SARATOGA LIVINGThe City. The Culture. The Life.

I don’t know what it is about working out in a group setting, but it brings out two versions of me at the same time: This joker, who’s constantly saying self-deprecating, bordering-on-ridiculous things, and this full-tilt athlet-o-beast, who’s full of grunts, screams and curse words. All of this goes down, daily, at anatomie gym in Troy, and all of the folks I work out with at 6am know these Wills well.

At the beginning of any given anatomie class, Will A might exclaim, half-jokingly, “I’m glad there are a lot of nurses here; I might need to be stretchered out of here afterwards.” It’s actually true: There are a number of nurses that either go to or are on staff at anatomie, and I feel blessed to be around them. Even more so right now. Because there are thousands of nurses right now in the Capital Region, working alongside talented doctors, on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis, risking their lives on a daily basis to make sure that the sick are cared for, contained and comfortable—and the virus doesn’t spread further. And many are doing this without the proper medical gear to protect them from harm. And yet, day in and day out, they keep coming back for more, as if the threat of infection or possible death is a small price to pay for protecting the lives of others. That, right there, is the definition of selfless.

As luck would have it, I was able to track down two nurses from my 6am class at anatomie, and both calmly told me about their day-to-day lives during this crisis. Join me in reading their words below—and above all, honoring them.

Shauna Paris, RN, CapitalCare Pediatrics in Troy

Have you had parents come in with children that they suspected had COVID-19? I’ve heard that children are less susceptible to the virus than adults. 
So, here’s the thing. As these weeks have gone on, things have changed almost every day. In the beginning, we didn’t really have a standard for it; we had people coming in who did think that [their children] could have it, and we’d have to [put on a] mask and gown and all that kind of stuff to be in the room with them. Now, we’ve switched things around, so we’re trying not to see any type of respiratory issue in our office, just to prevent the spread. The big change is that we have to do a lot of tele-medicine and a lot of things over the phone that we wouldn’t typically do over the phone. The thing that we always say about our office, is that, especially with parents, parents get nervous, and most of the time they just need somebody else to lay eyes on their kid and [provide] them some reassurance. So we’re very used to just coming in just for parental reassurance, even if it’s just a cold. We can’t just come in anymore; we have to figure out a different way to assess things, without [parents] having to come out and be exposed to something else.

Are you sending those folks that have respiratory issues directly to the hospital? What is the course of action?
The recommendations are that there’s no reason to go to the emergency room unless there’s shortness of breath. If it’s something that you’d typically manage at home anyway, or we would bring [you] to the office [for] and you’d manage after, it’s something we would do over the phone. We’re doing a lot of video medicine, which is different.

So, over FaceTime? 
Pretty much, yeah.

So, HIPAA (The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) has basically been waived? 
[laughs] I don’t want to say “yes.” We’re doing our best. But it’s different. We are trying to abide by HIPAA as much as possible, but I will say that there are a lot of patients, or parents of my patients, who have my cellphone number now that wouldn’t typically have it. In this point and time, it’s the best thing that we can do to help.

Give me an idea of the medical equipment that you have. Do you feel like you have the proper equipment available?
We do, but it’s got to be conserved. They go back and forth—if you’re healthy, do you wear a mask anyway? For the most part, we don’t feel comfortable not wearing masks. I feel like if I’m carrying something, I need to protect other people from it. So, we’re wearing masks, usually, but that mask has to be saved, basically, until it gets dirty.

The normal protocol is to throw an N95 out right after you see a patient, right?
As soon as it was in a room with a patient, you’d throw it out.

What are you most worried about right now?
At first, I felt like, I’m not sick, so it’s OK. Now, I’m like, you can carry this on you for three days before you could attract any symptoms, so who knows if I was exposed to somebody who may’ve had it, and now I am carrying it. The biggest thing is going to be, once this is all over, just going [back] to normalcy, and everybody not being afraid to come out in public, come back into the office, be around somebody who’s coughing or sneezing and not be worried that they’re going to get something like [COVID-19].

What is the most important piece of advice you can give a person, who might think their child has COVID-19?
I think that, especially for a kid, COVID-19 or not, as long as they’re breathing OK, they’re hydrated, you can keep the fever down, it’s just reassuring to keep everybody at home and not spread it to other people out in public. We always have a doctor or nurse on call, 24/7, answering phone calls, just to reassure parents. It’s never a stupid question; it’s always OK to call and get another opinion or somebody else’s thoughts on what’s making you nervous.

