Tag: coronavirus

Maximum Baltimore

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

If there ever were something that would get me to take a break from brogging about the wonders of my newborn daughter, this story about the mayor of Baltimore pleading with residents to stop shooting each other, so that the beds in the local hospitals could be used for aiding those with coronavirus is a good topic to distract me.

The headline alone, is maximum Baltimore.

It’s basically the equivalent of asking a dog to not sniff butts, or a bear to not shit in the woods.  All the pleading in the world isn’t going to make a lick of difference, but it sure is funny to see someone try.  The residents of Baltimore can’t stop shooting other people as much as fish need to be in water to survive.  It’s just the laws of nature, that cannot be defied, no matter how much pleading or imploring is done in front of television cameras.

In all seriousness though, Baltimore really is kind of a sad place to me.  Basically as long as I’ve been alive, Baltimore has been a crime-ridden cesspool of a city that inexplicably gets way more credit than I can fathom why.  If anyone were to describe a place that’s riddled with endless tension and guns being fired off on a regular basis, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear Baltimore, or the North-South Korean DMZ, except the DMZ has inadvertently turned into somewhat of a sanctuary for endangered species animals. 

In Baltimore, humans are the endangered species, based on how much any person’s mortality rate drops just setting foot into city limits.  Add coronavirus into the mix, and the daily survivability in Baltimore probably plummets to half of what it is throughout the rest of the world that only has to worry about coronavirus and not everyone in the city packing heat like Grand Theft Auto on hard-mode.

Anyway, I laugh about the whole situation in Baltimore but ultimately it’s still sad that such is even news.  Coronavirus really is no joke, but it’s still not stopping Baltimore from remaining at peak Baltimore, and apparently spring breakers all over Florida don’t seem to care about getting sick, because they’ve prioritized their need to party like idiots over the general safety of themselves and their fellow persons.

The world really is kind of fucked, if these are the people that are allowed to remain in existence.

New Father Brogging, #002

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite my sporadic writing habits leading up to the birth of my child, I ironically seem to be finding more time to sit down and write now that she’s come into the world.  Mostly on account of the fact that as she was five weeks early, she’s unfortunately not home yet, and is still at the NICU, where her frail little preemie body is playing catchup under the safe and watchful eyes of medical professionals.

Ultimately, mythical wife and I both know that she’s exactly where she needs to be in her current state, and we are eternally grateful to the kind and caring staff of the hospital that has been definitely providing excellent care for our daughter.  However, when the days are over, the reality is that she is still not home with us, and it’s an agonizing struggle at the end of each night when the time comes for us to part ways with our daughter, while she stays in the NICU while we leave her and head back to our house, empty of human children.

She was born 12 days ago, but it doesn’t really quite feel like we’re parents just yet, as when the time comes in which we go to bed, it’s like we’re a married couple with no children, since there’s no kid to put to sleep and marvel over the fact that it’s a life that we created together.

We spend around 6-8 hours a day in the NICU with our kid, but until the day she comes home, there really is something kind of missing from the whole experience of having a child.  We feel like parents when we get to change her diapers, feed her, and rock her to sleep, but the wholesome feelings always end when the realization hits that we need to go home to rest and take care of ourselves, so we have the energy and capacity to do it all over again the following day.

Our daughter’s showing progress on a daily basis, but the fact of the matter is that it’s still an indeterminate amount of time before she’s given the green light to come home.  Her last real hurdle is to continue to demonstrate the ability to eat more and out of a bottle, more consistently, and subsequently gain weight.  Every day where she drains an entire bottle is akin to a playoff win, but behind the scenes we don’t know if we’re in the lightning-quick MLB playoffs, or if we’re in the endless vortex known as the NBA’s playoffs.

Back home, I’ve actually accomplished a lot of the tasks around the house that mythical wife and I agreed needed to get done before the arrival of our kid, because once she got here, we know they probably won’t be gotten to.  I’ve painted entire sections of our house, I’ve stained the entire fence around the house.  I’ve swapped out old outlets and switches for new, tamper-proof versions of them for future kid safety.  I’ve unboxed strollers and learned how to install car seats into both mine and mythical wife’s cars.  Just about every piece of furniture for our baby’s nursery is assembled and the room just about finished.

I’d wager to guess that most parents who ever have to go through the experience of their children going into the NICU go through the same kind of anxieties and frustration that mythical wife and I are going through.  I know there are many out there who have it way worse than we do in terms of state of the baby upon arrival or how little or long they stay in the NICU, but when the day is over, we’re all in the same state of where we as parents go home, while our children remain behind, which is a shitty feeling no matter how you look at it.

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New Father Brogging, #001

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

At the time I’m writing this, my daughter is officially one week old.  It’s hard to believe that it’s been but just a week since she was born, because there are times where the last few days have felt like eternities, and then there are times where the hours have flown by, leaving me scratching my head to what just happened.

Several of those days were spent living at the hospital, as mythical wife was still recovering from surgery; and as crazy as it might sound, in spite of the uncomfortable bed, the cramped quarters, flimsy water cups, crappy television sound, and the general feeling of a lack of privacy, I kind of enjoyed it a lot.  There was an intimate feeling being there with my wife, just the two of us that’s hard to explain, but ultimately, it was the comfort in knowing that at just about any time, I had the capability to walk to the NICU to see my daughter, being nursed into readiness for the real world.

And I did just that; even the first night after birth, I personally delivered mythical wife’s colostrum to the NICU at all hours of the night, just so I could have an excuse to see my newborn daughter, even if there were all sorts of tubes, wires and hoses coming from her frail little being.  She was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever witnessed in my life, and it’s hard to not get teary-eyed just thinking about those quiet moments of just the two of us in a room with me watching over her.  I must have scrubbed my arms raw several times over, thanks to the required 2-minute scrubs in order to enter the NICU, but I’d rather deal with some dry skin than know some germs can get in and harm babies.

In fact, not a day goes by where I don’t get overwhelmed with an emotional feeling and get teary-eyed at some point, whether it’s thinking about one of the many unforgettable moments over the last week, or it’s looking at a picture of my baby and feeling what unconditional love genuinely feels like.  In other words, daddy is a great big crybaby, but I don’t really care what anyone thinks about it, because nothing is really going to change the fact that I’ll probably bawl my eyes out thousands of more times over the next few years.

What’s interesting about this period of time is that if not for the fact that my precious baby were in the picture, the general conversation around the rest of the world surrounding me would sound so much more different.

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