Reaping What We've Sewn

It's Saturday, about half past three in the morning. I was off last night, but I didn't bother to flip my day for just one night off. (I work Thursday and Saturday graveyards right now.)

I've been up sewing. And I made vegetarian chili.

Dave and I had mac and cheese for dinner, the first time I've eaten white pasta in over a year. Besides being one of the most unhealthy (fatty, carby) foods that we (nearly successfully) removed from our usual dinner rotation, it wreaks havoc on my blood sugar these days. I need to limit those hyperglycemia/hypoglycemia highs and lows.

We're still isolating ourselves. I expect to be doing so for several more months at least. I mean, I go off to work, of course, but I'm still disinfecting everything that I've carried to work when I get home and I still never wear my shoes or scrubs into the house. (I'm getting used to stripping down to my underwear on the patio, even though it's been fairly cold in the mornings recently.) The biggest risk is probably my backpack, which I don't unpack (except to remove and disinfect my lunch bag) but park in the corner of the casita and don't touch again until I work again (to put my lunch inside). Dave and I got into an argument yesterday over how to bring the contents of a shipment of fabric that I ordered (I'm still making masks, more on that momentarily) into the casita. I have spent long periods of time in my life working in near-sterile or medically clean conditions and I have fairly well-established habits for maintaining those conditions. Dave doesn't have that experience and his actions regarding disinfecting things makes me crazy sometimes. So we got into an argument about it. Last week, I told him that if had been one of my lab partners, I would have probably strangled him. (I always had lackadaisical lab partners, seems like.) That's not true, of course. Not strictly true, anyway.

This is the new normal, this disinfecting of our lives (and social distancing and mask and glove wearing) to try to keep our living spaces clean. It is taxing. It is exhausting. I know. Ask me how I felt the first time I was fit-tested for an N95 mask (15 years ago) and they put a mask on me that was hard to breathe through and then put a hood over my head and sprayed an evil smelling substance into the hood and made me stand there, reading nonsense from a printed sheet to make sure that the mask had a tight enough seal. Ask me how it was to learn to work under a fume hood in a small enclosed room or near an open flame to keep from contaminating samples. Or how it was the first time I had to gown up and put on a mask and eye protection to go into a patient's room. I don't know which is worse, putting everything on or taking everything off. Especially in procedure masks, my glasses steam up and I have trouble seeing sometimes. Everything is scary and claustrophobic and uncomfortable and slow at first. Even now, when I get home after thirteen hours away and start the ploddingly slow process of wiping down each thing that I've carried and used at work (my badge, pens, highlighter, penlight, wallet, phone, flashlight, small bottle of hand sanitizer, small bottle of lotion, my keys), I have to be mindful even though I'm tired and I have to hope that when my mind wanders from my task that habit will suffice.

I also have to remind myself to pee before I come home because there's nothing that adds to the discomfort of the process of methodically wiping things down and then stripping to my underwear outside like having a full bladder. That does not make for a fun morning.

So we argue and I sew masks to give away and I watch episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix. I'm comforted these days by this show, by the people on this ship in the middle of space, in the middle of nowhere, doing what they need to do and what they are trained to do. We're in the same situation now, aren't we? Somewhere unknown, trying to carry on and do what we need to do and, for some of us, doing what we are trained to do. We have work to do, yes, and so we go on, just as they did. On that show, I mean.