Kelsey Two Bears, Interview
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Created: Thursday, May 11, 2023 - 09:00 |
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Summary:
An interview with Muscogee (Creek) Nation citizen Kelsey Two Bears.Description:
An interview with Muscogee (Creek) Nation citizen Kelsey Two Bears. A downloadable transcript may be found by link: Kelsey Two Bears. This interview has been indexed through the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History Center’s Oral History Metadata Synchronizer system at the University of Kentucky. For an indexed copy of the video, please follow the external link found in the bar on the right of this page.
Transcription:
The Muscogee (Creek) Nation
Historic and Cultural Preservation Department Oral History Program
“A Twenty-First Century Pandemic in Indian Country: The Resilience of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Against Covid-19”
As Remembered by: Mrs. Kelsey Two Bears
Interview by: Ms. Midge Dellinger
Date: February 27, 2022
Transcription: The Audio Transcription Company
Edited by: Ms. Midge Dellinger
MIDGE DELLINGER: This is Midge Dellinger, oral historian for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Today is February 27, 2022, and I’m at my home in Tulsa, Oklahoma, interviewing Muscogee citizen, Mrs. Kelsey Two Bears, who is at her home in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. This interview is being performed remotely due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. I’m performing this interview on behalf of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Historic and Cultural Preservation Department for the oral history project, titled “A Twenty-First-Century Pandemic in Indian Country: The Resilience of a Muscogee (Creek) Nation Against COVID-19.”
Mrs. Two Bears, thank you so much for being here today and taking time out of your schedule to do this interview with me. So, we’re going to start this interview with some questions about your personal background, [00:01:00] and I’d like to begin with, what is your tribal town and clan?
KELSEY TWO BEARS: So, my clan is Ecokvlke (Deer Clan). We don’t really have a tribal town. I probably do somewhere along the way, but my family’s not super ceremonial.
DELLINGER: And where you born, and where did you grow up?
TWO BEARS: I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I grew up the first eight years of life in Bixby, and then me and my family moved to Hanna, and that’s where I pretty much spent my teenage years, until I went to college and stuff.
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DELLINGER: All right. I’d like for you to tell me a little bit about your family. Who are your parents?
TWO BEARS: So, my dad is Darrell Proctor. He is currently a Councilor Representative for McIntosh District, and my mom is Robin Proctor. She is an accountant [00:02:00]/babysitter extraordinaire. She watches my son for me.
DELLINGER: Okay. Now, where did your parents grow up?
TWO BEARS: So, they both grew up in Hanna, actually, super small town, so with them being married and together, that means I’m related to most of the town (laughs) because both their families are from there.
DELLINGER: Right. And now, with your dad, you just stated that he is a Muscogee (Creek) Nation National Council Representative.
TWO BEARS: Right.
DELLINGER: Does he have another occupation? Does he have other work that he does?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. Right now, he’s working for AEP. I think it’s like an electrician somewhere in that realm is what he does. He works like at power plants and stuff.
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DELLINGER: All right, and siblings, who are your siblings?
TWO BEARS: Yeah, so the next person in my family [00:03:00] is my sister Amberly. She’s twenty-five. She actually just got her CPA license, so she’s an accountant like my mom. She just got a job with the tribe also. Then my little brother, his name’s Darrell, Darrell Proctor II, and he is in school in his last semester. He’s doing an engineering degree at OSUIT here in town.
DELLINGER: All right, great. Now, I always like to ask people to share a little bit about their grandparents too. Grandparents are important. So, will you talk a little bit about your grandparents?
TWO BEARS: Sure. So, my mom’s parents were James and Pat Berry. My grandmother—she’s my Grandmother and Grandpa is what I called them—she really helped raise me, so we’re still super close. They both still live in Hanna. She was the superintendent at Hanna schools. She was the first female superintendent in our county, [00:04:00] so that was really special, and she didn’t go back to school until she was in her fifties, so she always really pushed education for us, was a big influence for me.
And then on my dad’s side, we have my Me-ma. Her name’s Minnie Cannon. I don’t really know my dad’s dad. We didn’t really get the chance to know him. They weren’t close at all, but he was a Keetoowah Cherokee citizen from Tahlequah, and he’s passed away. But those are kind of my grandparents. And I also had a great-grandma. I
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called her Granny. She passed away in 2010, but that was my mom’s grandma. So, she was a pretty big influence on me too, growing up.
DELLINGER: Okay. Now, so you attended Hanna High School.
