These days you hear many people saying we live in strange times. The past two months certainly have been unusual. On Friday March 13 I got the call from my daughter’s school that schools would be closed for the next two weeks. Over that weekend we started hearing rumors of all elective surgeries being cancelled. Non essential workers were told to stay home and businesses that didn’t provide essential services shut down. Social isolation, shelter in place, wearing masks and standing six feet apart became the norm. Life as we knew it was gone and a new way of life took it’s place.
As a scrub tech who works in day surgery I found myself with nothing to do at work. The nurses and other techs were slowly called to fill needs in other parts of the hospital system. Our numbers dwindled and the halls and operating rooms stood quiet and empty.
Empty hallways 
Empty rooms 
Empty case carts 
Empty waiting areas
A handful of us ended up remaining and are still there all these weeks later. Our department does the eye surgeries at our hospital including emergency vitrectomies which is an important service to be able to provide if needed. A torn or detached retina could affect the patient’s vision permanently or end up leaving the patient blind.
We have had a handful of cases every week. We get pretty excited when we have a case! We feel for the patient but are happy to be working and happy to see the surgeon as well as get news from anesthesia about what’s happening at “the big house” with covid patients in the icu. They are our connection to what’s happening on the front lines. They bring stories of how sick patients are, how busy nurses and doctors are and what the effects of this pandemic look like on the inside.
We’ve been told that next week we will have three rooms open and will be doing a bit of gyn and general surgery. We’ll see what happens. Listening to Governor Baker yesterday as he talked around the issue and vaguely answered every question put to him we all walked away thinking it didn’t sound to promising. The numbers of infected people are still high and don’t seem to be declining just yet. There seems to be limited PPE supplies at this time still. And I’ve wondered how much anesthesia is still needed in the covid positive units. Will they be able to spare them now when there are still so many covid positive patients needing ventilators?
So we live and work in this place of uncertainty. We live and work in an ever changing environment. These certainly are strange times. But as I said to my daughter, we are living in an interesting time in history. What will she tell younger people about it when she is older and all this is history? We will all have quite a story to tell.