The Back Door!

Well...That was a day!

This group of followers has created quite a stir. My nurse practitioner and I are literally winded as we race to usher patients in through the back door, donning and doffing our personal protective equipment in between patients and carefully cleaning the exam rooms once a patient is ushered out the back door. It is a much lengthier process than it was in the pre-COVID 19 days when we just moved from room to room with no PPE and with all cleaning left to the office cleaner at the end of the day. These are just the patients we see. We phone most of the scheduled patients on top of all this.

Now we are weaving in YOU and happily doing so. Seven thousand dollars in donations so far with most of that already distributed to people in great need and to equipment for the COVID 19 clinic. There was $3,000 on my office manager's desk today. We discussed where we thought it should go. The needs are great. We decided to use it to purchase more high quality cloth masks. There are elderly and vulnerable people out there with no access to the internet. They can't order masks online nor can they download instructions as to how to make a mask. They also cannot go out in public without one. Several of these folks knocked on the back door today to pick up masks. I stand in the parking lot with them, showing them how to put them on and take them off. Just as we made the decision to buy more, four separate back door drop offs happened, all of them with the exact masks we needed. More vulnerable people will start picking these up next week and one fellow who dropped off a box of masks that his company is now making, offered to deliver masks to anyone in need who cannot make it to my back door.

Just as we recognize a need, you fill it. Thank you.

I heard a radio personality state that we are now living in isolation in a world that has lost it's culture. I disagree. We may have lost what our culture used to be with it's rich social activities and networks but now we have a culture of compassion and kindness. It is far richer. I am so proud of all of you. My office can't keep up and we are so 'OK' with that.

Lot's of good stuff to report which I will dole out in posts over the next few days. Here are some tidbits:

More than 20,000 Canadians have recovered from COVID 19.

Six provinces and territories reported no deaths this week.

The rate of infections of COVID 19 is now doubling every 21 days. In a post I wrote earlier this week, that number was 16 and in the early days of the pandemic, that number was every 2 days. The curve is brilliantly flat!! Your work of social distancing has allowed us to win this first battle. We won!

I have been treating HIV positive patients for 30 years. I have watched the remarkable development of anti-viral medications. We are now using that technology in the fight against COVID 19. There is an anti-viral drug that is heading into the final research phase and it is showing promising results in the treatment of the most critically ill COVID 19 patients.

There is more evidence that wearing a cloth mask in public stops a significant number of infections from occurring. It must become our newest weapon.

We are smashing this folks but we must remember, the hardship is great. More and more people are suffering economically and emotionally. We have not experienced this kind of overwhelming and collective trauma in 101 years. None of us have experience with this. But there is no question that we are learning not only to survive but to thrive.

Be gentle and kind to yourself and to others because this is massive. We will win. There is so much to learn about our strength, resilience, creativity, and ingenuity in the process. Have not doubt about my capacity and your capacity to manage this.

Be of good cheer my friends. Stay tuned for more information about that all-important mask.

Anne-Marie

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