TWO BEARS: Yes.
DELLINGER: Is that correct? And when did you graduate from Hanna? TWO BEARS: So, I graduated from high school in 2009.
DELLINGER: 2009?
TWO BEARS: Mm-hmm.
DELLINGER: And there is [00:05:00] something significant about your high school graduation, correct?
TWO BEARS: Yeah, if you’re talking about the number of students in my class, yes. (laughs) I’m not sure. What were you referring to? (laughs)
DELLINGER: With our previous conversation, you told me that you actually graduated from high school early.
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TWO BEARS: Oh, right. Sorry. (laughs) That’s like my little trivia fact whenever someone asks trivia, is like, I had six people in my class, and that’s always interesting to people.
DELLINGER: Yeah, that’s good information too.
TWO BEARS: Yeah. Yeah, I did. I skipped a grade. I skipped the seventh grade, so I did graduate a year early. I was sixteen when I graduated high school.
DELLINGER: Yeah, you’re sixteen years old, and you graduate high school, and where did you go off to college?
TWO BEARS: I went to Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee. I actually got a full academic scholarship to go there, and I studied biology. I don’t remember if I mentioned this when I talked to you before. I also was a walk-on softball [00:06:00] player. I pitched for the JV team, so I got a little scholarship money for doing that too. It was really fun.
DELLINGER: Right, so that means you played ball at Hanna?
TWO BEARS: I did, yeah.
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DELLINGER: Okay. No, that’s fantastic. I love knowing that. Okay, so you went to Shawnee, Oklahoma Baptist University, got a BA in Biology, and so when did you graduate from there?
TWO BEARS: 2013.
DELLINGER: 2013.
TWO BEARS: Yeah.
DELLINGER: And I want to ask you this before I go on with something else. At what age did you know that you wanted to work in the medical field?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. So, I can’t really pinpoint an age. It’s just something that’s always been there, but I know, thinking back when I was like five or six, I really liked to write stories and books. That was something my grandmother did with me, and I remember [00:07:00] making an anatomy book when I was that age, and I was just really fascinated by the human body and healing people and things like that, just from that age, I really distinctly remember. So, I would say it probably started around there.
DELLINGER: Okay, great. Now, where did life take you then after you graduated from OBU?
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TWO BEARS: So, after I graduated, I had applied to Physician Assistant school during my senior year. I didn’t really come upon that career path until I was a junior. I didn’t even know what one was. I had thrown around like medical school, optometry school, pretty much all health-related fields, but nothing felt right until I found out what a PA was, so I chose that route. I applied my first year, [00:08:00] and I got waitlisted, so they didn’t really reject me, but they didn’t take me either, so that was really kind of hard for me because as you can probably tell, I like going through things as quick as I can, trying to finish school early, and now I’m being told, “No, you’re not in yet.” So, that was really hard on me, honestly.
But I worked on that year off, got some experience. They told me to get some real-life experience before I came back and applied, and I worked at a doctor’s office with Dr. Anderson here in town. He was awesome. He became a really good mentor to me. And yeah, I got in the next year, so that was in 2014 when I started PA school, and I graduated in December 2016.
DELLINGER: Okay. How many years have you liked in Okmulgee? TWO BEARS: I have been here since 2015, so going on [00:09:00] seven years now. DELLINGER: Tell me a little bit about your family life there in Okmulgee.
TWO BEARS: Sure. So, my husband, Yonah, that’s the reason I live here. He had a house here. His parents had it first, and then he ended up kind of moving in and just
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stayed. (laughs) So, when we got married, I moved in with him, and on July 29, 2021, we welcomed our first son. His name’s Kai Eric Two Bears. He’s about to be seven months old. He’s just like the light of both of our lives. He’s the best.
DELLINGER: Right. And what year did you get married?
TWO BEARS: 2015, in the middle of school. (laughs)
DELLINGER: Oh, okay. Okay. You were very ambitious.
TWO BEARS: I was, yeah. I actually had a professor tell me I probably shouldn’t get married during school because it would be too stressful, and that just made me want to do it more, so I did. (laughter)
DELLINGER: Okay. [00:10:00] Will you share a little bit about Yonah?
TWO BEARS: Yeah, sure. So, Yonah, he’s thirty. He was born in North Carolina, spent first few years of his life in Cherokee. That’s where his family’s from. They’re Eastern Band. And then they moved to Alabama, where his mom was from, and that’s where he lived until he moved out here when he was eighteen, nineteen. I guess he was nineteen. So, yeah, and we met at school. He went to OBU also and studied music. He’s a really talented musician, playes like Native flute, trumpet, guitar, violin, some piano. I can’t remember all the stuff he can play, honestly. He’s just really gifted at it.
