A Day Away from the ICU

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Scotland Trip September 2019

Highland Castles including Inverary Castle and Kilchurn Castle, Glencoe, Oban and Loch Lomand

For the first two days of my vacation in Scotland, (my home country) September 2019, I booked a hotel room in the Merchant City area of Glasgow. The hotel, The Merchant City Inn, was built in the 18th century in the style of a castle and was walking distance from George Square. This seemed the easiest way to take a couple of tours that left early morning from there.

It was 08:00 on the dot when the luxury minivan took off on the trip. I had booked all of it from my couch in my home on Indian Rocks Beach, on the Gulf of Mexico, Florida. I chose Timberbush Tours from a variety available to me and I would absolutely do it again.

I was the only Scottish person the driver, Robert, told me he ever had on his tours in eight years. He was a retired Glasgow City civil servant and did this job for pleasure. He was quite the gentleman and a gracious driver. Very soon into the journey, we struck up a conversation since I was invited to ride up front in the “jump seat” opposite side from him.

The views through the huge windshield, or when we stopped to walk about, were totally breathtaking. Robert had such a wide knowledge of the history of the places we saw that day, right down to the tiny details, including Glasgow. He grew up in the city and lived there all his life.

He shared some of his own life experiences and occasional funny anecdotes with the group through the microphone which added a bit of a homely feel to the whole thing. His music choices, in between the dialogue, were heart wrenching for me at times; Flower of Scotland by the Corries, Letter From America by the Proclaimers, and Highland Cathedral by Scots Dragoon Guards, to name a few. I found myself biting my lip to fight back tears a few times as my mind wandered back.

There were a few couples on the tour and one other woman traveling alone like me. it was an international group of around twelve people. It was quite a strange affair really since people in Scotland are usually chatty, but very few of the party spoke English. (Probably why I was chosen to keep the driver company up front).

We stopped for lunch in Oban and had a good look around the town. I have to say I was amazed watching a huge Caledonian MacBrayne ferry dock at the terminal there. What a talented pilot and crew. It was fascinating to view from the dock.

I have, in the past, rented a car and booked a couple of nights B&B in Spean Bridge, then spent my days white-knuckled driving alone on the A82, one of the most scenic and dangerous roads in Scotland. The road goes through Glen Coe and on to Fort William and beyond. I even went as far up as Eilean Donan castle and over the bridge to the Isle of Skye.

I totally adored that at the time, but really I didn’t know I was born! There is no better way to tour the Highlands than in the comfort and warmth of a luxury minibus being driven around with pleasant and knowledgeable dialogue in your ears. I am in love with the Highlands and try to get back there whenever I can.

Since I wasn’t driving, I enjoyed a glass of wine with my meal in the famous Fish House on the pier in Oban. Bonus! The little curiosity and trinket shops around seaside towns are always a joy to visit. Brought back memories to me of my childhood and my family-trips to Saltcoats. I was born and raised in the industrial west central Scotland.

I’m so glad I made these little videos, especially now that we are all in lockdown in our homes for a while. I can, virtually, go there from my couch in my home in the USA whenever I feel like it. Now you can too.

Be safe everyone! Better days are coming.

Stepping Back In Time

 A True Story:

Recently, my shift at the hospital got canceled at five in the morning, which meant I had to wait until eleven o’clock to know if I had the entire day off, or if I was going to be called-in at the last minute to cover any unexpected shortfall in staffing.

All normal procedure during a lull when the hospital census drops, usually around the time of year on the Florida beaches (where I live), when snow-birds all fly home to the northern states. These are my mostly older people who winter in Florida for the warmer climate. The COVID-19 pandemic had not hit the hospitals yet here in west central Florida.

By the afternoon it was clear to me that my day was my own. So, without plans to spend it in any way other than relaxing, I drove over to my nearest grocery store in Largo and loaded up on essentials.

In a complete impulse, I pulled this box of comfort food from the shelf in the ‘ethnic’ aisle in Publix; Walker’s Pure Butter Shortbread fingers.

Back at the beach house I got all my necessary housework done and laundry caught up before I sat down with a mug of Earl Grey tea and opened the red tartan packet. The rich butter flavor of the product, imported from Scotland, took me back in time to my homeland and frequent trips I have made there over the years, both in person and in dreams. It sent me searching through old photographs. 

