COLUMNIST BUSINESS TALK 64 days I How Covid-19 changed me, and my practice BY DR. ANTHONY J. LOMBARDI was teaching the last day of an elec-troacupuncture course in San Diego, California when a colleague texted me: “Get out now -Canada is closing.” Naturally I thought the message was a bit dramatic but soon enough Canadians who were taking my course began to approach me. Things were changing and it was due to the coro-navirus. The next day I took the first flight to Toronto. While waiting for my flight I sat in the United Airlines Lounge and lis-tened to Prime Minister Trudeau explain that Canada was in a state of emergency and all essential services were indefinitely suspended. I contacted my office, and within 35 minutes they rescheduled two weeks of patient appointments -because for some reason everyone thought things would be better by then. When I returned home there were terms I had to become familiar with: self-isola-tion, quarantine, homeschooling, social distancing, two-meters apart -toilet pa-per? Things were eerily different. Once two weeks passed, I began seeing acute pain patients -and there were alot of them. Patients called, text messaged, Facebooked, and Instagrammed. At first nothing changed at work. I was wearing my regular work clothes, without gloves or a mask. As each week passed the media coverage intensified and my focus turned to personal protection and the protection of my patients. Immediately I started practising with gloves, a proce-dural mask and a gown. We even erected a plexiglass barrier at our front desk just like the supermarket had done. At home, my wife and I were learning what Zoom and Web-Ex were all about. My son is six years old, in grade one, and my daughter is three. The first few days were filled with the sounds of Justin Trudeau updating the na-tion. But within a few days, the time between and after homeschool began to be filled with uncommon activities. After all, I had to entertain the kids. The first thing I did was learn some magic tricks. The disappearing coin, the disappearing handkerchief, the bending spoon, and the rubber pencil. After two weeks things began to dramatically change at work. The onslaught of information made it a good idea seek precautions. Now my front-end staff were wearing gloves and masks. I was also doing the same but I upgraded to the N95 and I traded my bowtie and dress shirt for a set of black scrubs. Patients were evenly spaced apart so they did not see one another. There was no waiting room: patients were brought directly into a pre-disinfected room after washing their hands. We implemented one-way www.Cndoctor.ca 12 Chiropractic and Naturopathic Doctor June 2020 Syda Productions / Adobe Stock
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