Hello from Restriction of Movement (ROM) status! Since SARS-CoV-2 decided to show up on Day 16 of the mission (boo!), our leaders not only moved quickly to take care of the patients/close contacts, they also decided to minimize the hazards of close quarters shipboard living by sending most of us to hotels. Today is Day 10 since I moved off the ship the morning of 4/16.
So, the above picture shows my last lunch on the USNS Mercy and it was delicious! I’m dining al fresco because one of the initial social distancing measures was putting a mess tent/dining area on the help pad. It was a gorgeous afternoon. They must have known we were about to leave for the deliciousness of hotel food and they decided to up their game.
On 4/16, I woke early for my last Mercy donut 5K. I was a little slow but I knew that this would be my last chance for awhile. Gorgeous morning.
Here I am on the bus with our silly t-shirt masks. The rules kept changing, which is fine. We’ve never been through anything like this before. We now have to wear N-95 masks outside of our rooms.
The first hotel I stayed at was the Doubletree Downtown. It was nice. The room was a reasonable size and there was a small area that I could roll out my exercise mat. Each lunch and dinner came with a DoubleTree cookie which is delicious but they are very rude and put the calorie count on the back of the bag. Why is a cookie that small 330 calories?
The food was fine, but not great PLUS my friend and I had a craving for delicious food. The above picture is of my friend Sable (urologist) and I having a socially distanced lunch of Onigiri. Yum!
And I had visitors! Mark’s cousin Amy, her husband Johnny and their son came over. They were so nice and brought presents! They are the best and repping their GoldSheep masks, a company owned by another one of Mark’s cousins. We had to follow ROM rules so I couldn’t invite them in but it was a nice moment of social contact!
On 18 April, my family had a Zoom promotion ceremony for my brother’s promotion to Major! Huge news and an amazing achievement. I had the honor of administering the oath. It was awesome and we had a great family conversation afterwards.
The next day, I had an awesome Zoom meeting with my college friends. It seemed a little touch-and-go based on schedules but it worked out! We had a great hour-long hangout and it was really special! What’s also special is my face- thanks for picking the best picture, Karen.
On the 23rd, a significant number of people were switched to the Westin Bonaventure. Not sure why, but it is nicer and the food is a lot better. Above, you see my current level of critical decision-making regarding which bed do I sleep in. Sigh. I’ll get back into the OR someday.
In the interim, I have been on Instagram a lot. Popeye the Foodie Dog is an old favorite and fjamie013 is pretty funny with his fulfillment of photoshop requests.
I have also started to take online Blender tutorials. My goal is to learn how to use the software package to make medical models off of CT scan DICOM images. For now, I set monkey heads on fire and make doughnuts (in progress).
Finally, here’s my cute cloth mask from a general surgeon’s Mom. He got a lot and offered a mask to all the surgeons in our chat group. I also have my own care package on the way with Goldsheep– I can’t wait!
Portmanteau Suitcase 