Looking back and ahead

 

This was just in April 2020, and 10,000 had already died in the US. A time before vaccines were available. A time of fear, isolation, losing all social contacts. Our church just started doing video services, and the choir sang individually and the director sewed their efforts together with "Garage Band" for the final presentation ...all on line.

Thank you so much health care workers, first responders!

-------------

I had the experience of having a heart attack in May of 2020, with all the new protocols in place in the hospital for COVID. I blogged about it as a memory, and when I experienced it.

But when I recently (April 2025) had pneumonia with 4 days of hospitalization, I was again reminded of the experiences with COVID precautions all over the place. After all, I was on the respiratory wing. They wouldn't let me walk in the halls because there were current COVID patients.

We (patients and staff) were mostly masked  when I had to go to the ultra-sound lab. I was lying in a bed, and met some interesting people in "transport."  There seemed to be a contest to have the weirdest hair colors and tattoos, men and women!

Some of the nurses said they'd been there in 2020 when COVID struck the first time, when nobody had a vaccination, when masks were being worn mainly by first responders because there weren't enough in the beginning for every person who might have been exposed.

I remember reading about social contamination, as that was the only way people could avoid it. That was before we learned how often it was contracted from people without symptoms yet, so it was kind of a losing battle.

Standing 6 feet from the person in front of you in line was not only recommended, there were painted foot prints to stand upon.

The news was full of photos of the refrigerated semi-trailers being used as morgues at hospitals...in US cities as well as all over the world. We had vaccines finally...and when we heard some were available in Asheville, a friend and myself drove a long way across town to get in line, in our car, waiting to get our shots. Both of us were in our late 70s and kind of wanted to be around for a while.

So I'd go find places to get my yearly shots (flu and COVID) in the fall each year. But there were new strains of each that had developed, so often people would get really sick each year. 

I live near a fire station and a couple of highways so hear first responders going out by their sirens often. 

Many thanks to those who spend hours each week caring for others, either with fires, accidents, or illnesses.

Today my heart goes out to the thousands of residents of Canada who have had to evacuate due to the wild fires there.

Manitoba, Canada

----------------

And looking forward:

The GOP in our House of Representatives in Washington would like to cut Medicaid by their budget proposal (The Big Beautiful Bill).  

And the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the cuts mean more than 10.3 million Americans will lose health care coverage.

[The GOP] claims that the proposed cuts of more than $700 billion in Medicaid funding over the next ten years is designed only to get rid of the waste and fraud in the program. Thus, they say, they are actually strengthening Medicaid for those who need it.

But, as Linda Qiu noted in the New York Times today, most of the bill’s provisions have little to do with the “waste, fraud, and abuse” Republicans talk about. They target Medicaid expansion, cut the ability of states to finance Medicaid, force states to drop coverage, and limit access to care. And the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the cuts mean more than 10.3 million Americans will lose health care coverage.

Heather Cox Richardson's Letters from an American

---------------

Something else to be concerned about:

"The fact that simple drones (of the Ukraine) could wipe out a third of Russia’s bomber fleet in a single day raise serious questions about the long term viability of its nuclear arsenal. The U.S. and Russia will now scramble to reassess vulnerabilities in the age of drone warfare. In the meantime, the rules of M.A.D.—mutually assured destruction—may not fully apply. And that means we are in a highly destabilized moment.

Here’s another eye-popping fact: These FPV drones cost only around $500 or $600 each, but the damage done to the Russian bomber fleet is estimated at around $7 billion. Many of these are no longer in production and can’t be replaced.

We’ve truly entered a new age of asymmetrical warfare."

The Status Kuo, Monday June 2, 2025

----------------------

Today's quote:

All one's life as a young woman one is on show, a focus of attention, people notice you. You set yourself up to be noticed and admired. And then, not expecting it, you become middle-aged and anonymous. No one notices you. You achieve a wonderful freedom. It's a positive thing. You can move about unnoticed and invisible.

 -Doris Lessing, novelist, poet, playwright, Nobel laureate (1919-2013)

Tiny vase for single bloom!