Traveling during a Quarantine

More than 30, but less than 40… that’s the number of times I have traveled the 1100 mile round-trip to The Cleveland Clinic over the last six years. Last week’s trip was different than all the others because of the request to self-quarantine. However, each rough breath made me acutely aware that it was time for another bronchoscopy procedure. Few things in life are more important than avoiding a virus that doesn’t have a cure yet,… but breathing is one of them! Here are a few observations from my recent travels up and back on the I-77 corridor:

Traffic was very light the whole trip. There was no such thing as ”rush hour“ in Charlotte or Cleveland.

The Ohio governor is enacting rules more quickly than almost any other governor in the US.

As of last week, there were no confirmed cases of the coronavirus in West Virginia…. as reported by our waitress.

Toilet paper is hard to find as reported from conversations with people who live in Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and NC.

Other than in and around the hospital, I saw nobody wearing masks on this whole trip. When I did wear a mask while traveling, people looked at me like I had the virus!

The two Interstate 77 rest areas in North Carolina that we saw were packed with semi trucks idling and the drivers resting.

On Monday, March 16, The Cleveland Clinic started testing up to 500 cases a day in coordination with the University Hospital at a separate drive-thru testing facility. They developed their own test for the coronavirus.

All people coming into The Cleveland Clinic are funneled past a person questioning their health and travel plans in the last 30 days to discover the risk of exposure. If you answered any question indicating the possibility of any type of exposure you went into a different line and we are assumed to be infected.

Any non-essential surgeries or procedures are being rescheduled. The Hospital is communicating with the nurses and all staff assigned to the Bronch unit and preparing to reschedule them to other units as needed.

 

My procedure went well and yet stay tuned… we will be making another trip in several weeks!

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