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Katelyn Arsenault, RN, Albany Medical Center (Post-op/Anesthesia Care Unit)

Have you dealt with any patients who have or believe they have COVID-19?
When we go into work, the nurses themselves and the healthcare providers get checked for any symptoms and temperatures. That’s the same with patients before they go into surgery. We ask them if they have any symptoms, or even their family that brought them, [and] they get checked, too. We did just have a patient, who [doctors] ended up testing; we don’t know if the results were positive or negative, but they had reason to test [the patient]. We found out late that [the person had] been tested. The patient, at least, had a mask on, but for our safety, we put on our full getup—our N95 masks, goggles, gown—and we have [that person] in a negative pressure room, [with] the doors closed, and [we] went about as if they had it, even though we didn’t know. But it’s better to be safe than sorry.

When the patients come out to the PACU (Post Anesthesia Care Unit), [the medical staff is] trying to establish protocols on, if patients are for sure positive, they will get intubated [i.e. have a breathing tube inserted] in one of our negative pressure rooms, that will be their room, and then when they come out of surgery, they will be extubated [i.e. the opposite of intubated] in that room, and then we’ll go up to the room.

Do you feel like you have the proper amount of protective medical equipment? 
As of right now, it seems as though we do, but they’re being strict with what we use. I don’t know if that is going to change when we get more cases, or, from what I’ve heard, [New York Governor Andrew] Cuomo might be bringing patients from New York City up this way, if need be. When nurses come in, even if they want to wear just a regular face mask, they’re making them wear that same face mask all day long, instead of getting new ones throughout the day. We would normally get new ones throughout the day. I don’t think that we’re as prepared for this situation as we thought we could be. I think [the outbreak] kind of came on fast and furious, especially in New York City.

What are you most worried about right now? 
I guess what I’m most worried about, to be specific to my unit, is people coming out [of surgery] who have [the virus], and we’re not going through the protocols properly. If they’re putting all these protocols into place, [and] someone has it and they just bring the patient out, [that person’s] extubated, the patient’s coughing everywhere…that’s my main concern. Then, we’re more at risk to get it, because, if we’re not wearing a mask, because we’re not having symptoms or feeling fine, then now I could be a carrier and give it to other people.

So, in your unit, if you’re not working with a patient, you’re just walking around without the protective gear you’d need.
Anesthesia is the group that will intubate and extubate, but we take care of those patients after surgery. If the patient is going to go into the room after surgery to get extubated, we will most likely be in the room with them when they’re being extubated. And then we’ll take care of them from that point onward, until they go back to their room. Eventually, we’ve been told our unit could potentially be, if we get more patients who have [COVID-19] in the hospital, turned into an ICU (Intensive Care Unit). So, I’m kind of nervous about that, too.

What’s the most important thing you can advise people, currently, about this situation? In your unit, those patients probably have to be there already, right? 
I would say, if you don’t need to have the surgery right now, don’t have the surgery. Because we’ve had some cases where I don’t know if [the patient] necessarily needed to [have surgery] when they did. They could’ve probably postponed [it].

One of my fellow nurses was saying, because it was nice out [one day], they saw all of these people in the park, hanging out. Just because it’s warm doesn’t mean the quarantine’s over. Just stay home, let’s ride this out and let’s just keep everybody safe, so we can limit the number of cases that we get in Albany.

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Read Saratoga Living‘s other “What It’s Like” features below:

What It’s Like Being A Parent Who Believes His Child Has COVID-19

What It’s Like Being A Small Business Owner During The COVID-19 Pandemic

What It’s Like Being A Capital Region Doctor On The Front Lines Of The COVID-19 Outbreak

What It’s Like Grocery Shopping During The COVID-19 Pandemic (Opinion)

It’s been a little over 20 years since I last saw or spoke to Saratogian Will (he asked that I not publish his last name), and I wish the phone call I just placed to him, as a journalist, was under different circumstances. A little background: Will and I both graduated from Saratoga Springs High School in 1998, and had been friendly for a bunch of years beforehand—despite the fact that Will was, without question, the most formidable pitcher I ever faced in the years I spent playing Little League baseball. I mean, there was Brian Hackett—certainly, a flamethrower in his own right—but whenever I faced Will, I always felt my knees buckle. He would fire in strikes before I even had a second to think about swinging the bat. (It’s possible that he and I were on the same team at some point, so I would’ve had a brief reprieve in the batter’s box, but I honestly can’t remember.) Eventually, Will would go on to play two years of college ball at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst and then, two more at the University at Albany, before blowing out his shoulder senior year of college. That injury got him interested in sports medicine, and life eventually brought him to the Chicago area in 2005. He currently lives in Hinsdale, IL, about 20 minutes southwest of Chicago, where he’s director of business development at Ivy Rehab Physical Therapy in Libertyville, IL. He’s the father of a four-year-old boy and two-year-old identical twin sons, so he’s got his hands full.

