Story and photos by Darl DeVault

While Oklahoma seniors have been the most vulnerable to COVID-19, our modern heroes, medical health professionals, have also been impacted by this huge stress event.
Medical outcomes are stark. There are no proven therapies to treat or cure the disease. In Oklahoma, the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths are in seniors 65 or older, as high as 80 percent. The statistics go on and on, unchanging in dire descriptions of how vulnerable aging bodies are to the pandemic.
Another group shares a vulnerability every bit as brutal in descriptions. Our medical health professionals are the next highest death rate in America. Besides the brutal numbers of deaths, there is another facet of their suffering.
They are repeatedly exposed to preventable unmanageable stress. This immersion in the onslaught of a pandemic has the potential to inflict post- traumatic stress disorder.
In honor of the 200th birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale, the World Health Organization (WHO) has designated 2020 as the “Year of the Nurse and Midwife.” Since National Nurses Week is celebrated soon from May 6 through May 12 it is appropriate to ask one “What are you going through?”
Nurse Beth Bierig said last week from New Jersey, “Working on a floor of all COVID-19 positive patients whose change in status happens quickly without warning, makes you feel constantly guarded as to when your own medical health will quickly turn badly as well. You don’t have time to even comprehend how scary the silent killer surrounds every piece of air you work in, but it weighs heavily on your mind.”
Bierig, from Hackensack University Medical Center, goes on to explain how having a servant’s heart can put a nurse in harm’s way. “While performing life sustaining measures on your patients and respiratory fragments flood the air in the process, you can’t help but wonder, will it be saving their life that takes mine?” she said. “I don’t know the effects it will have on myself or other people, because everyone has had different experiences. Every nursing specialty has their own traumas and people are generally drawn to what they can handle.”
Also, “the support nurses receive after this will affect their long-term mental health pertaining to this situation. The whole situation has affected everyone strongly, not only health care providers. We’re living in a historic time and hopefully we all learn from it.”
From the respiratory therapists who manage ventilators, and technicians that manage ICU equipment to the direct caregivers, stress can be overwhelming. The heroes who share their servant’s heart signed up to be properly supported and use their knowledge and ability to affect positive change. Again, at present, there are no proven therapies to cure COVID-19.
Some health care professionals function where they are overwhelmed by the sheer number of deaths that take place right in front of them. Sometimes as often as hourly, these deaths may inflict a PTSD future on the frontlines of medicine.
For those healers who were constantly worried about their own health because of a shortage of personal protective equipment life can change. Just the apprehension of spreading the disease to their family could have a dire outcome.
COVID-19, the severe respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic is extremely transmissible. Properly protected ICU critical care team workers being readied for patient interaction look like preflight prep before blastoff for our moon missions.
These heroes may share an almost as strong an impact as the vulnerable seniors who perished. Some may suffer grave symptoms of psychological stress impacting their ability to deliver medical health care in the future.
Every psyche is different in the many roles played by helping healers who suited up to sustain the COVID-19 patients. Science tells us women are twice as likely to suffer PTSD symptoms.
This pandemic is something different. The onslaught of stress can change brain wiring for the worse — at the level to create PTSD. Later, some may seek to stay away from the situations that remind them of the traumatic events.
Some caregivers may not be able to adaptively overcome the stress and adversity while maintaining normal psychological and physical functioning.
The potential for PTSD is when an individual is placed in a situation where they do not have all the needed equipment, weaponry, support by colleagues in numbers needed, or proper support from superiors. This is also fueled when they feel they do not have the proper protective material and are forced to go in harm’s way relentlessly when they fear for their own survival. On April 3, Oklahoma showed 10.6 percent of its confirmed cases were health care workers.
Situationally produced and yet self-imposed is the stress of sleeping in their cars in their hospital parking lot because they do not want to bring potential illness and death home to their families. This can result in the development of PTSD, depression and other psychiatric disorders.
In a medical scenario where our heroes ran toward the danger and healing is supposed to take place that sounds extremely abrupt. But in many of our hospitals that were overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients presenting repeated unmanageable stressors, that is exactly what was happening.
Often nurses and doctors in COVID-19 hotspots made life and death choices, deciding who was to live and who was to die because of a limited number of ventilators and limited ability to intubate. And there was the randomness of patients dying right in front of them as these patients first entered the hospital.
We must be honest. Nurses and doctors are human and cannot escape that negative impact. People who signed up to work around the sick also take great pride in learning all the ways to be healers.
To suddenly be immersed in the onslaught of hourly and daily negative scenario can have a permanently deleterious effect on the human psyche. It remains to be seen if overwhelming the individual at a high morbidity level has a lasting effect. We know brainwave activity that negativity establishes can create specific pathways in the brain that were not there before.
How do we know what effect this has on these brave people’s body and spirit when these pathways are never compensated for? These individuals may have anxiety and depression from these days forward.
The wild card in all of this are brave medical health professionals who contracted COVID-19 themselves, while trying their best to help others. Hundreds have died around the world. Yes, they signed up for this profession, but not to suffer the same as their patients.
Another stressor is some hospitals, such as the University of Oklahoma Medical Center, are cutting pay and hours because of the strict emphasis on COVID-19 leaving them cash poor.
“A grateful nation will likely create a fund offering therapy and treatment for front line medical professionals who have health problems traceable to saving lives similar to the federal World Trade Center Health Program,” Oklahoman Kara De La Pena, APRN, said. “Considering for many of us who took on preventable risks, the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 will be held up as a model for providing us medical treatment. That program is funded through 2090 now.”
The seniors saved and whole world thank our heroes and seek restorative insight into the medical outcomes thrust upon the healers who fight to keep people alive.

