Things I Think by Gary Tetz
Now that small respiratory droplets created by human speech have been found to hang out in the air for more than eight minutes, requiring masks in long-term care and any other setting where people congregate seems like a no-brainer.
While long-term care workers I’ve interviewed have been grateful and positive during the COVID-19 pandemic, my coping mechanisms could be considered somewhat less constructive and helpful.
To shake someone’s hand is to say, “I don’t know much about you, but I choose to embrace every bad hygienic choice you’ve made today.”
Facility staff have no idea if catching COVID-19 will be merely an annoyance or a life-threatening battle, a parking ticket or a death sentence. But still, they go.
Compared to shoppers tearing apart a pallet of toilet paper, our facility staff have been Buddhas in scrubs during the recent pandemic. But even they aren’t the most inspiring out of all of this.
Can you remember a public health directive than “don’t touch your face” that’s ever been more simple, clear and science-based, yet more difficult to execute? I can’t.
Love was in the air this Valentine’s Day, and in the days before and after. Let me tell you the ways.
Sometimes a writer has to take a principled stand no matter how oxymoronic that might sound. That’s why today, without fear of reprisal, I want to talk about typos.
Wakeful, wandering, grumpy and doomed. These precious words describe our faithful, bleary-eyed columnist most nights.
If you didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions, you better be prepared to explain why.
It would be one of those sympathy shows, I figured, the kind where you go home acknowledging the performer more as a historical artifact than as a still-vigorous artist. “How good could she really be at this age?” I even caught myself wondering.
The growing use of a lazy trend in text communications makes me weep for the future of real compassion and empathy.
That’s right, it’s my birthday. I’ll pause just long enough for you to feel bad about not yet wishing me a happy one.
Our long-term care facilities are apparently under ongoing attack, and we desperately need a hero.
Call it a blessing or a curse, but give me a life experience, and I’ll connect it to long-term care in 300 words, or your money back.
It might be best to start creating some ground rules for how we’ll be observing PDPM Day in the future.
Resist the urge to rush outside and attach jumper cables to your earlobes — for now.
Once again, science has undermined the foundation on which another of my excuses is built.
I choose to believe I have friends, and chatted with one of them recently in the lobby of a nursing home. I felt the conversation was going extremely well. I listened attentively, and contributed interesting nuggets and wry witticisms on various long-term care topics. Every non-verbal body language signal she sent supported my perception of…
Those adorable flying insects buzzing around and bringing cheer to your long-term care facility right now? A new study reveals that they’re probably infested with and spreading terrifying superbugs.
