers the woman in her 50s who came alone to the emergency room. She went into cardiac arrest and was hooked up to a ventilator. Ayoub, a resident at hard-hit Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, tried to reach her family all night, and when he finally connected with her daughter, he had only bad news.
As he stood in his spacesuit of protective gear, holding his phone in front of the woman’s face so her daughter might see her one last time, Ayoub was indignant that this is what death had become during the coronavirus pandemic.
He looked away, trying to be respectful of the sacred moment. But he could not help but overhear as the daughter connected family member after family member, until there were more than a dozen people weeping on the chat. “Mommy, please come back,” the daughter begged. “Please.”
“I am a doctor. I spent years training to help people, but I have never felt so helpless in my life,” recalled Ayoub, 31. “There was nothing I could do for the patient or the family.”
Doctors, nurses and emergency medical technicians are supposed to be the superheroes of the pandemic. They are immortalized in graffiti, songs belted out from balcony windows and tributes erected from Times Square to the Eiffel Tower. But despite the accolades, many confide that the past months have left them feeling lost, alone, unable to sleep. They second-guess their decisions, experience panic attacks, worry constantly about their patients, their families and themselves, and feel tremendous anxiety about how and when this might end.
The unfathomable loss of more than 100,000 Americans within a matter of weeks — many in isolation, without family or friends — has inflicted a level of trauma few anticipated when they signed up for these jobs. At least 592 of those deaths were of health-care workers, according to a list compiled from news reports, social media and other sources by the National Nurses United union.
As the first wave of patients subsides, many are struggling with the death and devastation they saw close up and — perhaps most difficult — with their own inability to do more, to save more people’s lives.
A few became casualties themselves: Two health-care workers in New York City took their own lives within two days of each other in late April. John Mondello, 23, was an E.M.T. working in the Bronx. Lorna Breen, 49, was an emergency department physician at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital. Breen’s sister said she had been tormented by what she experienced. She quoted her as describing a scene “like Armageddon” and saying, “We can’t keep up.”
Ayoub said he was not surprised when a quarter of his classmates in the residency program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai revealed in a survey they had thought about suicide. “We know exactly how she felt,” he said of Breen. “We understood what she was going through. That could have been any one of us.”
“A lot of people were angry at the whole situation and the system,” he added. “How it all happened. How we weren’t prepared. The lack of support.”
Worried that the coronavirus might leave a whole generation of health-care workers with post-traumatic stress disorder, many hospitals and ambulance companies have brought in grief counselors via Zoom and started weekly mediation sessions, prayer circles and other support services. Mental health apps such as Headspace and Fitness Blender are offering free access for health-care workers. Online therapy company Talkspace donated more than 2,100 months of counseling to medical workers, and more than half of that time has been used.
Counselors seeing health-care workers describe symptoms of burnout, PTSD and “moral injury” — the effect of hundreds of decisions made each day on the fly and amid the chaos, creating conflict between deeply held beliefs and options considered inadequate or downright wrong.
Brittani Holsbeke, 31, emergency department nurse in a Detroit suburb, described sending home patients with blood oxygen levels lower than normal because of triage policies in place during the peak that raised the threshold for those who would get treated. “It got gray,” she said, especially when some of those people would show up even sicker a few days later.
Audrey Chun, 48, a New York City doctor, struggled with helping her elderly patients sick with covid-19 decide whether to stay home and die surrounded by family — or go to the hospital where they would get treatment but still possibly die, in that case, almost certainly alone. There was “no clear answer to give them,” she said.
Matt Kaufman, 51, a physician at Jersey City Medical Center, remembers the guy who came in at the peak of the crisis with minor chest pain. In normal times, it would have been “a no-brainer” to admit the man, if only for observation. But Kaufman was torn. “The concern was if he sticks around, he could get infected and be in an even worse situation.”
Images of health-care workers during the pandemic often show them cheering as a patient is wheeled out of the hospital, arms pumping, with the theme from “Rocky” or “Don’t Stop Believin’” playing in the background. The daily reality has been grimmer. In some medical centers, the ratio of deaths to discharges was as high as 9 to 1 among the critically ill on ventilators.
Signs of burnout, anxiety and frustration are widespread, especially as colleagues, friends and family members have gotten sick or died. That has provoked quiet despair in some medical workers and angry confrontations from others.