by Greg Schwem

The ongoing stay-at-home order has forced most of us to seek amusement by posting photos of ourselves from bygone eras to our social media accounts.
“Share your high school senior picture” was trending last week; a challenge I was about to undertake until I read how doing so could invite hackers to glean more information about me, such as where I attended school, where I currently lived and who did such a horrible job cutting my hair in 1980.
Security experts also warned that more information could be easily obtained once this information was known, as many people choose to use their high school as a security answer or worse, their password. Those of you who attended Catholic schools need not worry; even the most skilled hacker is probably going to give up before guessing, “AcademyOfOurLadyOfGoodCounsel1994.”
Despite not participating, I enjoyed seeing these throwback photos, from graduation and other events, posted by friends. Did everybody in the 1970s wear thick, black horn-rimmed glasses and look like they worked for the Apollo space program?
Ladies, if you attended college in the early 1980s, did the law require you to part your hair down the middle and then feather it back with enough aerosol to start a salon?
And guys, did you not realize that only David Coverdale, from Whitesnake, and Jon Bon Jovi could pull off the big hair, pompadour look? The rest of you had that “just exited a wind tunnel” look.
Tom, my long-time comedian friend in New York, often reminds me why he has never jumped on the fashion bandwagon. “The hipper your clothes are today, the more ridiculous photos of you are going to look in 20 years,” he says on stage.
I won’t argue.
When scientists find a vaccine for COVID-19, the “all clear” signal is given, and life returns to whatever is subsequently defined as “normal,” we will all be left with treasure troves of photos taken during the pandemic. And in future decades, when those photos find their way into school history books (assuming schools and books still exist) or onto social media sites, viewers won’t need to look at a hairstyle, a car in the background or an item of clothing to determine the photo was indeed shot in 2020.
For starters, the viewer only has to see the photo’s dimensions. It will most likely be shot vertically, with a 9-by-16 aspect ratio. The photo will contain only one subject. Correction, one HUMAN subject. Animals may be included, but more people? Absolutely not, for they will all be standing at least 6 feet away and, therefore, out of frame.
The subject will be wearing sweatpants and a faded T-shirt containing some semblance of the slogan, “We’re All in this Together.” He or she will be shoeless. Men will have facial stubble; sadly, so will some women. Hairstyles won’t have complimentary names like “The Rachel,” “Charlie’s Angels” or “The David Hasselhoff.” Instead, all hair will fall into the “Dang, That Should Have Been Cut Weeks Ago” category.
Photos of celebratory occasions will feature one participant, perfectly centered, wearing a “Happy Birthday” or “Congratulations” party hat, while grainy, square images of others hover overhead. The word “Zoom” will appear somewhere.
The “guess where this photo was taken” game will be boring once everybody realizes the answer is always the same: “Uh, your house?” Kids who play sports won’t appear in photos wearing brightly colored uniforms while baseball diamonds and soccer fields glisten behind them. Instead, the background will be a basement wall or a garage door. Youth basketball players, take heart: At least the vertical photos will make you look taller than you are.
Since the stay-at-home order began in mid-March, I have neglected to take many photos, so anxious am I to erase this moment from my life, rather than record it for future viewing. I did break down last weekend and post a selfie, snapped while my wife cut my hair. The pandemic, I realized, would not date it.
Trust me, even without a global health crisis, that image is horrifying and depressing.
(Greg Schwem is a corporate stand-up comedian and author of two books: “Text Me If You’re Breathing: Observations, Frustrations and Life Lessons From a Low-Tech Dad” and the recently released “The Road To Success Goes Through the Salad Bar: A Pile of BS From a Corporate Comedian,” available at Amazon.com. Visit Greg on the web at www.gregschwem.com.)