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But he actually works in IT. He was training to become a pilot for a little bit, but once our son was born, he didn’t really want to do that much anymore because it was going to take him away from home a lot, so [00:11:00] he’s back in IT now. And he also is like a beekeeper and a woodworker. He’s kind of a Renaissance man kind of guy, so he’s got a lot of hobbies. (laughs)
DELLINGER: All right, that’s great. He stays busy. Can you please spell his name for me?
TWO BEARS: Oh, sure. It’s Y-O-N-A-H. It’s like Jonah with a Y.
DELLINGER: Okay. Great. And didn’t you tell me that it means—like his first name and his last name are the same?
TWO BEARS: Yeah, so Yonah means bear in Cherokee, so his name is like Bear Two Bears in English, which cracks me up. Yeah.
DELLINGER: (laughs) That’s cool. I like that. Now, Mrs. Two Bears, where do you work?
TWO BEARS: So, I work at Okmulgee Indian Health Center as a physician assistant. So, I know this question’s probably coming, so I’m just going to describe what a physician assistant is. It’s basically an accelerated medical program. [00:12:00] So, typical medical
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schools are four years of medical school, followed by a residency, fellowship if they want, usually takes at least, minimum, seven years beyond your undergrad degree. So, with PA school, it ranges from twenty-four to thirty months. Mine was thirty months at OU Tulsa. That’s where I ended up going.
It’s basically, we get to do a lot of the same things that physicians do, but we work under a supervising physician, so we kind of have more, I guess, not as much autonomy as a physician in some ways. But I’m very satisfied with my role in the clinic. I feel like I get to help people every day, which is all I want to do, and a little bit of that liability is off my shoulders since I’m not a physician. I’ve got a really great supervising physician. We’re really close buddies. His name’s Dr. Blackwell; shout him out [00:13:00] in here because I bet he’ll watch this. (laughs) But yeah, he’s really awesome. I can just go into his office if I’ve got a really complicated patient or something that’s really complex, and he's always willing to help me out. So, I really like that being a PA means you’re part of a team. You’re not just alone. So, that’s what really drew me to the career.
DELLINGER: Okay, great. Thank you for that explanation. Now, how long have you worked for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Health Department?
TWO BEARS: So, I started in January 2017, so I just had my five-year—actually, it’s going to be five years on January thirty-first, in just a few days. So, they were my first and only job as a PA. (laughs)
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DELLINGER: That’s all right. Now, what are some of your community interests and engagements?
TWO BEARS: Well, prior to COVID, [00:14:00] I should say, there were quite a few things I enjoyed doing. We were going to church pretty regularly, a Baptist church here in town called Belvin, and we would do a lot of outreach there. And I’ve done some mission work in the past, like we went to Alaska to a village there and visited back in 2013. Me and my husband, we were also doing music at that time, like playing music and singing hymns and stuff together, so that was really fun.
But like I said COVID, we haven’t done any of that since COVID hit, so (laughs) that’s not really current. But I’m also, as far as current, I do a lot of writing. I really like creative writing. It’s one of my dreams to write a novel one day. I really want to write it about just my experiences as a PA, honestly, because I feel like I’ve had a lot of interesting experiences in this job. But one day, I’ll do it. I don't know. [00:15:00] I’m a procrastinator sometimes. (laughs)
DELLINGER: Now, you just touched on something I want to ask you about. So, you like to sing?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. (laughs)
DELLINGER: Do you ever sing with your brother?
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TWO BEARS: So, not really. I kind of missed that boat. He started doing that after I’d already left home, and him and my sister are kind of the duo, but I like to sing too. But I’m very shy. I’m very bad in front of crowds.
DELLINGER: (laughs) All right. Now, aside from the creative writing, because I know we talked about that before, is there anything else that you like to do to enjoy your free time?
TWO BEARS: Let’s see. Really honestly, I love reading and watching TV. It’s something I really enjoy. I’ll literally put something on and be like, I just don’t want to think anymore, and I just love really, [00:16:00] I call it my trash TV shows, (laughs) but like reality shows, they just entertain me to no end, so stuff like that, I really like, just turning my brain off because during the day, sometimes I’m in some pretty emotionally draining situations, so I really like comedies and stuff like that. It really helps me kind of unwind.
