by

small child

You work at healing
For years

You dive in the swamp
Of your psyche
Turn over the mud
Tunnel through it
Breath it
See lilies arise
From the muck

The Beloved is a deer
Dainty hooves
In the swamp

At last you come
To bedrock

So you rest
Bedrock
You think

Until you notice
A chink in the rock
You look away
You avoid it

At last you look
It isn’t going away

The Beloved is a bittern
In the reeds

Fluid leaks
From the chink

Foul black bilious
Acidic
Burning holes in the slanted rock
Again you look away
But not for long

You step forward
Touch the rock

I am present you say
Who is there?

The stream of foul black
Increases
Pours from a widening crack

Beloved is a tiger
Paw against the rock

You see the acid burning
Her paw
But she does not run
She stands guard

Who are you?
You whisper

The rock crumbles

There is a child

“Go away” says the child
Ancient

No you say
Beloved and I
Stay present

The black is swirling around you
It’s hard to keep your footing
Beloved, an orca
Steadies you, swimming

No one stays says the child

We stay present you say

I was born I loved I was abandoned When I was afraid

We are present now you say
Swimming by the Beloved
Hand on black fin

I was abandoned When I grieved

We are here now you say

I was abandoned In my despair

We are here you say

You say
You fought
Out of love
You argued
Out of love
You gave
Out of love
Please child
Let us cradle you

The child is silent

The tide is slowing
The rock has crumbled away
A trickle of clear water bubbles

You will stay? says the child

We stay you say

Beloved is a whale
Singing in space
Singing to the stars

Am I lovable? says the child

You and Beloved
Earth and sky
Wind and trees
Moon and stars
Answer yes

Am I loved?

Yes
Yes

8/27/2007

by

Covid-19: Good and Bad News

I am writing this on Christmas morning.

The good news is this: National Guard Empties Bedpans and Clips Toenails at Nursing Homes. “In Minnesota, an ambitious initiative is training hundreds of Guard members to become certified nursing assistants and relieve burned-out nursing home workers.” (1) Well, hooray, the National Guard is called out to help, because the nursing homes are out of staff and we aren’t supposed to abuse our elderly. I think this is AMAZING. And the National Guard may learn some things about work and the elderly too. Hoorah and Hooray!

The bad news is a snippet from New York State: Omicron is milder, BUT the exception may be children. (2) Child cases of Covid-19 are going up really fast and hospital admissions of children. ICU work is hard hard hard, but child and infant ICU is even harder. Blessings on the nurses who do this and the physicians too. When I did my pediatrics rotation way back in Richmond, VA, in a tertiary care hospital, I had children who were dying: one with a brain tumor, one with liver cancer, one with Wilm’s disease. Hard work. I chose Family Practice. I have still had pediatric patients die, including an 18 month old where I had taken care of mother through the pregnancy, but not terribly many. Even less in the last ten years since my average patient was about age 70. All of my kids in the last ten years were complicated: one with Down’s, another a leukemia survivor, others. Children can be very medically complicated. I had two adults who had survived infant heart surgery as well. They were set up with UW’s Adults who had Childhood Heart Surgery Clinic, though that is not the correct name. I am pretty happy to have that sort of back up only two hours away. They both had pretty awesome heart murmurs and that midline chest zipper scar. Ouch.

So, why post this on Christmas? If the cases are rising in children, maybe that will inspire some folks to get vaccinated or at least not yell at family who refuse to bring small children to an unvaccinated Christmas gathering. Judging by the posts on the doctor mom facebook group, there is quite a bit of family yelling going on. Stand down, folks, and respect other peoples’ boundaries.

The problem is, if enough children are sick, we run out of beds. And staff. “As of Thursday, there were 1,987 confirmed or suspected pediatric covid-19 patients hospitalized nationally, a 31 percent jump in 10 days, according to a Washington Post analysis.” (3)

Blessings.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/22/health/covid-national-guard-nursing-homes.html?action=click&campaign_id=154&emc=edit_cb_20211223&instance_id=48593&module=RelatedLinks&nl=coronavirus-briefing&pgtype=Articleยฎi_id=165651500&segment_id=77808&te=1&user_id=c97a1a8547f511fe3bd45b0806ed713c

2. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/23/us/covid-cases-children.html

3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/12/24/omicron-children-hospitalizations-us/

by

rapt

I took this from North Beach at sunset three days ago, zoomed in. I got this wonderful silhouette of Protection Island. I am rapt.

I am submitting this to today’s Ragtag Daily Prompt: wrapped. Heh, heh, messing with words.

by

Covid-19: A tiny bit of good news

This: https://www.healio.com/news/primary-care/20211216/teen-drug-use-decreased-during-pandemic-survey-finds.

“Since 1975, the Monitoring the Future survey, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, has been tracking substance use among adolescent students in the U.S.”

The numbers are interesting, aren’t they? “There was a sharp decrease in reported use (of alcohol) among 10th graders, from 40.7% in 2020 to 28.5% in 2021, and a mild decrease among 12th graders, from 55.3% in 2020 to 46.5%.”

What do YOU think the cause is? More parental supervision or less in person time with peers or something else or both? The news yammers about increased behavioral health issues and “crisis, crisis, crisis” but hello, it’s normal to be stressed during this. Learning to handle stress is important and useful. My elderly patients who lived alone came in to clinic after the first couple months of Covid-19, because they needed human contact. Since I had a one doctor clinic with me and a receptionist, my clinic was safer than the grocery store. We screened everyone for Covid-19 symptoms before they came in and diverted them to the testing site if they had symptoms. Only two of my people got Covid-19 by the time I closed, and both had traveled out of state. Neither one came in to clinic. They went and got tested because of symptoms.

Anyhow, I think it’s both parental supervision and less peer time in person. There is still a significant amount of alcohol consumed. A previous study of well off and very well off households showed increased risk of addiction by age 22 and 25 because 1. money 2. opportunity 3. parents more inclined to be in denial. Parents would turn a blind eye if grades were good. The biggest correlations for NOT being addicted were 1. family dinners and 2. parents who yapped about drugs/alcohol/addiction quite a lot. Caring, I think. Not giving up as the child enters their teens, but staying present and opinionated. Not to mention setting an example of moderation. The households where the parents use methamphetamines or heroin locally are higher risk for the teens.

More here: https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/trends-statistics/monitoring-future

This fits the Ragtag Daily Prompt: enigma.