You’ve enjoyed reading, and laughing at, Greg Schwem’s monthly humor columns in Senior Living News. But did you know Greg is also a nationally touring stand-up comedian? And he loves to make audiences laugh about the joys, and frustrations, of growing older. Watch the clip and, if you’d like Greg to perform at your senior center or senior event, contact him through his website at www.gregschwem.com)

Photography and Text by Terry “Travels with Terry” Zinn t4z@aol.com

At press time leisure travel is not available or recommended, but it does not keep us from planning and revisiting destinations worthy of future consideration. Reminiscence is the safest kind of pleasure travel, sometimes called arm chair travel. For a few moments we have a respite from current news. In the following months this travel column will revisit previous personal travel experiences. Enjoy.
Some Florida resorts are located amid a massive amount of traffic and tourist activity. The Marriott Pompano Beach Resort and Spa is somewhat off the beaten track, and is boon for motorists, with their own transportation.
While a stroll within a mile of the property can be charming, there are not many cafes, restaurants or shops within the immediate area. If your desire is to get away from it all, and just ensconce yourself in a comfortable setting with pristine and maintained beaches, 2 pools, 2 towers of accommodations and delicious eating experiences, Marriott Pompano Beach Resort and Spa may be your ideal.
When you consider a visit to Florida at any time of year, it is important to keep in mind the annual hurricane season from mid-summer through September. Of course these days, predictable weather patterns of past years seem to be unpredictable. It’s a boon to Pompano that they are far North of Miami Beach with its recent health headlines. It also is North of Fort Lauderdale, and a comfortable distance from its neighbor Lauderdale-By-the-Sea, which is a more active community with its many eateries and entertainment options. Again motorists will find it near enough to quench a typical Florida tourist’s appetite.
Near Pompano is the Hillsboro Lighthouse, privately owned and only open for tours at certain times, being a coast guard operated property. Check them for opening times and tours, as you book your visit.
Happily, sequestered in your ninth floor ocean front room with balcony, you might find the sporadic afternoon thunderstorm a real 3-D entertainment, more impactful than the best free action disaster movie, shown on your large in room TV screen. Be sure and inquire about a corner suite room, for added luxury. As with many upscale hotels, housekeeping may be sporadic, even when alerting them to your out of room schedule.
Check in time is listed at 4 pm, but as someone I know had to do, you might have to wait until 6 pm, which will give you time to explore the property, Atlantic Ocean beach, Spa, and exercise room or grab a bite to eat.
McCoy’s restaurant both comfortably inside or out by the active pools, offers a variety of delectable meal options and beverages with congenial wait staff. If you’re a fan of specially cocktails, with the proper and courtesy instruction, they follow through with your requests most satisfactorily.
Florida still offers what many sun worshipers require and the family welcoming Marriott’s Pompano Beach Resort, might be your new favorite Florida oasis for you and your extended family.
For more information and reservations: www.marriott.com/fllpm

Mr. Terry Zinn – Travel Editor
Past President: International Food Wine and Travel Writers Association
3110 N.W. 15 Street – Oklahoma City, OK 73107
https://realtraveladventures.com/?s=terry+zinn
https://realtraveladventures.com/?s=zinn
http://new.okveterannews.com/?s=TERRY+ZINN
www.martinitravels.com

* As of this advisory, there are 3,280 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 in Oklahoma.
* There are three additional deaths; zero occurred in the past 24 hours and the others died between April 24-April 25.
* One in Tulsa County, a male in the 65 and older age group.
* One in Carter County, a female in the 50-64 age group.
* One in Wagoner County, a female in the 65 and older age group.
* There are 197 total deaths in the state.
Note: The number of total cumulative negative specimens, total cumulative number of specimens to date, and the number currently hospitalized reported below are compiled through the Executive Order reports submitted to the governor. These reports are not submitted on the weekend, and therefore, those numbers found in this report will be updated Tuesday. All other numbers listed in this report are current.
* The American Association on Health and Disability (AAHD) has created a survey to assess health care and health care access challenges people with disabilities are encountering with the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey is open until May 1 and can be found here.
* A list of COVID-19 testing sites in the state can be found here.
* For more information, visit coronavirus.health.ok.gov.

