Another New Normal

I survived my first day back to work!

I have to laugh a little when I think about the differences between going to back to work after Rose was born, and going back to work yesterday. With Rose, we did a practice day at her daycare a few days before I went back to work. I cried as soon as I got in the car after dropping her off. I wandered around the empty house that day, wondering about how she was doing and missing her like crazy.
In contrast, yesterday felt no different than any other day. I'm already used to not being with the twins all the time, and to be honest, work is going to be easier than taking care of my little people :)

Thankfully, it was a pretty slow day at work which gave me time to get caught up on all the changes I missed over the last 3 months. And there have been a lot of changes.. Wearing a mask for 12 plus hours straight is awful. My ears didn't hurt actually, but my face felt like a sweaty, humid swamp after about 6 hours. I have to fill out a survey online before my shift to make sure I'm healthy. Then I have to show my completed survey to someone when I get to work. They then hand me my mask for the day which is inside a paper bag. The entrances to the hospital are all sectioned off so that you have to enter and exit specific ways and in front of the screeners. It feels SO strange. People don't stop to chat like they used to or even smile and make eye contact like they used to. It's all very serious and the mood is apprehensive. I'm sure it was even worse a couple weeks ago. I think it's extra strange for me because I haven't been involved in the process. For people working throughout all of this, the changes came quickly, but in stages. For me, I came into work yesterday and it's like everything was different. There's new policies for what PPE to wear in certain situations, there's a clean drop off bin in my work space for N95 masks that have been cleaned and are ready for reuse (you get assigned a N95 if you need it and after so many uses it gets sent to sterile processing and returned to you in a brown paper bag). There are no visitors wandering around, or staff really. People just go straight to where they need to be.

Something I didn't realize right away, but I'm grateful for is my unique position at work will limit my exposure to Covid19 patients. I work in a large holding room with several bays that can hold several patients at a time. Because of that, we don't allow any covid positive patients in our room or any suspected covid patients either. Also, because we staff minimally on the weekends (I will only work Saturdays and Sundays) I won't have to worry about getting pulled to another unit. We always need 2 nurses and we only staff 2 nurses. I'm certainly exposed to a certain degree just by being in the hospital, but I'm very grateful that I won't be directly caring for these patients very much. There may still be a brief interaction if a covid patient is in CT or MRI and they need nursing assistance, but not like caring for them for 12 hours. This makes me feel much better about still visiting Lily.
Lily is continuing to grow and develop. She is awake for longer stretches now and she loves to play with toys. Her current favorite is a little keyboard that she kicks to play music. It's so fun to watch!

Anyways, going back to work just adds another layer to everything going on in our lives. We'll have to figure out a new balance between home, work, and NICU. We appreciate your prayers for the adjustment.

I am also grateful to have the day off today. In a rare situation, we had an extra nurse scheduled and I volunteered to stay home. Today is the one year anniversary of Joe's dad's passing. Ken was the best father in law a girl could have. He loved Jesus and his family. He was loud and silly a lot of the time, but also serious and full of good advice. He was super competitive and got super frustrated when we beat him in games like apples to apples or fantasy football. He teased me mercilessly and I miss him. I often wonder what he would make of everything going on and I wish he could meet Cora and Lily.

It's amazing how a change in your life can make you hear a song you know well sound like you're hearing it for the first time. Our worship this morning during online church included this song and it really spoke to my heart:

Higher than the mountains that I face
Stronger than the power of the grave
Constant through the trial and the change
One thing remains,
Yes, one thing remains.

[Chorus 3x:]
Your love never fails,
It never gives up
It never runs out on me

Because on and on, and on, and on it goes
Before it overwhelms and satisfies my soul
And I never ever have to be afraid
One thing remains
So, this one thing remains.

[Chorus 3x:]
Your love never fails,
It never gives up
It never runs out on me

[Bridge:]
In death, in life I'm confident and covered by the power of Your great love
My debt is paid.
There's nothing that can separate my heart from Your great love...

Sleepy Lily

Cora is starting to smile more :)

I made an eggless chocolate cake because Rose is allergic to eggs. She LOVED it

Surprised by some snow in mid April