And spending time with my son is really great too, just playing with him. And he’s starting to really interact with the world more and just seeing things through his eyes is really refreshing. Like I can come home from lunch and have a stressful morning, and then by the time I’m done and seen him, he just completely turns my day around.
DELLINGER: That’s great. All right. Well, listen, thank you so much for sharing these things about your personal life. I think we’re going to go ahead now and transition into some questions about your experiences with the COVID pandemic, [00:17:00] and I’m
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going to start with this: so, the United States is now more than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic. But when in 2020 did you first hear about COVID-19, and how did you first hear about it?
TWO BEARS: Okay. So, I actually heard about it in January, pretty close to the new year, on Reddit. (laughs) I love that site. That’s where I first heard about it, and I remember—this is kind of bad because I’ve unfollowed it since then, but they originally called it the China flu, which that kind of became a political thing. But initially, that’s the place it was located. That’s where it originated, so people were calling it like a Chinese flu, and I remember that’s what the group was called. And it was just talking about how destructive it was in China and how quickly it was spreading [00:18:00] and that this had the potential to really affect humanity in a huge way. And I remember talking to people about it at work, and everyone was just kind of, you know, shoo-shooing it, like it’s not a big deal; it’s whatever.
And it wasn’t really until it came to the States, like in New York City, that’s when I started kind of panicking. I remember. And still, no one else was alarmed. This was in February. I remember February, early March 2020. And on the Reddit pages, I remember reading these just detailed accounts from these ER physicians, PA’s, nurse practitioners, nurses, just very detailed. They were getting to a point where they had trucks in the back for the bodies. They were rationing care. They were having to choose who would get a ventilator, who would receive care just because they were so short. And I knew people from [00:19:00] my training who were having to go to New York City to help because it was just hitting them so hard. And that’s when it kind of became real to me, and I literally
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felt like a crazy person, like a Paul Revere figure, because I was going around being like, “Guys, this is coming. This is coming.” And everyone, I think, thought I was crazy. So, I had a lot of fear, honestly, and anxiety around it, and I think part of my personality and nature is I want to learn as much about something as I can, even if it scares me. And it probably wasn’t the best for my mental health, but I was consuming those reports all the time, like I was listening to NPR on the way to work every day and on the way home. I was just constantly—I was in it. I was immersed in it. So, sorry, that was a really long answer, but that’s kind of like where I first heard it and kind of how it [00:20:00] enveloped my life, I guess.
DELLINGER: Okay. So, just to recap real quick, when you first read about it on that website, it was still in China?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. I actually learned about it very, very early on. And like I said, I just kind of have an interest in those type of things, so I was actually following it from really close to the beginning of when it was isolated. Yeah.
DELLINGER: But again, your initial thoughts were what? Did you initially think, hey, this thing could come into Oklahoma and the Muscogee (Creek) Nation?
TWO BEARS: At first, no. It wasn’t until I saw how quickly it was spreading, how many people were dying, and again, I hate that something like this is political, but in the current world, China is known to be very secretive and not report things that paint them in a
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negative light, so [00:21:00] I was paying attention and like, wow, if this is what they’re reporting, it must be ten times worse, was what I was thinking. So, it just kind of put me on guard, but no, I wasn’t at the point where—what it became, so quickly, it snowballed.
Like by March was when we were shutting down as a country. I mean, it was within three months. It was crazy.
DELLINGER: Right. So, what were some of the initial conversations, maybe even in January when you first read about it, but what were some of the initial conversations that you had with your family and friends about the virus?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. Really, those very early days, I wasn’t talking much to my family and friends; it was more coworkers, like from a medical perspective, like, “Hey, did you guys hear about this virus? What could this mean?” It was more like an oddity or an interest. I didn’t really start talking to my family about it seriously until, like I said, it was here. [00:22:00] Really, when it was in New York City and when it was hitting them so hard, that’s when I really started talking to my family about it, like this is really serious; we need to start taking precautions and preparing for the world to shut down because, I mean, that’s what happened. I was trying to encourage people to get groceries and make sure you’re set up for a few weeks at a time. It was like we flipped into survival mode so quick, but I felt like no one was paying attention, or their mind wasn’t in that place with me until much later, I guess.
DELLINGER: Yeah. How frustrating was that for you?
