Florida Medical Center nurse shares his powerful message about fighting the coronavirus

[flamingdem]

https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/2020/03/29/fort-myers-nurse-posts-powerful-message-fighting-coronavirus/2935301001/?utm_source=naplesnews-Coronavirus%20Watch&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=baseline_greeting&utm_term=list_article_thumb

Justin R. Davis, Special to news-press.com

Note to readers: Justin Davis, 46, is a Progressive Care Unit registered nurse. He works for Lee Health at Gulf Coast Medical Center in Fort Myers. A resident of Lehigh Acres, Justin is married and has two daughters. Friday (March 27) was his first day back at work after being off for several days and he saw how dramatically things had changed at the hospital since he had last been there. He posted his thoughts to his Facebook page, shared more than 5,000 times, and has given The News-Press and Naples Daily News permission to share it with our readers. It appears here as it appears on Justin's Facebook page, unedited.

How much do you like to gamble?

In the wake of a close-to-home friends death this week, and having the reality of the events before us sat upon my lap last night on shift... I feel compelled to share this morning’s thoughts before I even leave the parking garage at work.

You see, I had a few days off from work. Last night was my first shift back in over a week. I was given a “rule out” Covid-19 patient right from the get go. The thought settled in that this is now serious to me. This is now real. This would be my first. All my calm, prepared demeanor suddenly fled as I realized I would have to use all of the PPE (personal protection equipment) that is running short in some places in the US, to keep me safe.

MY first thought was, “do I have what I need to do this job, safely?” Thankfully the answer to that was a resounding yes.

Then, later the news came sweeping across my social media as I was eating my lunch last night; someone very well known in our area, someone my wife and friends all know, has passed from complications of Covid-19. He was a young, healthy, family man. Gone too soon. Too close to home and things I hold dear.

These two events have settled in this morning, along with an article I read, and it has me thinking, planning, worrying, and scared.

How much do you like to gamble?

Would you gamble with your life? Your Wife’s? Your Husbands, boyfriends, significant other?

How about your child or children?

Would you be willing to gamble that this year could be potentially your child’s last year to live? All of this based on your actions and choices made from your opinion about something you cannot fathom, or correctly comprehend.

Now let me add to that, it gets better.

If one of your loved ones does contract this disease and is taken to the hospital, guess who isn’t going to be sitting at their bedside while they are scared and alone? You guessed it, YOU will not be there with them. The hospitals are not taking visitors, and certainly not for quarantined patients.

That’s what a quarantine is. Alone.

Is that how you want your loved one to have to experience potentially the end of their life, alone and void of their family slowly and chronically dying off on a ventilator?

Then go ahead and gamble.

Gamble that you know better than those fighting on the front lines. Gamble your children’s future, or their future without even you. Gamble things are as benign as you think they are, and nothing will come of this.

[wendyb-NC]

1. Thank you, for pointing to that article, by the RN working with Covid-19patients.

Anybody who thinks it okay to mingle, with the crowds right now, is playing a dangerous game with their own and others future.
Food for thought.