It was in April, 2008 when I took my new husband (of sixteen months at that time), an ancestral-highlander born in Florida, back to the home of his clan, Clan Donald of the Isle of Skye. I had agreed to swap a full week at my Florida beach vacation rental with a Scottish friend of mine for a week at his family’s time-share in Aberfoyle, Perthshire, Scotland.

We flew from Tampa, Florida to NYC then overnight to Glasgow. We picked up a rental car upon arrival. Years ago, I used to drive all over Scotland in my job, when I lived there and worked as a sales/marketing representative. However, since we didn’t rent the kind of car I’m accustomed to driving these days, an automatic transmission vehicle, I was a bit intimidated to drive while sitting in the wrong side of the car and driving on the wrong side of the road, in a stick shift car!

We loaded up our bags into the tight trunk space while the sales person from the rental-kiosk ran us through the dashboard controls. My husband, a six foot four inches tall American man, squashed himself into the driver seat in this tiny car, built for tiny roads, and took on the challenge of driving it.

Then the kicker, the salesman pulled out the side mirrors and told us they are to be folded in flat when the vehicle is parked. What a culture shock. We had a great laugh at that entire situation and set off. Somehow we made our way to our destination using paper maps and road signs in the days before GPS.

The property, situated on the perimeter of the Trossachs National Park, placed us well for travel around the local area and beyond. We drove through breathtaking scenery of the Loch Lomond National Park with Ben Lomond, the most southerly of the Munro mountains with a dusting of snow on top, sitting right in the middle of it.

I waited in the car as my husband went inside to sign us in. He told me he had met a Scots Guard, in full dress uniform, inside and they struck up a conversation. However, he was informed that, even though our flight had arrived early that morning, we were barred from entry to our accommodation until four in the afternoon. With our luggage still in the car, we lazed around and half-napped on leather couches in one of the bars on the property until our place was ready. We had been on the go for twenty-five hours by then.

After we got the keys and unloaded the car we took a trip up to the town to find an ATM. What a laugh that turned out to be. The ATM was built into the side wall of the bank building on a steep hill, so my husband had to get down on his haunches to use it.

Then that same Scots Guard from before, whom I had not yet seen, came marching down the main street and called out to my husband using his name. I was bewildered at how my husband had managed to have friends in this out of the way little town he’d never been in before -I’d never been in before! He introduced me and we shared a short, uncomfortable chat.

My husband had a very friendly, open demeanor and was totally comfortable talking to complete strangers. I tend to be more reserved when I first meet someone. Must be the canny, Celtic upbringing I had as a kid.

Eventually, the two of us wandered on and entered the tiny wee shop/post office to pick up a few kitchen essentials, instant coffee, milk, cereals, bread, etc and a packet of Walkers Shortbread fingers. We had to hurry because shop  hours in Scotland are stringently kept. They lock the doors at five. Later, we ate dinner in the grand dining-room of the main building and headed back to our wee one-bedroom flat. Exhausted, we went to bed.

The next day we woke up early and excited, like a couple of kids on Christmas morning, but our first hurdle, my husband couldn’t figure out how to get the hot water running in the shower. He went to the kitchen and made coffee for us, calling me to take a look at it.

I could see my breath forming when I poked my head out of the covers, so I was slower to get up and when I did I wanted to wear all my clothes at once under my ski jacket. It was freezing. I put so many layers on, it was quite impossible for me to bend. I looked at the shower. I knew there was a way to get it going, but just couldn’t remember what it was. It had been too long since I left Scotland. I had no idea. We would just have to wash quickly with cold water.

My husband called over to the main building to ask about the heating, which obviously was not on, but they told him it was on a timer and would only come on during the day to be warm by evening! What? Who ever heard of such a thing?

I was freezing and reluctant to sit outside for breakfast, but the sun was out and it was relatively warmer on the little balcony.

I called my family and talked for a while with my sister, then each of my two brothers, and left a voicemail for my youngest son. My older son lives near me in Florida.

It felt good to be home.

We had spectacular views of the loch and a few goats, we had seen earlier wandering around the property, came by looking for scraps after we had gone in.

We eventually went out walking to explore the grounds. The place was named MacDonald of Forrest Hills which was a complete coincidence because Forrest Hills was also the name of the area in Florida where my husband had lived when I first met him, several years before.

We trekked down closer to the loch where the wind whipped up a bit. It felt chilly to me despite my layers, but as we circled around the side of the water to climb back up and onto the property, the sun came out between the clouds and warmed me up a little.

After a pub-lunch, in the area where we had crashed on the couches the day before, we sat together in the family room of our place and made our travel plan for the rest of the week.

