The current COVID-19 pandemic around the world is scary to both the Spracklin Family and Spracklin Chiropractic, but the thing that scares me the most is the unknown.  Fear will drive a person crazy, but I have started to wrap my mind around the possibility of potentially having to close the office down for a week or two.  This is probably the last thing that I want to do at this point, but it may come to that in terms of public safety.

The issue that arises in my mind is the fact that no one truly knows how long this will go or how it will ultimately end.  If the state or federal government stepped in and said, close down for 10 days and after that point you can open back up for business and it would be business as usual, I would do that in a heartbeat. But no one can tell us that for sure.

I expected patient visits to decline over the course of the next couple of weeks, which they were down slightly last week, but it was still a fine week.  I’m not scared that the doors will close forever or that financial ruin will come upon the Spracklin family, the thing that scares me the most is the unknown.  Will this pandemic go for weeks, months or God forbid even years?

I’ve started to run into the situation of what to exactly tell people or what to do going forward.  We are doing our absolute best to follow the CDC guidelines of not allowing multiple people in the office at any given time, screening people over the phone before they come in, disinfecting A LOT more often and washing hands until they are almost raw/sore.  I’m not sure what else we can tell people at this point.

In order to keep everyone as safe and sane as possible, if you are ill, don’t come in; if you have traveled recently, please don’t come in; fever, stay home; cough that can’t be controlled, don’t come in. In order to avoid numerous people in the waiting room, we are going to implement using your car as a waiting room, allowing us to control the amount of people in the buildings and allowing us to disinfect thoroughly between every patient.

The interesting thing about living in central Nebraska is that it can be kind of isolated from the rest of the world and if you had to pick somewhere to live in a situation like this, middle America is probably about as good of a place to be as any.  Population is sparse and spread out, and social contact can be avoided if need be.  We have wonderful healthcare facilities all around us that are preparing for the “surge” of patients that is expected (cross our fingers that everything can get under control).

I’m going to close by saying that we are literally taking this a day at a time.  We genuinely don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring at this point.  The offices are going to be open for normal business hours, we will be performing numerous DOT Physicals, chiropractic appointments and possibly even some acupuncture.  With all this being said, please be cognizant of the people around you, wash your hands and if this pandemic can teach us anything about society as a whole, please use some empathy and kindness in your days, it can go along way for people at this time.

As always, I truly do appreciate all of our patients during this difficult time, it has been a major stressor for me as I am very much a planner and routine based person.  The ups and downs of the past couple of weeks have been absolutely crazy, but we will all get through this, hopefully better than before.