*The total includes laboratory information provided to OSDH at the time of the report. Total counts may not reflect unique individuals.
**This number is a combination of hospitalized positive cases and hospitalized persons under investigation, as reported by hospitals at the time of the report. The data reflect a change in calculation and should not be compared to prior data.

story and photo by Bobby Anderson, Staff Writer

At the time, none of us knew.
The patient we received from the emergency room was breathing 40-50 times a minute and maxed out on oxygen.
The bipap – the last line of oxygenation before a ventilator – wasn’t keeping up and the patient was struggling.
We knew the Coronavirus – or more technically, Covid-19 – was a thing.
Like all hospitals around us, there were whispers of a handful of patients on our campus being tested for it.
But they were in the ICU or on a separate floor, being taken care of by nurses with special personal protective equipment, wearing helmets and facemasks with powered air-purifying respirators.
Meanwhile, our patient was in respiratory distress.
Lab tests, chest x-rays and CT scans were reviewed along with a late call about the patient’s history.
The situation called for an ICU level of care.
The call from the patient’s doctor revealed COVID 19 was highly suspected.
That’s when COVID-19 became real for all of us in the room.
Outside the room, five respiratory therapists, the house supervisor and my charge nurse huddled together.
Eyebrows and voices raised.
The people I looked to most in the hospital for answers were without them.
Not only that, they were scared.
The bipap ventilation system was effectively aerosolizing the already contagious virus.
In layman’s terms, the high pressure flow made the viral particles even smaller and easier to transmit.
The surgical masks we were all wearing aren’t designed to be effective against the virus.
Two days later we learned the patient died while on a ventilator.
The day after that we learned results were positive for COVID-19.
Direct exposure was declared and all of us barred from returning to work for 14 days.
Nearly two weeks later we’re still learning.
Now I take my temperature twice a day and monitor for symptoms while logging everything online.
A fever over 100 degrees. A cough. Vomiting and diarrhea. Body aches.
All are symptoms of infection.
I haven’t been tested nor will I be tested unless I develop symptoms.
But my goal throughout this pandemic isn’t to complain or blame others. My goal, when I’m not at the bedside after my quarantine ends, is to highlight individuals who are helping turn the tide.
One of those individuals making a difference is Becky Lewis.
Lewis RN, MSN, CIC, is the system director of infection prevention for INTEGRIS, Oklahoma’s largest health system.
This virus has affected us all in different ways: personally, professionally and emotionally.
In Becky’s own words:
I see my family less and work more.
It is necessary but it is hard.
My five-year-old asks me when the sickness will be gone and my almost two-year-old cries when I come home because he knows that means it’s time to go to bed.
I come home and immediately start looking at any new common guidance documents from the CDC and the like to see if there were any revisions or updates overnight.
Every day I identify three to five items to focus on and work toward providing recommendations or guidance for each and relay that information to the system. The amount of updated or new information to digest is astounding.
I am currently on day 49 of non-stop COVID work. I am tired to my bones but know what I am doing is necessary and important work. I am working to keep our patients and caregivers safe.
I worry about the fear factor for our teams on the front line and the misinformation that can feel stronger than science.
My first week on the job as an infection preventionist was during H1N1 and it was wild, but we didn’t have the same social media presence that we do now and it is a strong element to work with and around.

