On March 20, 2020 I created a blog category called, “Covid Diary.” I had just come back from a vacation, and while I was away, the world had changed. COVID-19 went from being a blip on my news feed to a full on worldwide panic. I had this idea in my head that as a nurse, I should be documenting this interesting time in history. As a hospice nurse, I believed I would be in the trenches of the pandemic. I expected to come in contact with many COVID patients. I was nervous, and afraid of catching this unknown virus; but also excited to be a nurse during a pandemic.

Turns out I was wrong. So totally wrong.

First of all, the COVID-19 patients of 2020 didn’t tend to get to go to inpatient hospice. They went straight from the ventilator to the “celestial discharge,” if you know what I mean. At any rate, our much bigger unit across town was getting ready to convert a whole floor to be the designated “COVID Hospice Unit,” so all COVID patients would be diverted there. Read more

On March 7th my family and I left to go to Costa Rica for vacation. On the days leading up to our departure I (selfishly) kept hoping the COVID-19 numbers wouldn’t spike and we would be able to get onto the plane. My husband got laid off in January and we had paid for the trip in December. There was no way we were going to miss it.

We made it to Costa Rica and we had a wonderful time. But I kept reading updates on the virus and by the middle of the week I was feeling a sense of dread, not knowing what we were coming home to. Half way through we got the update that my kids schools were closing for two weeks. Read more