Last Thursday, I went with the trail crew to work the Clark Nature Trail over in Fall Creek. Half the crew would be doing puncheon work with the Forest Service crew; the rest of us would do grunt work on the trail. That was fine by me. I have become more and more comfortable doing trail work, widening trails, removing rocks, closing trails, diverting them.
We met at the Shell station south of town for our “tailgate season” where we discuss what we will be doing, specific safety hazards and review general safety behavior. Normally, we then divide up into vehicles to carpool to the trail head, but this time I said I would be driving myself. I had decided to do that two days before; I didn’t want to ride in close contact to several others. I wasn’t the only one doing this in a group of 60 and 70 year-olds.
At the trailhead, we had another tailgate session with the Forest Service and a specific discussion of the job we were to do. Several of us started by each picking up a 4 by 4, about 9 feet long, and we had to carry it through the woods uphill a half mile to the work site. That is a cubic foot of wood, and it was heavy. I hoisted mine and was last in the group heading out. I wasn’t sure how long I could walk without having to take a break, but I found that by stretching my right arm out along the wood ahead of me, it was like carrying a canoe.
I stayed in the back of the group, but about half way there, the person ahead of me set his 4 x 4 down to change arms. I told him I was passing, so I wouldn’t get hit by his wood, went around him and then kept on to the top. It wasn’t a competition, but I wanted to get to the top without stopping, and I did. I walked back down to the bottom, got a second 4 x 4, and did the same thing. After that, we did trail work in the mud, making a new trail and closing off an old one with nearby downed branches and logs. We made a small stream diversion, filled in holes from past posts, and pulled out a fence post deep in the ground. It was a pleasant day in the woods among the pioneer violets, trilliums, snow queens, running streams, giant trees, Pacific wrens and spotted towhees.
Before leaving that afternoon, I talked with one of the other guys, very experienced from working years for the Park Service. He is about my age, has had cancer, and drove alone, too. Neither of us was scared of the coronavirus, but we both knew that we needed to be cautious. In the woods that day, the outside world had changed. When I left that morning, many things were still planned, I had a schedule with some things I needed to do. When I returned, the stock market had plummeted again, basketball was over, baseball too, my trip to Nebraska in April was cancelled, Forest Service meetings I was to go to, scheduled for next week, became virtual, It was a different country, almost the way it was after 9/11, 1/28/86, or 11/22/63.
I was asked if I were panicked. I answered no, and I’m still not. I am at peace. My schedule is empty. I don’t have to get up earlier for anything, although I will still do trail work if I can. I lost money on plane reservations that I can’t keep, but I am not trapped on another continent or a cruise ship in quarantine. Or worse, sick. At least not yet. I won’t be tutoring in person, but I can do it online. I can still snowshoe and hike. I am concerned, yes. Three days ago I was tutoring in the math lab. Two days ago, I was at a meeting, but I sat separately from others. A week ago, I had two long distance trips planned. Now, I have none.
I read how retired physicians might be able to help. I am not sure what is meant by help, in that we are at high risk by age and many of us have additional risk factors for severe or fatal illness. Aside from liability issues, it seemed obvious that prolonged close contact to sick patients led to more severe illnesses among medical workers. Now, if they wanted to have my ideas on system design, that would be fine, but only if we did it by telemetry.
I want to be one less person who needs to be tested, brought to a hospital, given supportive treatment, and adds more stress to the medical care system. Our hospitals are not geared for this, and nor is our national system, if one can call it that. We got hit with a bad virus that was certainly predictable, if not knowing when. If not a virus, an earthquake would have stressed the system in some areas. But when one is working to make a profit, getting the right patient mix, advertising, minimizing costs wherever possible, usually by limiting personnel, and asking first about insurance and second what is wrong with the patient, there can be no room in such a system for idle beds, idle machines, or idle people. I suspect many hospitals are near full capacity without coronavirus. If they haven’t been, they are likely to soon go under. When everything depends upon workers staying healthy, nothing going wrong, a pandemic is going to be a disaster. The system is taxed with routine care; here where I live, it is overtaxed and medical issues of the population require month long waits. It is sort of like Canadian care that people complain about. It isn’t like there is a lot of elective surgery that can be cancelled to free up beds; there is plenty of emergency and necessary surgery, requiring ventilators, every day.
Many have resisted increased public support of medical care or public health because they aren’t affected by certain conditions. I’ve long said that each of us is subject to a cancer, a ruptured aneurysm, a drunk driver, or a mutation. Now, we have an example where any of us can become ill. Each of us is subject to a virus that has a significant likelihood of killing us. Good public health helps all of us, yet public health has had its budget cut severely in the last decade. For each dollar spent, public health delivers far more value than any other branch of medicine.
So, as I do the some of the things I like outdoors, hope I won’t be quarantined on the basis of age, or fall ill, I am at peace. Nothing major to do tomorrow. No big trips on the horizon, no meetings, just a lot of reading, maybe a snowshoe, trail work, or even tutor math online.
I hope that out of this time we find our way to decent coverage of medical conditions, recognize we are all in this together, and make sure public health—where all the major strides in longevity are made—is funded far better than it has been.
For once, being an introvert in a land of extroverts is a blessing.
Avoid crowds? No problem.
Boreal B[l]og 
March 15, 2020 at 20:07 |
the open trail photo has so much texture in it I was able to smell the pines. THANKs for that