by Bobby Anderson, Staff Writer

Now, more than ever, people need quality care at home from providers who can make sense of a daily changing healthcare environment.
For more than 50 years, people have turned to Interim HealthCare for that quality, compassionate care.
Ashley Simms, LPN, has been with Interim for two of those years, serving now as the assistant manager of sales operations.
“We realize for seniors and those with serious underlying health conditions home is the best place for them to be during this time,” Simms said.
While state and local governments mandate people stay at home to flatten the curve on Covid-19, care is needed more than ever inside the home.
“I think at this time it’s so critical … because legislatively there’s a lot of focus on hospitals which is important but these patients are going to come home and somebody has to take care of them,” Simms said. “There are so many factors that go into Covid that many people don’t consider such as fear and mental health.”
Interim HealthCare offers a full suite of services including: home healthcare, hospice care, personal care and support, veteran and spouse care, palliative care, behavioral health as well as neonatal and pediatric home care.
Interim offers services in Canadian, Cleveland, Grady, Kingfisher, Lincoln, Logan, McClain, Oklahoma, Payne and Pottawatomie counties.
The care extends beyond medical.
“Our social workers work diligently to help assist patients in obtaining necessary and basic items such as food and shelter which helps to drive down fear for our patients, especially in a time of crisis like this,” Simms said.
For several years, healthcare delivery has been trending more and more to a home setting to help curb rising medical costs. That means patients are coming home quicker and sicker than they ever have before.
And the hospital penalties for patients who readmit for the same diagnosis within 30 days can be substantial.
That’s why hospitals and other facilities rely on providers like Interim to stand in the gap and make sure patients safely recover at home.
With Covid-19 forcing more and more Oklahomans to stay at home, monitoring these high risk patients and intervening before they become sick has taken on an even greater importance.
Simms said Interim has long provided telehealth options for patients for daily monitoring of things like blood pressure, oxygen saturation and weight.
“A lot of times that provides calm to those patients because they are able to see somebody,” Simms explained. “It helps us keep an eye on our patients. Due to the restrictions that have been loosened for healthcare in general right now if the patient has a smartphone we’re able to FaceTime with them.”
Being unable to get out to doctor appointments can cause a sense of panic. Simms understands that.
“We’re also trying to drive down the fear with our patients because we’re trained and we know how this process works,” Simms said. “We’re not scared and know how to take care of you. There’s a lot of fear circling. We have to be the forefront of education.”
Being able to talk to patients in their own home at their own pace is an invaluable piece of the puzzle. Simms said Interim providers are able to have those conversations that rely on facts not the latest headlines.
“I believe we do an excellent job during this scary time,” Simms said. “At the top, it’s important we support our nurses. I think being the calm in the storm is what we do best. Before Covid, we took high-risk patients.”
“Because that’s already our platform, Covid was just a step up for us. We’re able to educate why (a patient) might be at more risk. We’re able to take that time, take those precautions and provide that education.”
Interim is locally owned and part of a national network of more than 300 offices.
Employing more than 75,000 healthcare workers, Interim provides care to more than 50,000 patients each day.
Simms explained Interim revolves around key concepts including: preparation and training, monitoring and reporting, alternative methods of care, high standards of safety and an emergency preparedness plan.
And in these trying times, Simms said Interim has made it a greater focus to love on its frontline staff.
From lunches and breakfasts to special personal protective equipment including floor mats and car seat covers, Interim is protecting those who protect us all.
“At Interim we believe we are all in this together and I think being the calm in the storm is what we do best.”

Stride Bank has managed to secure over 400 SBA PPP loans and saved an estimated 6,407 jobs

The staff at Stride Bank has been working around the clock for weeks now to ensure local businesses are approved for the Small Business Administration’s Payroll Protection
Program loans. The funds may have run out for the initial phase of the program, but Stride isn’t slowing down their efforts any time soon.
As the federal government works to provide a second wave of SBA PPP funding, Stride Bank is putting in the extra effort to ensure anyone left out of phase one funding will find relief with phase two.
So far, throughout this process, Stride Bank has managed to secure over 400 SBA PPP loans, provided over $59 million in potentially forgivable funds and saved an estimated 6,407 jobs.
When asked how Stride has managed to secure so much funding and ensure the approval of so many loans, Kevin Guarnera, the leader of Stride Bank’s dedicated SBA team, responded, “We’ve been a part of our community for over 100 years. We’re not about to quit on anyone now. Local small businesses are in trouble, and they’ve been thrown a lifeline. It’s our job to make sure as many small businesses as possible secure that lifeline and find safety.”
Guarnera and his team have been sought out by others in the industry as the experts on getting these loans approved quickly and efficiently. By understanding the guidelines inside and out and working overtime to get applications processed, the team at Stride has helped numerous local businesses find that lifeline.
“When you’re a part of a community, you protect it and everyone in it. We won’t stop until this is over,” added Guarnera.
Founded in 1913, Stride Bank is an Oklahoma-based financial institution that holds over $800 million in assets.
Offering a full range of financial services such as consumer and commercial banking, mortgage, wealth management, and treasury management, we have also developed and currently manage highly specialized payment solutions for several national fintech companies. While we are unwavering in our pursuit to continue innovating and offering new financial solutions, we will always remain loyal to our community banking roots in Oklahoma. We have branches throughout Oklahoma in Enid, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Bartlesville, Blackwell, Woodward, and Mooreland. Member FDIC. Equal Housing Lender. Learn more at www.stridebank.com.
Debbie Blacklock is the Senior Vice President and Manager of the Stride Bank Healthcare Division. Founded in 1913, Stride Bank is a full-service, Oklahoma-owned-and-operated financial institution with offices in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Bartlesville, Enid, Woodward, Mooreland, and Blackwell. As an industry leader throughout the U.S. in real-time, next-generation payments, Stride Bank provides mobile banking and a full spectrum of Treasury Management Services. The Stride Bank Healthcare Division provides loans and other financial solutions for senior housing, long-term care, specialty hospitals, surgery centers, physicians, dentists, and other ambulatory healthcare providers. Debbie has 21 years of commercial banking experience in Oklahoma with over nine years in the healthcare space. Stride Bank, Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender.

