Coronavirus: I'm not truly scared. Here's why.

Ah, the Coronavirus. 

I'm trying to think of another time in my nearly 42 years of life where I've seen such a profound fever pitch of panic. We are living in a most interesting time of history, aren't we?

Y2K, West Nile, Zika, etc. No other event or illness seems to have had such an impact on the world. At least in my generation's lifetime. We're now living in a time where all of the luxuries and necessities we usually enjoy at a finger snap, now all of a sudden not available. Daily life has done a swift and merciless 180 for so many without discrimination regardless of class, age, race, gender. With the most brief of warnings, folks are without their typical steady source of income and left to find some type of balance amid chaos. I get it. 

However. I'm not scared. Cautious, but far from fearful or scared like the rest of the nation and the world appear to be. I've even asked myself "should I be as frightened as everyone else?" 

I'm just not. There are a couple of good reasons for this. 

1. I know who's in control. It's not world leaders, governors, mayors, or even the CDC. It's definitely not me. However, God has been, is, and always will be in control. Ever since this entire corona-whatever has made its appearance, I have to say that I've been pretty unfazed. It's almost a peaceful calm I experience until I momentarily allow someone else's paranoia to affect me. Then I just remind myself who's in charge. I remind myself that He has kept me safe all of these years, why should I even waste time worrying? What better time to work on my faith than now? I'm pretty proud of myself, too. God's got me and He's got you too, regardless of your spiritual/religious beliefs or lack thereof. One of our patients encouraged me to read Psalm 91. Do it if you have a moment. I have way too much going on in my personal life to where the Coronavirus barely registers as a blip on my radar. Where do I start? My financial issues? The ongoing court drama with my psychopathic ex-boyfriend? Or should I start with my parents; both of whom have had some serious health setbacks in the last year alone? Sure, I definitely worry about their health and well-being. However, they're safely homebound and for once, I'm not upset about this. And oh yeah, I had an MRI about a week ago and the results weren't so encouraging. For the first time in my life, I'll be having what I consider a major, yet common surgery. How much will this set me back? Corona who? I don't even have time or brain cells to waste worrying about it. All I can do is continue to wash my hands and move about my life as usual, trying to still decide what's best for my future. 
   
2. I must also say that I'm a little more blessed and less stressed than most folks my age at this time. Not gloating. I'm single without children. Therefore, I don't have the additional stress of worrying about my spouse and/or child(ren)'s health, the unexpected impromptu end of their school year, and scrambling for childcare. Again, God knows exactly what he's doing because we all know if I had children, I'd more than likely stress myself out to the point of dysfunction. Additionally, I work in a cancer center where we've been told that the care of our patients will not take a backseat to the Coronavirus and that cancer is still killing more people than the "Rona" is. They also reassured us that there are no foreseeable plans for us to close. I feel very blessed, humbled, lucky, and happy to still go to work and earn my check daily. Screening questions are asked and temperatures are taken of every person that enters our building. So, I'm not in quarantine....but exposed to any germs our patients may bring in with them: ol' Corona included. 

I have a question. How much fear would we be experiencing if social media didn't exist? Who's been looking at their Facebook timelines as I have only to see that literally every other post is Coronavirus-related? A little tiresome and redundant, although I've made my lil' post or two. I mean, I know the actual news on TV and elsewhere still exists. But more than likely, it's not something you're continually doing. However, everyone is almost always holding a cellphone, scrolling their lives away. Scrolling and stopping at chockfuls of stories and articles; people, animals, inanimate objects with masks, . 

Which leads me to, this daily death count. Must we know about every single Coronavirus death as it occurs? Do we as the public really require an up-to-the-minute tally on who's died so we can be even more frightened? While I feel the public has a right to know, I feel we have a right not to know as well. This means disconnecting from the social media, news sources, and even our friends and family who obsessively sit on their seats in anticipation of these crumbs of information. 

I got curious as I was discussing the topic of pandemics with my friends and some patients at work this morning. I did a quick piece of research and not at all to my surprise, the coronavirus wasn't even listed in the top 15 major pandemics of the world. Did you know twenty to fifty million people died of the Spanish flu (otherwise known as H1N1) between 1918 and 1920? Let's not even bring up the Black Death, a.k.a. the bubonic plague, which took out an estimated 75 million to 200 million people on earth in the mid 1300's. A very unsanitary time in history. When I read about the symptoms and effects of the bubonic plague, chile........I'm not sure if anyone living in the year 2020 could handle it. A flea bite or rat bite seven hundred years ago was enough to cause flu-like symptoms, seizures, gangrene, and a guaranteed death sentence. Amazingly enough, despite our technology and medical advances of today, a few people worldwide still die from it today. Amazing, isn't it?

I guess what I'm really trying to encourage people to do is calm. The. Eff. Down. Please. I heard it somewhere that this coronavirus mess should peak within 45 days or so. I truly hope so for everyone. While I'm sad to see that folks are dying at a much higher rate than we're accustomed to in our modern day and age, the end of Coronavirus' story will be nothing like the plague or smallpox. I do feel like something like this needed to happen to jolt people (especially us spoiled and pampered Americans) for us to appreciate our lives as they were PCV (pre-coronavirus). Us, with our routines, our trips to restaurants, our get-togethers, our jobs, our children's schools, and even traffic as we all go about the responsibilities and pleasures of our lives. Us, with our typically-in-abundance of hand sanitizer. Us (well, most of us), with our clean asses on a daily basis thank to toilet paper. Did you know many people of the world don't even have access to toilet paper? We're losing our collective minds over going without what are considered luxuries in other parts of the world. I guess the best thing to come out of this will learn not to take the simplest little things for granted. And do some things we should've been doing all along before this happened.

So. Here's hoping that this nuisance of an eye-opener is over sooner than later. All we can do is continue to pray, wash our hands, disinfect everything, and yes, stay away from each other. It's all going to end eventually. Hang in there, and let's take a moment to thank God for a most unfortunate, but necessary time for everyone to rest and ponder things before things return back to "normal."

Until next time, Charmin