Things I Think by Gary Tetz
I always thought it was only good for destroying the world, but now I’m here to boldly predict that social media will ultimately save us. After the horrors we’ve been through these past few years with Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, you probably didn’t see that hypothesis coming. But here’s how it’s going to happen: by…
It’s just a box. Not that different from the one that will probably show up on your doorstep or mine today, maybe stuffed with holiday gifts or toilet paper. So why am I feeling a little choked up standing here staring at it? This wave of sudden emotion makes no sense. Usually I associate a…
Now that vaccines really are imminent and long-term care staff and residents look to be first in line, you’re probably holding your breath, desperately longing for an answer to the most important question of all: What does Gary Tetz think I should do? That’s completely normal. I’m what the kids call an influencer, so it…
Where is Paul Revere when we need him? It seems like he should be racing through every hamlet and long-term care facility in America shrieking, “The vaccine is coming! The vaccine is coming!”
I can’t tell you the peace I feel from setting aside the unknowns of the election and the incomprehensible intricacies of delivering vaccines to long-term care facilities to consider our economic future.
Sometimes I have to stretch to recite something joyful to share from the past week, as is requested at one of our regular work meetings. But this week, the task was easy.
At this point, we dare not muse aloud about what else could possibly go wrong in 2020. It’s no longer about the second shoe dropping. We appear to be dealing with an evil centipede who still has at least 98 more.
With a pandemic continuing unabated, and now hurricanes, floods and wildfires ravaging large swaths of the nation, I don’t know how many more apocalyptic horsemen the long-term care profession is slated to face or can withstand.
How fondly I remember the old days, pre-2020, when Googling “long-term care news” yielded different results
There aren’t enough covers to pull over my head anymore.
Finding joy in the difference you make is perhaps all the inspiration any of us needs.
How are those masks working out for you? My glasses are as perpetually fogged as a car windshield after prom, and I do enjoy sounding like Charlie Brown’s teacher.
I consider it an ominous omen. Yesterday on my walk, I was attacked by a crow — three times. Or it might have been a raven. I can’t tell the difference.
It turns out there might be one type of administrator who is more personally susceptible to this vile virus now plaguing humanity than any other.
For those of you seeking a different coping path through this pandemic, might I suggest walking, gardening, swimming or dancing. I say this because a new preliminary study suggests that people who do those things regularly have bigger brains.
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.