Later we got in the car and set off towards Glasgow and joined the M8 to take us out the other side of the city where my brothers lived with their families.

When we got there, we found out that they were about to set off to visit us in Aberfoyle for the evening. So they all bundled into my older brother’s minivan and we followed them back to our place on the loch. Mainly because it was getting dark and we didn’t know the way.

By the time we got back, the inside of our apartment was warm so we all took our coats off and just sat around laughing and telling stories. The pile of coats on our bed was almost four feet high!

My older brother showed us how to use the water heater in the shower. Apparently, you have to use a separate wall switch outside of the bathroom to turn the heat pump on for the shower. Who knew? I guess the voltage used there is much higher than in the states or something. We became one big happy family that evening and my husband fit right in.

Those were good times, everyone was happy and we all laughed a lot. Two brothers, two sister-in-laws, three nieces, a nephew, and the two of us.

Lots of love was shared that evening.

On our second day we drove out of the area through narrow winding roads, up steep hills and down into plunging valleys. We passed through the town of Callender and onward toward Fort William, the renowned gateway to the highlands.

Glencoe, a wide green valley between high mountains, sixteen miles south of Fort William, gave us respite and we stopped there to stretch our legs.

This was the site of a treacherous slaughter of members of the MacDonald clan of Glencoe, by soldiers under Campbell the 10th earl of Argyll, back in 1692. We hesitated there for a while, and walked about through rough grass growing wild, near the area believed to be the MacDonald campsite.

Across the road there was a small waterfall, I found out later, the locals had named MacDonald’s tears.

We made a couple more stops, on our way to catch the ferry from Mallaig to Skye. This is Camusdarach Beach, Morar, Scotland, featured in the movie Local Hero 1983. We walked where Burt Lancaster walked!

The ferry crossed over the Sound of Sleat, roughly where Bonnie Prince Charlie had fled for his life, to escape the English, after the battle of Culloden back in April, 1746.

As we sailed, I thought of the Jacobite uprising and the colossal defeat at Culloden. Bonnie Prince Charlie subsequently escaped over these same waters, arranged by his friend Flora MacDonald. I thought of the song written for them, now immortalized into Scottish folklore, the “Skye Boat Song.” A version of it is used today in the intro to the popular television show, Outlander.

We disembarked and spent the night on the Isle of Skye in an olde-worlde style inn for bed and breakfast, the Ardvaser Hotel. We unloaded the car and took an evening walk along the front road where a local farmer had his highland cattle in an adjoining field.

Further along we picked up handfuls of gem stones, rose quartz, white quartz, and chunks of amber, all washed up at low tide and scattered amongst a cluster of fishing boats resting there for the night. Beyond the bay, the spectacular mountain ranges of Wester Ross on the mainland of Scotland, could be seen rising up into the royalty of a dark blue sky.

It made for one of those moments in your life where you know that, whatever happens after it, you will never ever forget it. For dinner that night we ate local fair of heartwarming fresh foods and sampled the local made beer, Skye Ale.

We were alone on a Scottish Island with no phone or internet access. It felt great!

My husband dressed in his kilt the next morning, a MacDonald of the Isles tartan kilt. He drove us around the island to Armadale Castle, once the home of the mighty MacDonalds of Sleat.

I felt like he had taken me home to meet his parents, kinda.

The castle, which sits on forty acres of lush woodland and gardens, has dramatic views out over the Sound of Sleat. Partly sheltered there from the wind, the gulf stream comes in and provides a mild climate for blankets of bluebells and wild flowers to bloom in the spring.

Now a romantic ruin, we spent some time inside the castle itself and also in the breathtaking splendor of sprawling gardens. Inside the newly built and pristine museum, my husband slowly inched along reading photographic and tapestry inscriptions on the walls with dates and times depicting fifteen-hundred years of the history the highlands and islands through the story of Clan Donald, its most powerful clan.

We touched artifacts and wooden hand made boats fashioned in the galley style of Somerled, like the Viking long boats but with a rudder for faster maneuvering by clansmen, to navigate between the islands.

Moved by the overwhelming connection to his past people, my husband made some tentative inquiries inside the records department about his ancestors, but the response was vague without us having brought any supporting information or documentation. We hadn’t anticipated such easy access to the curator of those ancient records right there on site. 

The next day, we said farewell to our hosts at the inn and toured on. We crossed back over the, relatively new, bridge connecting the island to the main land at the Kyle of Lochalsh.

