SandyB

Originally I planned to do these after hubby and I both retired. I think nurses could easily write childrens books that explains diseases in ways children will understand. A kindly neighbor nurse in each story for each child with a sick sibling, friend, parent, grandparent etc to put it all into simple simple words and help children understand what happens. Even just simple things like Grandma on oxygen at home and why. A way to start teaching 6-7-8-9 yr olds in story form. Someone who can draw or do graphics might animate stories and then who knows what might happen :)I always imagined giving the first few stories to a childrens hospital in electronic form and then putting them on amazon and adding more and more stories as I got better at writing them. I did start writing a childrens story about ebola at one point and another idea I had and started but didn't finish was love stories with real people who have actual disabilities. Few of us find billionaires with private jets and many of us wouldn't want one. But falling in love with a cancer survivor or a guy or gal with a colostomy is real life and there are lots of ways to increase the tension of a love story with fears like they do in the normal romance books. And we know there are many chronic diseases love stories could educate the public about and be entertaining as well. I have pancreatic cancer - so I'm giving these ideas away in hopes there will be many nurses writing stories and teaching the public after I'm gone. If a miracle occurs and I survive then I'll simply compete with all of you. I think if the romance book industry can have as many writers as they do now, there is no reason a lot of nurses can't write childrens books or romance medical stories. Best to all of you! AllNurses is the best. And you are all the best nurses. Never doubt it.

I think it may be a very good public teaching moment if the media does it right. She is not a danger to anyone at this time. The public needs to understand that so they panic less.

MrChicagoRN, I'm asking cuz I'm betting the public panic wins out. It already put one RN in a tent. If they are gonna flip out then I hope we here at AN might contribute to making sure what they do is treat us sanely while they panic insanely. I'd rather get them thinking of where and how to do this nicely instead of abusing us in tents with no showers.

If there is to be a quarantine that is monitored, like they tried with the tent, what would be the best set up...assuming a few folks did turn up with ebola, like the doctor in NY did? Cabins somewhere made from cinder block? RV's? Tents in a nice climate? Food delivery has to be a given. But describe what you could stand to put up with were it to happen to you. I'd be ok with RV or cabin, chair/lounge outside, roped off area I can walk around the RV-I still need exercise, food, wifi, getting to see people from a safe number of feet away-no physical contact but seeing someone I love in person and hearing their voice would go a long way to making me feel good, things like knitting or sewing or other hobby supplies - put together a model airplane (if I'm neg I get to take it with me, if not, it burns up easy). What else?

I think we need to ask Doctors without Borders to come handle this. They know what they are doing.