Publisher’s Note: Upon finding out our local financial institution was not able to secure SBA loans, we were forced to look elsewhere. Because we “were not a customer of theirs,” three other banks refused to even look at our application for the PPP loan. Fortunately, we made contact with Stride Bank, who worked diligently to secure our PPP even though we were not currently a customer. This publication does not generally recommend or endorse one business over another, but Stride Bank won our respect. A special thanks to Debbie Blacklock, Senior Vice President, Manager of Healthcare Banking at Stride Bank, N.A. for her hard work. OKNT recommends Stride Bank to our Healthcare Friends. VISIT US AT: https://stridebank.com/

OU Medicine and its academic partner, the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, recently received $100,000 from CompSource Mutual Insurance Company to assist healthcare providers on the front line of treating patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.
To avoid potentially exposing their families to the virus, many healthcare providers are not going home at the end of a long workday, but are staying away from home for everyone’s safety. The donation from CompSource Mutual will be used to provide meals and a place to stay for those physicians, nurses and other healthcare providers.
“We’re grateful to CompSource Mutual for their generous support of our healthcare team to combat this pandemic,” said Dr. Dale Bratzler, Enterprise Chief Quality Officer of OU Medicine. “This donation will fund temporary housing and food for OU Medicine and OU Health Sciences Center team members living away from home to protect their families from potential exposure to COVID-19.”
CompSource Mutual Insurance Company, an Oklahoma-based business that provides workers’ compensation coverage, donated a total of $250,000 in Oklahoma to assist medical personnel and families coping with lost wages and other hardships because of the pandemic. Other recipients include the Tulsa Area COVID-19 Response Fund formed by the Tulsa Area United Way and the Tulsa Community Foundation, as well as the United Way of Central Oklahoma’s COVID-19 Response Fund.
“Our policyholders include many Oklahoma businesses that are currently experiencing the emotional, physical and financial tolls of this pandemic,” said CompSource Mutual President and CEO Jason Clark. “We are committed to being a reliable partner in our communities’ responses, which we first demonstrated earlier this month by implementing measures to help CompSource policyholders who are struggling financially to pay their premiums. This donation is the next step and supports our guiding principle to improve the communities in which we live and work. I am grateful to our leadership team for approving this vitally important assistance for three organizations who are working directly in support of first responders, medical professionals and affected families in our state.”

