Hola, Amigos. It's Friday night and I'm catching up on my news. I read this article in The Atlantic. It made me feel better about the struggles we've been working through as educators, but it makes me feel a little sick thinking about what our healthcare workers are going through right now.
I've been through some long military exercises in a previous life, when I was young and full of energy, and that was tough in a lot of ways, but it was also relatively finite. This prolonged campaign treating Covid, and the surge that's very possibly lurking around the corner looks pretty miserable for us, but utterly horrendous for the doctors and nurses who are facing workloads that make ours pale by comparison. I know I'm spending way more time prepping and trying to connect with students online. And I presume most of us are in the same boat, but the 24 and 36(!) hour shifts of these medical professionals is humbling. My sister is a family practitioner in North Dakota and they are sinking.
I'm not sure exactly why I felt the need to share this...just that it feels really important. It makes me a little grateful that I'm able to continue working and serving students the best I can without the existential crisis facing the healthcare workers. It reminds me my students may have doctors and nurses in their homes and they're going to be feeling it in their families (not as bad in San Diego as some places, but potentially here, and certainly more than me!). And it makes me understand the need to not become part of this growing problem by opening too early or being careless myself.
I'll be moving on to some escapist literature and/or TV later in the weekend, but for now, I owe it to those who might have to treat me one day to understand and appreciate the scope of what they're dealing with.