Like most of my friends from high school, whose lives have taken them to disparate parts of the country/world, the only way to stay in touch with them has really been Facebook. And Will had been active on the platform this past week for not-so-uplifting reasons. I first noticed his videos on March 28 and assumed they were some sort of comic meme; Will always had a great sense of humor. (In ninth grade English class, we were paired on a project to create a fantasy world we, of course, dubbed Willy World.) But then I started reading the comments on his videos, and it became clear that it wasn’t a joke at all. A worst case scenario was unfolding in real time: One of his two-year-old twin sons had been experiencing shortness of breath, a bad cough and fever—the tell-tale symptoms of COVID-19—and Will had had to bring him to an urgent care, miles away from where he lived, to get tested. This was on Friday, March 27. The doctors there had then sent [my son] directly to the hospital to get the COVID-19 test. Will’s last video is raw with emotion and frankly, hard to watch. “[My son is] on oxygen, IV fluids, they’ve given him steroids,” Will says, fighting back tears. “He’s tested negative for the flu, he’s tested negative for RSV [Respiratory Syncytial Virus], so now, because of everything that’s going on, we have to wait until tomorrow morning to get the results of a COVID-19 test. Until then, we are all under quarantine.”

Below, Will explains his five-day ordeal in his own words.

Which one of your sons is the one who you think has been infected by COVID-19?
Well, thankfully, we just got a text from a physician that [my son] tested negative for COVID-19. I’m filling a prescription for him now, and am sitting in the parking lot, trying to fight back tears and compose myself, because the stuff we’re seeing is just crazy. My son was sent home; he was just well enough that they could say, you can go home, confident that in the next 24 or 48 hours, he was not going to have a regression that would require us to go back to the emergency room. They needed the [hospital] bed!

Can you give me an idea of what the last several days have been like for your family? 
It started [on March 25] like anything, with a sick kid. [By March 27,] he was miserable, upset, coughing, and any other time, panic would’ve never run through my head. I would’ve been, like, let’s give him some medicine, water, do an extra nap today. No big deal. But with the current situation, we immediately ran to “Oh my god, did he get exposed?” That was our primary concern right off the bat, and then from there, of course, our imaginations can run wild, where it’s like, “Holy crap, he’s been exposed to his grandparents, who are in their 60s; we’re now exposed,” so immediately, we went into full-on lockdown mode, while his condition continued to get worse. And as his condition got worse, our imaginations continued to get the better of us to where now it’s like, “We need to get [him to a doctor] immediately.”

But here’s the problem: You can’t just take him in to see anybody. There are no urgent cares, walk-in hours; it’s got to be by appointment only. So, we’ve got this sick kid, and the earliest we were able to get him in was 3pm at an urgent care center miles away from where we are. And the only reason we were able to get him in was I had to call in a favor. I had to call a physician friend of mine and say, “Look, I’ve got a sick kid here, and I don’t know what’s going on. Can you help us?” That’s how we were able to get him in, and from there, within five minutes, they were like, “We’re sending you to the emergency room.” When we got to the emergency room, he was immediately put in isolation—and I couldn’t go [see him]. Because the second they made the determination that he needed to go to the ER—that there’s something more going on—we immediately had to go into lockdown. At 11:30pm, [my son’s] mom called me and said, “This might be my last phone call; there’s no phone chargers, I can’t leave the room. Can you bring one over to the hospital?” I called the nurses’ station and said, “Hey, look, I need to bring a phone charger over to the hospital.” The nurse said, “Do not set foot on our premises. Stay home, and if your son is in isolation, that means that you’ve probably been exposed.” We’ve been on full quarantine [since]. The only reason I’m out right now is to fill a prescription [for my son], and I’m out because we just got the negative COVID-19 test.

Obviously, you’re out and about now. Normally, you wouldn’t be outside anyway, right?
First off, no. But I’m sitting in the grocery store parking lot right now. I dropped off the prescription and I left, because there were probably 30 people waiting out front of the Walgreens trying to get in at 8:59am. But here’s the problem: I’m sitting in my car waiting, and I see one guy walk out with a case of Coca-Cola, another woman walks out with one roll of aluminum foil, another guy was walking out with a carton full of deodorant. This is the problem. I’m not seeing people walk out of here with cartfuls of groceries. They’re walking out with [an] “Oh, I needed nutmeg for this recipe I saw on TV” sort of mentality. And this is why we’re not “flattening the curve.” This is why. I’m out, as an absolute necessity, to get a prescription for my kid. But I’m watching these people…yep, there’s another guy right now. He’s walking out with a case of Lacroix, a thing of paper towels, and that’s it.