Nurses placed empty white shoes in front of the White House to protest lost colleagues who they contend became ill and died as a result of inadequate protective equipment. Residents at NYU Langone and the University of Washington clashed with hospital administrators over hazard pay and life insurance. Ten nurses were suspended at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., after they refused to enter a coronavirus patient’s room without N95 masks.
Almost invariably, the hardest thing many health-care workers describe about their experience is their fear and sadness over families — their patients’ and their own.
Susan Hopper, a 57-year-old nurse practitioner in the emergency department at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, described how colleagues lived in cars, stayed at hotels or sent family members to live with relatives to avoid infecting loved ones.
“There was such fear,” she said. “That all plays a part on the human psyche.”
Hopper, who has been staying with her sister, eventually tested positive for the virus. So did her sister.
Even before the pandemic, many doctors and nurses struggled with stress. There is growing evidence this crisis will take an even larger toll. A study of 1,257 doctors and nurses in China during that country’s coronavirus peak found that half reported depression, 45 percent anxiety and 34 percent insomnia. Another, looking at 1,400 health-care workers in Italy and published in JAMA Network Open, found half showed signs of post-traumatic stress, a quarter depression and 20 percent anxiety. In both China and Italy, young women were most likely to be affected.
Gregory Hinrichsen, a clinical psychologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, said the mental, emotional and physical burdens borne by health-care workers have been overwhelming. Witnessing the pain and death of so many other human beings, Hinrichsen said, reminds you of your own suffering and pain and brings home the reality that you, too, will die.
“It’s something that is hard to take straight on,” he said. “Like looking at the sun. You know it’s there and glance at it. But you don’t stare at it for hours at a time, day after day. That’s what working during the virus has been like for some.”
Brian Smith was in his ambulance truck at about 2:50 p.m. on April 17, during his shift as a paramedic for the Jersey City Medical Center, when he felt a storm of emotions.
“It’s complete war out here,” he typed on his phone to his therapist on Talkspace. “People just dying in front of us, one minute talking, the next they aren’t.”
Within a few weeks, Smith had to pronounce more than 30 people dead in their homes and had brought dozens more to the hospital whom he wasn’t sure would make it. “You think that you did right by them,” he said. “But then you find out two to three days later, they died.”
Smith wondered a lot about those people. Where were they now? Were they able to get cremated or buried? Were those who loved them able to say goodbye?
He heard about one funeral home where police found dozens of decomposing bodies in a trailer, and he was furious. “These are people’s family — at least give them the decency of letting people say goodbye. At least give them that. Don’t forget about them in the damn trailer,” he said.
“I don’t know what I would do if my mom or dad died, and I couldn’t say goodbye,” Smith added. “That would be the worst thing in the world.”
Smith has been living on his ex-wife’s couch since the outbreak began. She’s also a paramedic working insane hours, and it makes it easier to trade off taking care of their two young children. But the situation leaves him no time to process what he is going through.
“I’ll start sobbing, and I will have to gather myself because I can’t let my kids see me like that. A lot of times, I’ll scamper into the bathroom and clean myself up and see what they are doing,” he said. “PTSD is no joke.”
The virus also has changed the way he views parties and sports events, gatherings he used to think of as happy occasions. Looking out his window one day, seeing blue skies and feeling the sun, he could think only of crowds at the park, less than six feet apart, respiratory secretions flying.
“This weekend is gorgeous,” he said. “It’s going to be horrible.”
~♥~
This isn't all the article but close. It's not just docs and nurses. Every department has a new level of stress that wasn't there before. It's terrifying to see a daily reminder of this thing when you see yourself and co-workers with masks on. Or when you work by the morgue and you KNOW there's a death in there that's from Covid. My anxiety shot up and I've been struggling with depression now. So before you toss your mask aside, keep in mind that a second wave IS expected.
Almost invariably, the hardest thing many health-care workers describe about their experience is their fear and sadness over families — their patients’ and their own.
Susan Hopper, a 57-year-old nurse practitioner in the emergency department at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, described how colleagues lived in cars, stayed at hotels or sent family members to live with relatives to avoid infecting loved ones.
“There was such fear,” she said. “That all plays a part on the human psyche.”
Hopper, who has been staying with her sister, eventually tested positive for the virus. So did her sister.
