Cronks Weathering the Pandemic

All our lives have been impacted by the global Coronavirus pandemic.  Happily, so far, the impact on our family has been merely inconvenience and we are all still healthy and doing well.

I had one last fun night out with the ladies in the family before things shut down.

Sarah's dance studio had their competition dress rehearsal the following weekend (March 14th), but the state basketball tournament that weekend was cancelled. 

Some of the costumes had not arrived yet due to delays in shipping materials from China. 

After that, the governor of MN announced cancellation of schools starting March 18th. Our school held an optional day of school on March 16th for the kids to come pick up their materials, then was closed starting March 17th.  The teachers had the rest of the week to prepare for remote learning and then the kids started school from home on March 23rd.

Trevor didn't get to bring his leprechaun trap to school, so we figured he'd take a picture with it and then leave it at home to see if he could catch the leprechaun at home. The leprechaun left some golden chocolate coins, but we didn't catch him. 

Also, Flat Stanley was supposed to be sent somewhere so he could send back photos of his adventure. Since nobody is going anywhere now, Flat Stanley went to work with Mommy.  I made him his own face mask and gown out of post-it notes and he got to be Pandemic Flat Stanley. 

Doing some charting.

Checking out some PPE (personal protective equipment) and cleaning supplies.

Doctor tools.

Stress eating Dunkin' Donuts

Hanging out by the white board.

Checking the COVID-19 testing log.

Getting his flu shot.

Greeting people at the front desk.

Hanging out with the fish. 

 Hanging out with our medical assistants.

Unfortunately, that evening, I ended up admitted the hospital with a pulmonary embolism, so Flat Stanley got to be hospitalized Flat Stanley!  I had been short of breath for the last 5 or so days, but got worse that Thursday and Friday. I chatted with 2 of my colleagues that day and told them my story and symptoms. I was wondering if it could be a PE?  When appointments were slow at the end of the day on Friday, I went down the hall to my primary care clinic and was seen there. I had no cough, no fever, a normal lung exam, and a normal chest xray.  I suggested maybe it could be a PE. I had labs drawn and went back down the hall to my clinic to get my bag and go home. While I was packing up, I got a call that my labs showed an elevated D-dimer, which can be a sign of a blood clot. I was sent down the hall to the hospital to go to the ER.  There I had a CT scan with IV contrast to look for a PE and found I did, indeed, have a small right sided subsegmental pulmonary embolism.  Because I am a physician and was short of breath, I was swabbed for COVID-19 and hospitalized. I had a restless, uncomfortable night in the hospital and got shots of a blood thinner called Lovenox, but I was able to go home the next day with oral blood thinner medication.

My quarantine instructions waiting for my COVID-19 test (which ended up taking 15 days to come back negative!!). 

I went home tired, still short of breath, but doing fine overall.  I was quarantined for the next 15 days until my test finally came back.  Because of that, I was out of work for 2 weeks, but I was home when the kids started their learning from home for school, so that was a little bit of nice timing. 

We had fun relaxing at home in the mean time.

Trevor got a mini-Lego Titanic for Christmas. He started to put it together, but had done some of it incorrectly, so now that we had lots of time on our hands, we pried apart all the tiny little pieces and started over. We managed to get the whole thing put together correctly and Trevor was VERY excited about it.

We played games.

Did puzzles.

Baked cookies

Read books

Practiced piano

Got in some soccer touches (>5,000 a week for the "quarantine challenge")

 And Sarah continued to have her dance classes, but on Zoom now.

Her studio even put signs in every dancer's yard!

We got the kids set up throughout the house in their own study spaces for their remote schooling. 

So far, school has been going very well and we are all getting used to a new normal.

After my COVID-19 test finally came back negative after 15 days (!!), I was able to get back to work.  Wearing a mask all day is not something pediatricians are used to!  We are used to being exposed to flu about 12 times a day, being sneezed, cough, spit up, drooled, and vomited on, and not wearing protective gear.  However, this is a whole different germ, so we are wearing protective gear with every patient encounter now.  The loops behind the ears for the mask really make my ears hurt, so I bought a headband that comes with magnetic buttons so I can loop my ear mask and even my goggles over the buttons to save my ears.

We are doing the best we can for all our patients, but due to the coronavirus, we are extremely limited in our ability to maintain normal operation of our pediatric clinics.  We have made numerous changes and are now having 1 whole clinic site for only well children and limiting well child checks to age 2 and under (getting shots and well child visits closer together at that age, so more time sensitive to keep them up on shots, development, growth, etc.). We are also seeing medication checks, urgent mental health visits, and sick visits (at another site).  We are doing some telehealth as well. All our sick visits are going to a different one of our clinic sites, but these visits are way down as well.  We are struggling to stay afloat.  We have had to layoff and furlough staff and physicians and take big pay cuts to try not to go under. Ironic that a virus is taking down medical clinics!  We are also working in rotating groups to try to not all get sick at the same time.  We are working in 4 groups, working 1 week in well child clinic, 1 week in sick clinic, and then 2 weeks off and monitoring for symptoms after possible exposure at work.  We're doing the best we can to stay healthy, take care of our patients, and hopefully our clinic will recover when this is all over.

Steve is working from home this whole time. "Busy season" has been spread out a little bit due to the tax deadline being extended, but his hours will decrease after April 15th anyway.

So that's what the pandemic looks like in the Cronk household. We are missing hugs from Nanny and Grandpa, seeing friends at school, doing our normal activities and sports, and living our normal life, but we are exceedingly happy to be healthy and enjoying some time together.