The point of the [Facebook] videos that I put up was people need to understand that if you’re showing any signs of respiratory illness or distress, to the point where you need medical care or to see a doctor, this is how they’re going to treat you. I continue to try to urge people to just stay home. Don’t go anywhere, don’t leave your home unless it’s absolutely necessary. This is the reason when my kid gets sick, any other day, we wouldn’t have panicked. As parents, we never would’ve thought twice about it; we would’ve followed the same exact steps, but there would’ve been no panic. I haven’t slept in two days, and I haven’t seen my other two sons in two days.

This is the process and the protocols, and people need to be aware of what’s going to happen to them. Because I think people still don’t understand the severity of it; there’s still a lot of misinformation out there. I put it this way, and it’s not an original thought: We need to be comfortable with accepting the criticism that we’re overreacting. Because right now, I think there are a lot of people that feel that this quarantine, this shutdown, this shelter-in-place is optional. Or it’s just a suggestion. Not what it needs to be, which is stay in your damned house.

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Read the other “What It’s Like” features below:

What It’s Like Being A Small Business Owner During The COVID-19 Pandemic

What It’s Like Being A Capital Region Doctor On The Front Lines Of The COVID-19 Outbreak

What It’s Like Grocery Shopping During The COVID-19 Pandemic (Opinion)

This spring is shaping up to be a doozy for Capital Region residents—and the world at large. With offices, schools and businesses closed, and major, long-scheduled events (see: Coachella and the Kentucky Derby) either cancelled or postponed, this season certainly isn’t providing warm weather wishers with much by way of joy and excitement.
Popping up amid all the doom and gloom? Tulips.

Even with the 72nd Annual Albany Tulip Festival in Washington Park having been postponed, we still wanted to know how Washington Park’s most famous blooms get planted—and if they’d actually bloom. So, Capital Region Living caught up with one of the people most instrumental in making the Mother’s Day weekend event a success: Jessica Morgan, the Albany City Gardener. The best news? Morgan informed us that, indeed, the flowers will still bloom—as well as letting us in on her best green-thumb secrets. If a tulip blooms in a park and no one is around to see it, is it still beautiful? Yes. Unequivocally, yes.

Explain what you do as Albany City Gardener.
I’m responsible for the care and maintenance of more than 200 gardens; a staff of 2 full-time, year-round employees; a city-owned and -operated greenhouse; and the planning and planting of more than 187,000 spring bulbs and 200,000 annual summer flowers; as well as the care of perennials, tropical plants and 300 hanging baskets.

What’s the status of Albany’s 72nd Annual Tulip Fest, now that many events in the Capital Region have been either cancelled or postponed?
Currently, everything is in limbo. Tulip Fest is still on but will be re-evaluated due to the state of the COVID-19 outbreak.

When do you start preparing for Albany Tulip Festival?
This will sound strange, I guess, but I start planning for the next year’s Tulip Festival while the current one is going on. I pay careful attention to which tulips are getting attention from festivalgoers. I’ll walk the grounds and make decisions on which varieties to bring back the following year, then research what’s new in the market and choose a few new varieties. When giving my tulip tours each spring I usually say, “Tulips are like fashion: One day you’re in and the next you’re out.” Often, a certain variety that’s been in the market for years as a staple can have a bad growing year and will be limited. That usually opens up new opportunities for us to try new bulbs.

Where do the Tulip Fest tulips come from?
The City of Albany gets its tulip bulbs straight from the Netherlands. Each October, all the bulbs are shipped by boat to ports in New York City or New Jersey, and then are shipped by truck up to us. We take about a week to sort them, label them, plan a bit and finally start planting. All of the bulbs that festival goers see each year—all 90,000 in Washington Park—were planted between mid-October and late November the previous year. There are roughly 40,000 muscari in the park and 90,000 tulips, plus a smattering of daffodils, hyacinths, species tulips, allium and fritillaria. None of the tulips in bloom are grown off site and transplanted for the festival. If a particular bed passes its prime, the stems are pruned, the leaves are left on, and we move on. We have several ways of planting this many bulbs, including, when beds are in need of soil, laying out the 1500-2500 bulbs per bed and covering them with new soil. We can use up to 40 yards of topsoil a year.

What’s the hardest part about making Tulip Fest happen?
Honestly, the stress in the spring. I mean, planting is hard work, and we’re under pressure to get the bulbs in the ground in a certain amount of time, but that’s a known factor and part of the job. But the spring is when I really stress and start to worry about the weather and the spring thaw, as well as any damage that might’ve occurred over the winter or from the temperatures rising too quickly and pushing the tulips to grow and bloom earlier than normal.

