Hey everybody! It’s Mr. Hanky Poo! But for real, wash your hands…regularly, some reports are showing a fecal-oral transmission possibility and virus shedding has also been seen in urine. so…Wash. Your. Hands. Regularly.

Here’s what I know today. The sun rose again. I still have a job. I’m alive!!! It’s sunny again here in Seattle, which is a rarity, and the Kung Flu, a.k.a. Covid-19 shit is out of control up here.

Fuck man, I have to admit that I was a naysayer when all this shit started, but this is rapidly becoming….bullshit….it has rapidly become an emergency situation …and coming to a city near you…probably. We had a meeting yesterday in my department, the operating room, and here’s what info we were given.

Effective Monday the operating room will be going down to weekend crew numbers during the week. That means one surgical team. The rest of us, well, we are being put on a fast track training program to be utilized in either Med-Surg, critical care, or the emergency department. FUCK. I’m going to the ED and to be honest I’m a bit nervous about it. I’m not nervous about the work. I’m nervous about getting the Kung Flu and taking it home. This is so fucked.

This redeployment and retraining is 100% unheard of and unprecedented, especially in the world of travel nursing. As you now I am a travel nurse and on contract up here in Seattle. For a hospital to take their fully trained staff and especially their travelers, and rapidly train them to work in another unit is NOT NORMAL. This whole thing is not normal. This situation is not normal, but we are being forced to find a new normal and we will do that I am sure.

The operating room also provides scrubs to the staff because they have to be specially laundered. Our OR director told us yesterday to put a week’s worth of scrubs in our lockers because people from other parts of the hospital are coming down here to the OR and taking them. We will potentially run out of them in the near future. We don’t have enough N95 respirator masks to go around, we don’t have enough supplies for the number of patients that we have. We are currently in the red as far as supplies go, next is black, and once that happens we do not have the supplies or staff to take one more patient. As of yesterday we had 21 ventilators, 13 of them were being used. We have 8 left….THAT’S IT. Covid-19 screening tents are being set up in the parking garage, and Tom Brady is a free agent! What is the world coming to?! J/K. I don’t give a shit where Tom Brady goes to be totally honest. I don’t watch or follow sports, not like there are any sports to watch anyway!

Back to some serious shiz. I’ve been hearing and reading that this is not only effecting the elderly and immuno-compromised. There are several accounts I’ve read in the last 24 hours of 20-40 something people being tested positive and being very sick. Symptoms are not limited to fever, cough, and SOB (shortness of breath). There are also people experiencing GI symptoms (diarrhea), abdominal cramps, runny nose, chills, general malaise, and sore throat. Basically what it seems like is if you have a sign or symptom that’s not normal for you, it may be the Kung Flu, aka, Covid-19.

So what do you do? What do any of us do when we turn on the TV and see the news interviewing kids on spring break crowding at the beach not giving 1 or 2 shits about it? Fucking Honey Badgers. It’s on our turf and it’s time to be taking it seriously. I wasn’t at first, but that is all changing for me.

Is total and complete lockdown coming? Who TF knows? I definitely do not think it’s out of the realm of possibilities in the coming weeks if not days based on what we are now seeing on our home turf.

Take this shit seriously people, this is not a fucking joke.

BUT!!!! STOP FUCKING PANICKING AND PANIC BUYING EVERYTHING AT THE STORES!!! Stop being sheeple, take care of yourselves, your family, and cautiously heed the warnings. It’s true, most people won’t even be affected by this, but you don’t want to be one of the statistics.

I can’t stress this enough.

WASH YOUR HANDS REGULARLY. Don’t be a disgusting pig, it’s pretty simple.

Beyond that, have a great day, stay positive, stay hydrated, stay healthy, get good sleep, and eat healthy food.

To quote my friend and fellow Marine, Rudy Reyes, let’s all stop the constant human going and constant human doing, and start practicing human being. Thanks Fruity Rudy!

Love, peace and the Middle East…whatever that means.