Sue Ellen Kovack, 56 Australian Red Cross nurse, Kenema, Sierra Leone At the start of the day, I check my hands for any cuts or scrapes that will bar me from donning PPE. Entering the centre, I must wash my hands in a 0.05% chlorine solution. I balance on one foot as someone sprays the bottoms of my shoes with 0.5% chlorine before being allowed entry to the low-risk area. I search for a pair of cold wet boots in my size, which have been soaking in chlorine for the night, and I change into my scrubs. I go straight to the whiteboard to see who has passed away during the night; today, it's one of three nurses who became infected at work. One is on his way to good health, the other is still hanging on. We need to synchronise putting the PPE on with other team members, because if one is slower than the rest we end up waiting and baking in the sun. We have a dresser to make sure we are completely covered, or we work in pairs and check each other. First on are gloves and a jumpsuit. Then a second pair of gloves, a thick duckbill mask, a hood, and an apron that is tied by the dresser so we can untie it with one pull. Then on go the goggles with a generous drizzle of antifogging spray, a final check in the mirror and a final check with each other. The checking does not stop there, as we must ensure during our time in the high-risk area that we are still covered, that a mask has not slipped, or that a piece of skin has not been exposed. If that happens, we leave the area immediately. We check the time - 45 minutes to one hour is the maximum allowed in the PPE. We have the luxury of four nurses today. Patients who are feeling well enough are sitting on plastic chairs waiting for a meal. We might offer some pain relief, or a smile from beneath our PPE (yes, you can smile with your eyes). Hannah (not her real name) is sitting outside, greeting us with a big smile. She has lost all her children to Ebola as well as her husband. And here she is asking me how my evening was. The staff tell me she has had some bad moments, but all they can do is reassure her that she is young and can bear more children. Others have not fared so well - too weak to sit up, or get to the toilet or the shower block. We do our best to offer fluids, a wash and some paracetamol. The local nursing staff have amazing courage to work in our centre. Their families ostracise them, but they still come, to try to bring an end to this brutal, invisible "war". In Africa, it is usually the family that feeds, washes and comforts the patients. But no family members are allowed inside our treatment centre. My three key words are warm, dry and comfortable. Patients who are too weak to move away from their own vomit, faeces and urine need the most help. We clean and care for as many as we can, but if we need to leave the area because of heat exhaustion or feeling unwell, the priority is to get out. You are a danger to your colleagues if you go down in your PPE. After our nursing team goes in, the hygiene team suits up for their rounds. They clean up the vomit, diarrhoea and urine spills, the garbage and the nappies. Their task is monumental and they can be at most risk. A minimum of five minutes is needed to undress. We have two tents, where the undressers and sprayers need to be on the ball. The urge to just pull the suit off is strong, but we wait. First, the chlorine spray to the hands. Then, feet apart, arms in the air, we are sprayed from head to toe, first the front, then the back. We wash our hands in 0.5% chlorine. Off come the first set of gloves. We wash our hands again. Off comes the apron and hopefully it was tied perfectly, as we have to blindly reach around to release the knot; we pull it over our heads. Into the chlorine soak it goes. We wash our hands. Next go the goggles. We bend over, close our eyes and gently remove them, dunk them three times in the strong chlorine-filled bucket, and then place them in water. We wash our hands. The hood comes off next. Once again, we bend over, closing our eyes to avoid contamination and dispose of the hood in the garbage. We wash our hands. Next, the removal of our heavy PPE. Moving slowly - we do everything slowly here - we carefully expose the zipper, hidden under a taped-down flap. We wash our hands. Blindly, we have to find the zipper, as our undressers and sprayers guide us. We wash our hands. As we shimmy out of our PPE, we are soaked to the bone in sweat, but it feels great. This is the hardest part: to ease off the jumpsuit while kicking your legs back, at the same time standing on it so it doesn't fly away from you. It's a balancing act. The sprayer sprays the entire jumpsuit with a stronger chlorine solution and we put it in the garbage. We wash our hands. Our heavy-duty filtration mask is next. I close my eyes and hope it doesn't catch in my ponytail. We wash our hands. The last pair of gloves comes off. Our boots are sprayed from all angles and we have to balance on one foot to cross the line from high risk to low risk. We wash our hands and we are done, stripped down to our scrubs, soaked with sweat. I need a rehydration solution or water. No food is allowed in the low-risk area. It is too risky to put anything near your mouth from your hands. But I still see people biting their nails, touching their face, rubbing their eyes - risky but automatic responses. Your hands have been washed a trillion times in chlorine, but still, you don't know how safe your other colleagues have been. You are literally entrusting your life to your work mates. Before I left Australia, I took to wearing a rubber band and each time I caught myself touching my face, I snapped it painfully so I would remember not to do it. I hear an ambulance and the siren is going fast - it may pass us and head to the next treatment centre, hours away. But it abruptly turns into our driveway and we run out to greet it. I suit up and prepare for the admissions with a package consisting of a blanket, soap, towel, cup, toothbrush and toothpaste, all in a covered bucket that will be used for vomit/faeces or urine if the person is unable to get to the latrines. The ambulance door is opened and I can see a man on the stretcher, two legs in the air, stiff as a board. They slowly drop and I realise this patient is dying. But he walked into the ambulance in Freetown. It is a five-hour drive through a dozen checkpoints and deterioration comes rapidly. I pronounce him dead, and move on to the other patient. The female patient is lying on the floor between the seat and the stretcher, strapped in by seatbelts. She is trapped, a terrorised look in her eyes. She is flailing wildly, a dangerous situation in itself. I try to calm her while maintaining my distance. We move her as best we can, but then I realise that she is just trying to cover her exposed area below her waist. In her last moments, this is her concern. We manage to get her into a tent. We ask her name, if she is married. She responds, "I am married", looks away and dies. All that struggle and desperation in the ambulance and she only wanted to preserve her dignity. That was a tough moment. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/13/ebola-nurses-describe-life-death-on-frontline-liberia-sierra-leone I'm reading and seeing too many differences between what we say is safe and what they do in Africa.

I've watched the vids from Africa and then see pics of what our nurses wear and we are not doing it right. IMHO. This is scary.

Ebola Outbreak | FRONTLINE | PBS awesome documentary and you get to see how they take off the PPE...the doc DOES use bleach ON the GLOVE. Watch for it. A tear jerker too by the way so be aware, it's hard to watch.

And that needs to change right away!

From bbc article what JOURNALISTS wear. http://www.bbc.com/news/health-29518703

Nice theory but with ebola? I don't want any of them on my hands. I've heard it can take ONE viron to infect a human. So I take off my gloves and touch the gown or mask or booties and get it on my finger which has a tiny tear by the cuticle...and I'm now infected. This is not the normal bugs we are used to.

Then do you put on clean gloves? How do you prevent the virus from touching your fingers if you touch anything else with bare hands then?

The problem is, the right PPE should have meant she couldn't easily touch her face with a glove. BBC News - How not to catch Ebola Are nurses as well protected as journalists?

Avigan produced by Japanese firm Toyama Chemical was used on the French nurse. Anyone know how it's made, how fast it can be made and what side effects to worry about? It might be quicker than Zmapp

I wonder if lack of insurance played any role in not keeping him to test him the first time. Would not be the first time that thought came in to play in an ER for an uninsured patient.