Are there any surprises coming to the festival this year?
This year, if Tulip Fest happens, we have a few small surprises in store, including a garden where you can walk in and sit down in a chair, so that you can take a photo among the tulips, as well as some new varieties that are sure to catch the eye. We also have plans in store for the 75th anniversary, which is approaching quickly…it may involve an additional 50,000 tulips!

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The original version of this feature originally appeared in the April 2020 issue of Capital Region Living.

I was recently talking with my wife about all the normalcies of life that had been upended since the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the Capital Region, and I was rather embarrassed to admit that I was worried about when I’d be able to get my next haircut. I even later joked with my coworkers that, at some point in the weeks ahead, I’d turn up on FaceTime with a giant lion’s mane of hair. I’ve since come to the conclusion that, if necessary, I wouldn’t be averse to shaving my head, as I did throughout my 20s. It might take a little longer for my hair to grow back at 40, but at least I know I can rock the look.

This all brings me to the subject of Saratoga Living‘s latest “What It’s Like” feature, my friend and barber, Joe “Woody” Wood, who’s Master Barber at Woody’s Barbershop on South Broadway. (FYI: We started the “What It’s Like” feature to give locals a day-in-the-life peek inside the lives of both “essential” and “nonessential” workers in the greater Capital Region.) Woody’s been cutting my (and a lot of prominent Saratoga Race Course horsemen’s and the editor of the Empire Report‘s) hair for years now, and he’s done it with a grace and skill I’ve rarely seen in the profession. (That’s my own biased opinion, of course.) As soon as I sit down in Woody’s barber’s chair, it’s like being in the presence of an old friend: We immediately begin talking about life; sometimes, politics (I listen more than react); religion (something that I’m not really into but is extremely important to him); and sports (we’re both golfers). And, look, I don’t trust my hair with any old person; ever since that fellow in Astoria, Queens, mucked up my buzz cut back in the middle aughts, I’ve only trusted my hair with the best of them. So, without further ado, here’s Woody talking about what it’s like being a “nonessential” barber right now.

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In today’s new world, everything seems to have changed. With the closure of all “nonessential businesses,” which is a term worthy of a whole other article, everyone has been affected—from those of us small business owners, who have been forced to close our doors, to those of you, who have been forced to suffer the loss of our essential services. At least with restaurants, you can go pick up your food or have it delivered, but how about those other essential services we all need on a regular basis? Let’s face it, today we don’t get to do enough for ourselves, so every little thing we are forced to stop doing is just another disappointment.

As the owner of Woody’s Barbershop in Downtown Saratoga, I have had clients asking me for solutions to how to get their haircut or beard trims during this maddening time we are living in, and rest assured, they have had some pretty crazy ideas—from secretly meeting in the barbershop with the lights off and having me put a barber chair on the back of my truck to having me come over to there kitchen and doing it there. And, oh yeah, let’s not forget ‘ole faithful: opening up my barbershop in my own house or garage.

Think about this: I closed my barbershop five days before anyone else did, for the greater good of the community and the safety of all of my clients. I did this, because I care about each and every one of you, and all of your families. I knew that by staying home and quarantining myself, as all caring Americans should be doing right now, I was saving lives—even if it’s just one, it’s worth it—and wouldn’t it be great knowing, on my death bed someday, that I saved another human being by doing the right thing at least once?

To be honest, in my youth, I can’t say I would have done the same as I did this time around, because after all, when I was young, the world revolved around me and only me. But now I not only see the light, but I’m also begging you all to see it with me. Don’t worry about your sad, goofy looking ’70s haircuts; your wild, overgrown grey roots that resemble the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz; or your oddly shaped, ever-growing Santa Claus beard; know that by staying the course in quarantine and thinking about the greater good, you will all, maybe, look and feel equally “unconfident” for now, as individuals, but “great” as human beings. Trust me: The beauty of each and every one of us, is inside of us, and for anyone who can’t see that…well, I really can’t help you.

The service industries (like mine) have an obligation to everyone—and in turn, to remain closed, because, by the nature of our work, we’re forced to work so closely together and that makes all of us vulnerable to exposure (that, and we don’t have Gumby-length arms). So, do all of us small business owners—the entire service industry, and in fact, the entire world—a favor, and stay home for awhile and wait for us to get back to work safely. Then come see us, and let us do our thing. Rest assured, we will make all of you feel better about yourselves soon.

For anyone wishing to donate or help a small business—and put those of us, who always put you first, first, please reach out to your favorite ones and make a donation if you can afford it. Please. I assure you, our lives (and livelihoods) depend on it.