Onward and past Eileen Donan castle we headed northeasterly from there to Inverness, capital of the Scottish Highlands.

We made a pit stop at the Culloden battle ground to try to locate the rock marking the place where the MacDonalds had fallen. It was to be a somber moment in an eerie place, but we were spared that sorrow as it had been an anniversary day, of sorts, and entry to the battlefield was limited to those who had purchased tickets in advance.

Undaunted, we found a side road to stop where we got out of the car to breath-in deeply, to share their air. From that vantage point, we were able to spend a solitary moment with the fallen.

No birds sang and not a sound was heard, near the vast field on top of that hill, on the road to Nairn.

Our adventure continued and while driving along the length of Loch Ness, we joked about getting a picture of Nessie, but gladly it never happened.

We briefly stopped at Urquhart Castle along the banks of the infamous loch.

The entire Scottish experience was extraordinarily beautiful. The whole place felt like we had stepped into a history book and relived some of the bygone days.

In Inverness we spent the night in a hotel by the River Ness. The next day, we shopped for trinkets to bring back from our trip. We visited the market where my husband made another new friend.

We ambled along cobbled streets and in and out of cathedrals. At the castle, we admired the grand statue of Flora MacDonald, the legend who helped Bonny Prince Charlie to escape.

We took tons of pictures in Inverness, sadly, too many to include in this short story.

The next day we drove back to our place in Aberfoyle, forever changed by the history we had momentarily glimpsed as we inadvertently stepped back in time.

That night, our last in Aberfoyle, my younger son and his girlfriend called and came to visit us. The four of us went for dinner together in the grand dining room in the main building. We had a lovely time as they talked about their future plans together. We laughed and shared lots of love that evening, but they had work in the morning and soon were on their way back to the city.

It’s so hard to say goodbye to the people you love.

Boy, was it cold there in Scotland that April compared to Florida, but the scenery was absolutely stunning. I was born and raised there, but spent the preceding fifteen years living in a small seaside town on the Gulf of Mexico, with long hot summers.

Subsequently, I had lost my ability to adapt quickly to the bitter cold. My husband adjusted right away and didn’t feel the cold in the same way I did.

Despite this, I had a great time exploring his roots in the highlands and visiting west central Scotland, where we stayed in a hotel in my home town for a few nights. We invited my family and my high school friends to have dinner with us there. We had another great night sharing love and old stories.

A day or two later, we flew to London, England, where we had booked a hotel on Shepherds Bush Green. We spent a few days exploring the sights of London with my sister and her husband, who live there.

We visited Buckingham Palace, Covent Garden, Piccadilly Circus, Leister Square, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and Trafalgar Square. That is where my husband climbed up and sat on one of the four bronze lions, that have been guarding Nelson’s Column for over a hundred years, like he was in a rodeo! What a laugh!

We walked miles, rode the tube and the red buses all around town with our excellent tour guides. We even took a sail down the River Thames to Greenwich where I took pictures of my husband straddling the Prime Meridian time line (GMT). We spent hours exploring the Royal Naval College there.

We ate fish and chips afterward in my sister’s basement flat with the two of them.

We shared tons of love.

On that journey to Scotland 2008 we had lots of fun adventures, we made connections with both our pasts, met up with some old friends, and made a few new ones.

Mostly we shared love and made special forever-memories.

Link to the video: https://youtu.be/seNAL8lvS7s

Munro: 282 mountains in Scotland higher than 3,000 ft, named after Sir Hugh Munro who mapped them in 1819.

ICU Nurse Cares for her First COVID-19 Patient.

I am an ICU registered nurse with a baccalaureate degree in science. This weekend, I was assigned my first, COVID-19 ‘rule-out’ patient in ICU, but I was NOT afraid. Hand washing is the cornerstone of the nursing profession.

I proudly donned the PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), N95 mask (respirator), eye protection, gown, gloves and head-cover before I knocked on the door and entered the isolation, negative-pressure room.

While this might seem like a terrifying ordeal to the general public, nurses have been doing this stuff for many-years to protect themselves and their patients from the spread of multiple pathogenic threats just like corona virus. Only difference is, the corona virus has been awarded SUPERSTAR status by the media causing an unrealistic fear and dread amongst non-medical, everyday people.

Inside the room, I found a patient in need of care, just like any other patient to whom I have been assigned to give care every day in my career as an ICU nurse.

