It’s been four years since COVID hit the scene and it hit my family head-on. A couple of years ago a friend asked me to document my experiences and lessons learned for a book he was writing. The story talks about how I was able to tap into a sense of deep inner peace and stillness amidst the chaos I was facing.
Today I want to share that story along with the realization that I struggle more with the opposite. When things are quiet on the outside, I tend to stir up thoughts and emotions. This past week while I was at a beautiful relaxing all-inclusive beach resort with my daughter, the thoughts in my mind were swirling like the snow in a snow globe. As they started to settle, I would shake the globe up again by generating a new round of thoughts and emotions.
I recently wrote another post on this topic (Beware the Thinking Mind) which focuses on how thinking obscures the present moment but here I am talking about something deeper.
Underneath the noise (whether it is generated by the world or the mind) there is stillness. It is always there and available to us. The more we practice tapping into it, the more joy we feel and spread.
Here is my story:
Back in March 2020 when COVID first came on the scene I was working as a pediatrician and was the Chief Medical Officer of a large medical practice called Allied Physicians Group. I felt a lot of pressure during this time. Just like the rest of the world, I was fearful of the uncertainties related to this scary new virus. In addition, as CMO I felt a huge responsibility to keep my patients, my employees, and my company safe but I had NO idea how to do that. I was trying desperately to keep up with news from China, from the CDC, from anyone who knew anything.
While feeling this burden at work, my oldest daughter was in Madrid where things were spiraling downhill, and my parents were suddenly locked up in their assisted living complex.
Things were bad, and then they got worse. My mother, who I could now only see by Facetime, developed vomiting and diarrhea. Luckily, she was at an assisted living apartment with a wellness center that set up a telemed visit with her doctor. The doctor called me after the visit and told me in a very solemn voice that she was certain my mother had COVID. She’s seeing it everywhere and it is BAD. She told me that my mother should get into bed and do everything she can to stay out of the hospital. Over the next six weeks, my mother slowly sipped Ensure with the help of an amazing aide. During our Facetime calls, her speech was slurred, and she had variable levels of alertness, but she never gave up. My father on the other hand was not as lucky. COVID hit my dad with respiratory symptoms instead of intestinal symptoms and so he had no choice but to go to the hospital.
I rushed to the hospital to briefly see him in person as he was being transferred from the ambulance to the ER. I managed to sneak in a brief moment to hold his hand and tell him I loved him before he was whisked away.
His hospital course was up and down at first. One day the doctor was calling to ask about do not resuscitate orders and the next, the social worker was calling to discuss discharge plans. It was an emotional roller coaster. Despite how busy and stressed they were, the staff at the hospital did all they could to keep me, and my sisters informed and in touch with our dad through regular Facetime calls.
As my dad started to decompensate, I had to decide whether or not to allow them to intubate him. I didn’t know what to do and I was his healthcare proxy. He was the picture of health before he developed COVID so I wanted him to be one of the lucky ones, but I didn’t want him to suffer. I turned to a front-line anesthesiologist friend for advice. He described to me in great detail what was going on in the hospital. He said that all he was doing was running around from code to code intubating people and that almost none of them were surviving. He was practically in tears describing how this virus was ravaging its victims. He told me that if it were his dad, he would not put him through it and that was all I needed to hear. My sisters and I discussed and made the decision. Our mom was not alert enough to participate in our discussion. She was still fighting for her life back at the apartment. My dad was moved to the palliative care team, and I was allowed to fully gown up and come in to say a brief goodbye. I couldn’t believe what I saw in the hospital. It truly felt like a warzone. My dad was lying in bed in the corner of a room with the oxygen on his face barely aware that I was even there. I said my goodbyes and cried. None of this seemed real. None of it was fair. My dad was in his 80s, but he didn’t take a single medication and was full of life just a few short weeks ago.
As I write this, my tears are flowing again. Death is always hard, but it’s especially cruel when loved ones aren’t allowed to grieve together. COVID forced us to have a zoom funeral and call it a day.
There is no doubt that there were a lot of painful emotions during this time. Fear, sadness, despair, stress, loneliness. It was certainly one of the worst periods of my life. And yet somehow, despite the swirling chaos, I managed to find an underlying sense of calm and acceptance deep inside.
I didn’t like what was going on. In fact, I hated it but somehow I wasn’t consumed by it. I don’t think this happened by accident. In fact, if all of this happened to me ten years ago, I think I would have crumbled. I think the personal self-improvement work that I’ve done over the last ten years prepared me for this time.
Here is how:
1-Focus on my priorities and goals: Emergencies sometimes give us the gift of clarity. When all this was happening, I knew what I wanted and needed to do. I stepped back from my direct patient care duties and focused my time on my family and the larger duties I had as CMO. My pediatric partners were so supportive of my situation and took care of everything at the office so I could focus. This laser-focused sense of purpose allowed me to let go of distractions.
2-Gratitude: I truly believe that what you focus on grows and so each day I try to write down a few gratitudes. Even when things seem terrible, there is always something I can find to be grateful for. Here are a few that served me during this time. My daughter got safely home from Spain. I had dinner with my family every night. My three children were spending so much time together. I got to talk to my sisters on zoom every day. My mother had an aide by her side. My dog’s joy with all of us in the house together.
3-Self-care: It may sound cliche, but we truly do need to take care of ourselves before we can take care of others. During this time, I made sure to continue to eat well, sleep, and exercise.
4-Connection: During COVID we all lost so much connection, but I found it in new ways. My isolation from not being in the office was transformed into daily check-ins from my partners with calls and text messages. The comfort of being all together in the house with my children and husband was a true gift. I wasn’t able to see my colleagues, my friends, or my sisters but I felt their love and support with frequent virtual check-ins.
5-Meditation/mindfulness: The biggest secret to my sense of underlying peace during this time is that I had built up a massive reserve with years of mindfulness practice. I truly believe that meditation is exercise for the brain and should be valued as much as diet and physical exercise are for the body. Practicing mindfulness and presence strengthens our prefrontal cortex and allows us to build up our resilience for when it’s needed. Mindfulness has taught me how to let emotions pass through like a weather pattern. It allows me to feel the sadness fully and know that it is temporary. It allows the tears to flow and then to be released.
Like it or not, bad things are going to happen in life. You can’t protect yourself from pain but how much you suffer is truly in your control.
Comentarios