Uneasy

I haven’t scrubbed properly since I was a student. Theatre was never going to be my thing, pre-op and post-op you can talk to your patients but in theater there’s nothing. Despite that I’m pretty competent in aseptic technique. Every job I‘ve had in the past fifteen years has required that I be mindful of cross contamination, that I maintain a sterile field on my trolley, that I protect my next patient from anything I may have picked up from the last one. I wash my hands before, after and in between. I know when gloves are required, when they are protecting me and when they are protecting my patient. I know how to add gowns and goggles and masks when the risk increases. I can feel it on my skin when my hands are contaminated and I avoid touching my face or my food with my hands even in my own kitchen. It is ingrained in me, it is automatic and comes naturally.

Despite all of this, today after doing my shopping at the supermarket I felt uneasy. I have been taking a change of clothes and shoes to work this week, washing my uniform straight away and keeping my shoes wrapped in a plastic bag. I have been mindful of where I put my bag down at work and where I store it at home. My phone screen has never been wiped so often as it is right now. I’ve watched two videos this week that brought the uneasiness. One of a nurse overseas talking about how she will quarantine herself from her husband and children from now until this ends and the other of a Dr demonstrating how to bring the shopping in as if he were in an operating theatre. Not uneasiness because I couldn’t do these things or because I shouldn’t. Uneasiness of a different kind.

Today I physically cringed every time I touched a part of the trolley that I hadn’t sanitized. I planned out last night how I would approach the job, which bags I would take and how I would leave them outside until the next shopping day when I was finished with them. Which part of the bench I would use for what and what I would wipe and wash everything down with. I did it, not perfectly but well enough. It was time consuming but probably necessary. I feel happy that I won’t be shopping as regularly as I usually do though and I know exactly how I will feel next Thursday as I prepare to do the same again. Hyper alert, anxious and desperate for control.

This is where the uneasiness comes from. This is not something I want to feel often; this is not something I can maintain. I cannot win or control the fight against every microscopic viral particle that might come my way and I cannot maintain trying to. I’ve tried it before, controlling something invisible and complex. Back when I thought that food sensitivities and genetic differences were the whole picture for us. I stared at and explored this image constantly trying to understand one more piece, how it related to all the others and how I could ‘optimise’ all of the pathways at once. I read books and theories and protocols. I looked into courses in Biochemistry. Every day I shopped and cooked and prepared his food and supplements believing that how he felt and developed and behaved depended on it. It didn’t save us, it didn’t help. What it did was create a bunch of extra challenges for me to solve and heal from.

I’m uneasy because I don’t think control is the answer here either. I don’t think it’s going to get us through this. I can’t foresee how this will all go but I’m fairly certain that if I don’t hug my children for the next six months to protect them from invisible germs both they and I will suffer for it. It may feel much worse than a sore throat and shortness of breath. Am I going to continue wiping our groceries, storing my shoes in a plastic bag and social distancing as much as we possibly can? Yes! I am going to to my part to reduce the spread of this thing for sure. 100%. Am I going to become consumed by an invisible enemy all day every day? No.

Let’s be smart about the precautions we can take, the difference we can all make with our actions and habits.

Let’s be aware of how this thing is transmitted and spread and who needs protecting most.

Let’s do what we can to support the scientists, doctors and experts who are looking down the microscopes and giving their all to fight this for all of us.

When we get home though and our shoes are outside, our groceries are unwrapped and wiped clean, our hands and hair are washed, let’s put as much focus on looking after ourselves. Our whole selves- physical, psychological and spiritual- with nourishing and nutritious food, with time and space to process and with all of the things that feed and relieve our souls.