This patient had been been intubated (placed on a ventilator), and sedated (given sedative medication through intravenous lines). Following explicit hospital protocols and generational nursing practices and, adhering to up-to-the-minute CDC guidelines, I continued her care. I did my job just like multiple days before in the knowledge that I had a great team of coworkers and a very capable nurse leader in the unit to assist me, if the patient or I needed that. Our nurse manager kept constant contact with hospital administration for any step-by-step new directives.

Blood work had been previously ordered by the medical residents and sent down to the lab by our valuable night-shift nursing staff. All we had to do was keep the patient comfortable and wait for the results. Initial testing had begun.

After 8 hours and many phone calls, between our hospital infection disease coordinator, our in-house lab, nurse-leader, nurse-manager and the DOH, (Department Of Health), the patient was ruled-out for COVID19 by DOH.

Later that shift, the patient had her sedation titrated off and was extubated, (had the breathing tube removed from her throat). The patient woke right up and asked me to get her phone, from her bag in the closet, so she could text her family.

Her first reaction when she awoke was to contact her out-of-town family, just like the rest of us would do. A precious life, a human being, just like you and I and an amazing miracle of life like we all are.

Later during this weekend I assisted in the care of another Covid-19 patient who had not been ruled out, but moved up through the levels of testing to the point where a CDC nasal swab had to be obtained and sent off.

Both these patients have had high fevers, >103 fahrenheit, and a dry cough. If you think you, or a loved-one, might have been exposed and have symptoms call your doctor’s office to be advised of the necessary steps to take. Or you can type CDC into the Google search bar on your phone and pick your nearest location to call for further info and assistance.

My take-away from inside this corona virus pandemic has to be this; if you are in good health, do not smoke, over-eat or drink alcohol to excess, exercise regularly and get enough sleep then you have nothing to worry about. Stockpiling toilet tissues and hand-sanitizer in your home won’t count in your favor if your symptoms escalate to the point where you get to meet me in the ICU. Prepare now. Wash your hands. Take reasonable precautions to limit your exposure to the potentiality of this virus. Follow CDC guidelines.

Our biggest tests right now as a nation are in how we spend what precious free time we have, how we protect ourselves and our families, and in how we treat others around us.

I remember the first time I went to Disney World in Florida and Mickey Mouse stepped out of my television and into my life. Well, this weekend, corona virus stepped out of my television and into my life in much the same way. Suddenly all the lessons and training I have amassed over my twenty-years as a nurse came to the forefront of my mind and I instinctively knew what to do. I was NOT afraid.

I am asking each one of you reading this now -please do NOT be afraid. Limit your television or internet exposure to keep you updated with developments then turn it off and just breathe. Just be. This is your life right now. There is NO big monster about to pounce on you from under the bed.

In fact, my Facebook post dated December 31st, 2019 (eleven short weeks ago), states how I had to rush to the hospital in the early hours of the morning myself because I had trouble breathing and suffered flu like symptoms from Christmas Day through the first week or so of this New Year. The flu swab they did on me came back negative and my chest x-ray showed negative for pneumonia. I was told I had a respiratory virus and to go home and drink fluids and get some sleep.

Therefore, I believe corona virus has been around here for a few months, prior to China giving it a name, and many of us probably have been exposed to it and didn’t know. We might have had symptoms, but we dismissed it as a cold etc. If I am right about that then we probably already have the antibodies inside us right now and are ready to fight. But for some, this might turn out to be the fight of their lives.

People with asthma , COPD etc are at higher risk for complications because this virus attaches itself to the lungs and fills the alveoli (air sacks inside the lungs), with a thick glue like substance making it impossible for them to expand during the normal work of the lungs, the oxygen exchange process. If you smoke -stop right now. If you are a couch-potato get up and move your body. Go outside and walk while we are still allowed to do that.

It’s your life! Your body already knows what to do! Stop smoking. Stop hoarding unnecessary amounts of groceries and take a hike. Stay away from sick people. Eat healthy foods. Forget the booze! Drink water. Get out in the woods or to the beach and push your walking limits a bit; give yourself a fighting chance!

Stop putting poison into your body. You wouldn’t rinse your laundry in sugar water would you? Then why do it to the organs inside your body? When you drink water you are holding your kidneys, liver, spleen, lungs and heart under the faucet and rinsing them with clean, fresh water. Drink more water! Live your best life now. Wash your hands with soap and water several times a day for twenty seconds. Sing a few bars of your favorite song while you do it.