April 19, 2020
Happy Sunday, friends! I broke down and bought hair bands yesterday, so apparently, things are getting real. And it was a rough few days for the COVID numbers in Illinois, but again, the growth rate is not increasing as quickly and that’s a really good sign that the social distancing is working.
While I know we’re all anxious to try to return to normal, it helps to think of these measures as a type of antibiotic. When you take an antibiotic, you may start feeling better after 2 or 3 days, but unless you finish the entire 10 days, you run a huge risk that your infection will come roaring back. So hang in there for just a while longer. We can do this!
This week, the Clinic was busy and you helped us provide a lot of services. While we are not testing for COVID, we are fielding a lot of calls from people who have all of the symptoms. Our incredible team of nurse practitioners and nurses are talking through the ‘treatment’ (which is truly just quarantine and symptom relief) and helping reassure people who are very anxious.
We’ve also provided lots of other medications including z-packs, insulin, antibiotics, diabetic medications, and hypertension medicine. Health needs don’t stop even if there’s a pandemic. We had two wonderful donations of food this week from Pure Prairie Cheese and Tribe Country Farms. They donated lettuce and cheese to our patients which was a great change from the canned food we’ve been handing out!
And many people have been making masks for us, for our staff and for our patients. We’ve given out almost 250 cloth masks already! Patients have been so grateful because they simply didn’t know where to get masks. Our volunteers are so very generous and we are so appreciative!
For good information on the virus, I urge you to bookmark the Illinois Department of Public Health’s COVID website : https://www.dph.illinois.gov/covid19 . They have in depth statistics on its main page, and on the left, there are links to valuable information. For a more specific Clinic- based perspective, tune in to our Facebook Live each week on Tuesdays and Fridays at 10 am.
Sincerely,
Suzanne Hoban
Executive Director