Even before the pandemic, many doctors and nurses struggled with stress. There is growing evidence this crisis will take an even larger toll. A study of 1,257 doctors and nurses in China during that country’s coronavirus peak found that half reported depression, 45 percent anxiety and 34 percent insomnia. Another, looking at 1,400 health-care workers in Italy and published in JAMA Network Open, found half showed signs of post-traumatic stress, a quarter depression and 20 percent anxiety. In both China and Italy, young women were most likely to be affected.
Gregory Hinrichsen, a clinical psychologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, said the mental, emotional and physical burdens borne by health-care workers have been overwhelming. Witnessing the pain and death of so many other human beings, Hinrichsen said, reminds you of your own suffering and pain and brings home the reality that you, too, will die.
“It’s something that is hard to take straight on,” he said. “Like looking at the sun. You know it’s there and glance at it. But you don’t stare at it for hours at a time, day after day. That’s what working during the virus has been like for some.”
Brian Smith was in his ambulance truck at about 2:50 p.m. on April 17, during his shift as a paramedic for the Jersey City Medical Center, when he felt a storm of emotions.
“It’s complete war out here,” he typed on his phone to his therapist on Talkspace. “People just dying in front of us, one minute talking, the next they aren’t.”
Within a few weeks, Smith had to pronounce more than 30 people dead in their homes and had brought dozens more to the hospital whom he wasn’t sure would make it. “You think that you did right by them,” he said. “But then you find out two to three days later, they died.”
Smith wondered a lot about those people. Where were they now? Were they able to get cremated or buried? Were those who loved them able to say goodbye?
He heard about one funeral home where police found dozens of decomposing bodies in a trailer, and he was furious. “These are people’s family — at least give them the decency of letting people say goodbye. At least give them that. Don’t forget about them in the damn trailer,” he said.
“I don’t know what I would do if my mom or dad died, and I couldn’t say goodbye,” Smith added. “That would be the worst thing in the world.”
Smith has been living on his ex-wife’s couch since the outbreak began. She’s also a paramedic working insane hours, and it makes it easier to trade off taking care of their two young children. But the situation leaves him no time to process what he is going through.
“I’ll start sobbing, and I will have to gather myself because I can’t let my kids see me like that. A lot of times, I’ll scamper into the bathroom and clean myself up and see what they are doing,” he said. “PTSD is no joke.”
The virus also has changed the way he views parties and sports events, gatherings he used to think of as happy occasions. Looking out his window one day, seeing blue skies and feeling the sun, he could think only of crowds at the park, less than six feet apart, respiratory secretions flying.
“This weekend is gorgeous,” he said. “It’s going to be horrible.”
~♥~
This isn't all the article but close. It's not just docs and nurses. Every department has a new level of stress that wasn't there before. It's terrifying to see a daily reminder of this thing when you see yourself and co-workers with masks on. Or when you work by the morgue and you KNOW there's a death in there that's from Covid. My anxiety shot up and I've been struggling with depression now. So before you toss your mask aside, keep in mind that a second wave IS expected.
Well we're into Wed. already. Not sure what today's weather will bring. It was pretty awful at work yesterday. It's hard being in these masks 8 hrs a day. I'm thinking it could storm because it's so windy.
As you go through your day today, keep in mind all the racial fighting and issues that are going on right now. Keep in mind all the general nastiness between people anymore and try to be part of the solution today.
Morning.
Got a doctors appt. tomorrow afternoon. Gonna see if they can get me scheduled to see the pulmonologist. If they decide to put me on oxygen I'm gonna apply for disability and look into Section 8 housing. I guess I'll have to see if the doctor can write a note or whatever it is they can do to help me get the disability. It's getting harder for me to breathe and harder to work because of it. I just think it's time. I don't want to but, I just don't think I can do much more of this. It's wiping me out. Breathing is getting worse and I'm having a hard time. So hopefully I can get some help. We'll see. If not I'll just have to work till I drop dead. ~Shrugs~
79° for the high today and the 50s tonight. Then back into the upper 80s tomorrow. They're serving sluggers which is just BBQ chicken legs with potato salad. The legs aren't bad but the potato salad is usually pretty awful cuz they potatoes are almost raw. ~Wrinkles nose~
You are not your struggles. You are the survivor who keeps moving forward in spite of them.
~Lori Deschene - Author