Mark Rolfe, M.D., is a Lung Transplant and Critical Care Pulmonologist at INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center. He says we are starting to see an increase in COVID-19 cases requiring hospitalization. Many of those end up in the intensive care unit, where he works.
“The first time I walked into the room of a patient known to have COVID-19, I paused at the door,” admits Rolfe. “I was a little frightened at facing this disease for the first time.”
It was the first case to be diagnosed at INTEGRIS Baptist, and Rolfe reveals it brought back memories from early on in his career. “I grew up in medicine at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and remember the hysteria around that diagnosis and all the precautions people took to not catch it. We initially wore hazmat suits with those patients and put them in different wings of the hospital.”
He continues, “It feels like I am living those days from my medical school years all over again. This disease, unlike HIV, is very contagious though. A person can spend five to six minutes with someone who is infected and catch this disease.”
In Rolfe’s ICU, every patient there either has the virus or is considered high risk. But despite the apparent danger associated with COVID-19, Rolfe feels his unit is very safe. “We have developed protocols that protect us, and everyone is very careful,” he says. “I feel I am more likely to get this disease shopping at the grocery store than in my hospital or ICU.”
He further explains, “In the public, there are unknown asymptomatic carriers who are very contagious and just don’t know it. In the hospital, I know where the danger is, and I am prepared to deal with it safely.”
Rolfe understands the importance of his work. “We are doctors. We are supposed to take care of the ill to the best of our ability. It is a challenge, but it is also a calling. God gave us these gifts for a reason. It’s time to step into the breach and use them.”
But don’t call him a hero, he says that honor is reserved for America’s finest. “Doctors are not heroes. We are doing what we were trained to do. Generations of physicians have fought off diseases throughout the years. It is our legacy. It is why we are respected in this society. The efforts to fight this disease and help people through it is the price of that respect,” states Rolfe.
“The people who put on a uniform and protect our country are the heroes.
Masks, gloves and hand washing will stop a virus. Nothing stops a bullet, a missile, a grenade, or a knife. The police and military are our heroes.”
However, Rolfe does acknowledge that the novel coronavirus has completely altered life as we knew it. He says each one of us has the power to reclaim it, we just have to work together to do so. “It’s all been said before, but it is worth repeating – wash your hands, don’t touch your face, avoid crowds and stay home to stay safe. Do what you can now, so you don’t become one of my patients later.”

by Nick Thomas

While most of us will be remembering mothers on May 10 this year, entertainers who worked as child actors in television sitcoms may also have special memories of their ‘TV mom.’ For Paul Petersen, that was Oscar winner Donna Reed, matriarch from “The Donna Reed Show.”

“It’s kind of an archival look back at an iconic television show,” said Petersen who, like Reed, appeared in all 275 episodes during the series run from 1958 to 1966. “I wanted the book to not only examine the people who made the show, but to put television in the historical context of the period. During the 8 years, we went through a lot including illnesses, accidents, and national incidents from that era.”
One of the most memorable was the 1963 Kennedy assassination.
“We were rehearsing and a guy from the radio station across the street called with a real quiver in his voice asking for Donna,” said Petersen who remembers answering the phone. “Donna then told us the president had been shot and it shut down the studio. We just packed up and went home for a very painful weekend.”
Most of Petersen’s memories of the show are far more pleasant, however, like the first day filming on the set.
“Donna was from a little town in Iowa called Denison, in the county right next to where my mother was born around the same year,” he explained. “When I got the job, the most excited person in my family was my grandfather who insisted on taking me to work to film the pilot. He marched right up to Donna and said, ‘Donna Belle Mullenger (her birth name) I knew your dad!’”
Reed was gracious, and remained personable and well-liked throughout the series, according to Petersen. “We all got together for lunch and were very close – uniquely close compared to other television families.”
A potentially tragic incident occurred when Paul crashed his Pontiac Grand Prix during the series. But Donna came to his rescue.
“The accident was my fault and for punishment I had to ride a bicycle 8 miles to work every day. But Donna and Tony (her husband) felt sorry for me and gave me a brand-new Volkswagen Bug. I loved that car!”
During the show’s run, Petersen obviously called Reed ‘mom’ while filming, but it was always ‘Miss Reed’ away from the set.
“It wasn’t until four years after the show ended when I was in my mid-20s and we were at Chasen’s restaurant that I remember her learning across the table and saying, ‘Paul, I think it’s time you started calling me Donna!’”
Having a close ‘second mom,’ especially a famous one, could have created friction between Petersen’s real mother and the actress.
“I remember in an interview my mother said, ‘how could I ever compete with Donna Reed?’ But she understood I had an ongoing professional relationship with Donna that sometimes required spending more time with her than my actual mother.”
“Donna was my de facto mother and guardian on the set, a pretty safe person to leave your kids with,” added Petersen. “She was an Iowa bred farm girl, the oldest of five children, who had lived through the depression and came out to California to be a Hollywood star and succeeded. She was a wonderful role model.”
In 2018 for the anniversary of the show’s first broadcast, Petersen (and coauthor Deborah Herman) released “The Donna Reed Show: A Pictorial Memoir” (see www.micropublishingmedia.com).

Nick Thomas teaches at Auburn University at Montgomery and has written features, columns, and interviews for over 800 newspapers and magazines. See getnickt.org.