Originally written in April 2020, and edited to correct the tense.
I first heard of the Virus in January 2020. I work in healthcare, mostly answering phones and doing front desk reception, at a busy office in downtown Seattle. We’d started stocking some PPE in the drawer at front desk but hadn’t yet really learned how to don and doff it if that seemed necessary. The fact that someone in nearby Snohomish county had recently died of this new virus didn’t really seem real to me, even if it was so close.
As February unfolded, nothing really was changing yet. The stressors of the day included seeing welding sparks on the street and various people experiencing homelessness as I walked to my bus stop, and worrying about a suicidal person I’d helped while waiting for medical transport to arrive.
But by the end of February, things were starting to get serious in Seattle. I spent leap day weekend researching the virus and helping a team distribute meals to the homeless. When I got to work on Monday, March 2, we were in a whole new world.
The next week and a half was traumatic in a way that is hard to convey. Much of it is a blur with frozen moments of clarity.
My Metro bus pass for March was purchased but never used. I started driving to work and parking a block away. Each day there were fewer people on the road, fewer people in the garage. I used to have to drive down as far as level E to find a spot. Then it was D, then C, then B, and finally A. I started parking on level B deliberately, refusing to admit there were actually spots on level A.
Early March was the last time I was able to order cleaning sprays and wipes, or find such products in the store. By mid-March these things were just about impossible to find to order, and I couldn’t exactly roam from store to store searching things out.
My time at front desk was spent in a mild panic, worrying that any person who walked in might be carrying the virus, a fear I tried to slough off by playing lounge jazz music. But as the early days of March went on, we started calling patients, asking them screening questions, encouraging them to consider delaying their visit if not urgent. Other healthcare places were following suit…asking screening questions, providing masks, cancelling non-urgent visits. We would try to refer patients to specialists or for x-rays and other procedures, only to learn that those healthcare entities were shut down, or refusing to see patients. This was a time of panic and uncertainty.
Driving home from work, one of the last days I worked downtown.
The hardest was the week of March 9. The standard work for how to handle every situation was changing daily. What had started as a few pages of text was now dozens of pages of text and multiple flow charts. I spent my day trying to figure out what the heck I was supposed to be doing to do things correctly, while worrying about my proximity to everyone in the office, plus the anxiety of working downtown in a place where random people can just walk in off the street. By the evening, our phone queue was super backed up. Social distancing was in the news, but so many offices had closed we were now more consolidated than ever in our office. Every provider room was being used by providers, mostly doing video visits and phone calls with patients.
On March 10, I went out for my last frivolous shopping trip with a co-worker. We went to Daiso and I bought tiny containers to hold supplements and Tylenol. I managed to score some hard to find cold medicines just in case one of us got sick at home. Our cafeteria upstairs was no longer serving breakfast to order, and when I left one night, the coffee shop in our building had gathered all its workers together and some one was saying, “It’ll be strange not seeing you all here.”
On March 11, we were told we had to start wearing N95 masks all day in the office if we were in a room with another coworker. Which of course we were all day. With multiple health conditions requiring I stay hydrated, this scared me more than the virus. That day, school was cancelled till at least April 27. Metro buses were driving around town empty. My work from home request had been denied more than once. I made arrangements to work out of a different, less crowded office that was closed to patient care.
March 14 I went to a hair salon and got all my hair cut off, because it was easier to don and doff an N95 with less hair. We bought a chest freezer and stocked up on food. Our city went on a virtual lockdown.
Each day I arrived at the Fremont office, where I scored my own room with a sink, and I’d think “this is my prison for the next 9 hours.” When I left the room to go to the bathroom or get more water or food, I had to wear a mask. There were 4-6 people working in that office each day. We mostly only saw each other during Zoom conferences. My manager worked from home. My other coworkers were all scattered…
[I just want to end up by saying it is now May 2024 and I’m so glad things are nearly back to normal]
Coiled to Spring 