In December of 2019 the entire world was turned on its axis with the introduction of COVID-19. What once was something of a myth turned into one of the biggest global pandemics that anyone in this generation has ever lived through. Joy, an emergency room doctor shares her experience during the pandemic as a mother and a wife. It is in her story that we realize that everyone during the pandemic struggled but that our medical care professionals saw it from a different reality, a stronger lens and experienced it in a more difficult way. A new concept of being a frontline worker, a warrior, and someone that no one on the outside wanted to be. What happens when her personal life, the things she holds closest to her make their way into the ER? Will she be able to continue to be Joy the doctor when the other parts of her are in complete chaos? It is through her eyes that we get a better understanding of how our medical professionals have the strength to walk in their respective places of work every day and put their lives in danger to save strangers.
Distress
(Aside, deep breathe) Just get on the horse again Joy. You can ride this horse again. You can lead all of the horses just get back on. (She takes another deep breath and addresses the audience) My mother told me at a very young age that I was the most impatient child she had ever experienced. That said a lot considering that I was the youngest of six but coming from my mother I knew it was nothing but true. I never wanted to wait for anything. I didn't want to wait for the bus, I didn't want to wait to graduate from high school, I didn't want to wait for my hair to get long enough for me to do the cutest styles, I was completely impatient. (smiles) But one day after school my brothers and sisters and I were watching television and we were playing this board game that was all about helping this guy with his operation, have any of you ever played it? It's that game where there's a man and I think I had to get bones out of his body with these little plastic baby tweezers. But the hard part was if you touched either side of his body and the alarm went off you lost your turn. Well, we changed that, if the alarm went off the man died! (laughs) I’m telling you my siblings and I were savages as kids. (beat) It was the first time I ever had to show patience. I remember my mother watching from the corner of the room, I beat their asses every time. Lesson learned Mama, lesson learned.