Op-Ed: The pandemic, Hurricane Ian and me — a doctor whose friends say I have PTSD
A doctor whose children and parents are not only afraid of the next pandemic, but of the current one — I’ve been told I’m a PTSD patient, because of my medical history, and that worries me.
This is not a normal situation. This is not the way society typically works. These are not typical people who are dealing with the pandemic. My husband and I and our two kids are in our home with no air conditioning after living through a few days of the blizzards last winter. We have no electricity other than a small generator to heat our two tiny houses.
This is not how people usually deal with a major life situation. I’m not sure we ever have before. We have no one to help me. No one will tell me when I’m going to die.
What I do know is that my four children, my husband and me are in peril.
The pandemic will destroy us all.
It is not the type of normalcy I ever expected to deal with, and I know what that feels like.
So I’m writing about it, and I’m calling out my friends, family, and the professionals to step up and save us all from chaos and death.
The first person I want to thank, above all, is my mom who has been my rock ever since I was 17 years old. I am so thankful she is still here. And I thank my dad. He was by my side when I was a child.
Every day, I look up to him and thank him for always being such a strong person.
I don’t think I could have survived without him. And my mom, who is now 88 years old — she is the toughest one of all. She is still going to her day job every day in a job she’s been in since she was 22 years old. She is the only one of my four children who still works.
My mom has become like a second mom. And my dad