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TWO BEARS: (laughs) Incredibly. Yeah. And I’ll tell you, Midge, my family, I know they love me, but they’ll tell you, I can be dramatic, so I almost felt like the girl who cried wolf sometimes because I was just being so just doom and gloom, I guess, because like I said, this stuff was coming in my head [00:23:00] like constantly, and I was just hearing real reports from people like in New York City. And of course, my family’s not going to think something that’s in New York City’s going to happen to us. Those are different people; that’s a different place. But COVID doesn’t care who you are. It doesn’t matter. Yeah, it was very frustrating, honestly.
DELLINGER: Between January of 2020 and March of 2020, at what point did your medical colleagues get onboard with what was happening?
TWO BEARS: I remember, the first time that I talked to someone else that seemed to kind of get it was in February. I remember it was mid-February, and she worked in an urgent care, and she’s like, “Yeah, I started asking people who are coming in with respiratory symptoms if they’ve had any travel to China, any contact with anyone that’s been from China,” and I just remember thinking like, [00:24:00] okay, so you’re taking this seriously. (laughs) Just, I remember it was kind of a relief, like I wasn’t crazy, like that someone else was paying attention to this. But as far as everyone else, it really wasn’t. It was spring break of March 2020. I don’t remember the week exactly, but that was when everything shut down. I think that’s when everyone knew this was—well, even then, Midge, people weren’t thinking it was a big deal.
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I remember we were very divided. Like half of us were like me, kind of, I guess, more fear based, knowing something big was coming. And the other half, which I understand now because I have a child, but the other half was like, how am I going to get childcare? Why are we shutting down schools? This isn’t even here. Why are we making such a big deal out of this? It’s just a flu. I remember one of my best friends saying that, and we didn’t see eye-to-eye on that. But like I said, I do understand that perspective. [00:25:00]
But it was just such a long, gradual, drawn-out thing for it to become bad here around us, and I think we shut down—honestly, I don't know, but it may have been a little bit early because it wasn’t here yet. Maybe that kept it from getting here. There’s no way to know now, but I think because we shut down so early, people didn’t see really how bad it could get until much later on. And by then, it was too late.
DELLINGER: Yeah, I think for a lot of people, we were just watching it on the TV happen in other places. But yeah, I understand what you’re saying there. So, you just touched on something: the lockdowns and the shelter-in-place safety measures, we started hearing these words, and we started being told to social distance. At that time, [00:26:00] what were your thought about these safety measures, and how did those words themselves make you feel?
TWO BEARS: So, I just remember the word “quarantine” just sounded so, I guess, scary to me. That seems like such a simple thing, but just the fact that we were even having to do that. Like I remember, in our job, we have to get fitted for N95 masks, and they’re
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respirators. Everyone knows what they are now, but back then, I was like, “Why would we even need these?” And they were like, oh, in case something comes in, like a patient with tuberculosis, some kind of airborne disease, and I remember thinking, I’m never going to need that. And suddenly, (laughs) we’re living in our N95s. And Midge, I just forgot your original question. (laughs) [00:27:00] I’m sorry; I was going somewhere with that.
DELLINGER: Oh, no, that’s okay. I had asked, when everything started locking down and shutting down, especially as a medical person, what were your thoughts about these safety measures? But then also, how did the words themselves—these are words that we’ve not heard before, right?
TWO BEARS: Right.
DELLINGER: And so, how did these words make you feel?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. I think that’s what I was going with that story. I was just equating an N95 mask, that’s something I knew of. It was there, but it just took on a whole new meaning now and a whole new lifeline almost. I personally kind of clung to whatever little guidance we got from the CDC. It actually brought me comfort to be like, okay, this is something I can do. I can stay at home. I can wear this mask. I can try to stay six feet from others. I can wash my hands. [00:28:00] I can quarantine if I’m around somebody that’s sick. To me, those gave me power in a helpless situation. Like I said though, the
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idea of having to quarantine and things, that was scary to me, but those tools for prevention, I clung to those like nothing. It was everything to me.
DELLINGER: Now, once we did get into that situation where things were locked down and people were sheltering in place, you’ve kind of already touched on this a little bit, but those safety measures separated people; they isolated people. And as the medical person in your family, at that time, how did you continue taking care of your family and help keeping them protected from the virus, so meaning not just your husband but your parents and your siblings [00:29:00] and your grandparents?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. So, with my parents, I was constantly just trying to relay just the reality. I was trying not to be dramatic, but I also wasn’t wanting to underplay it because that’s how I like to be told information: just give it to me straight. That’s how I like to hear things.
With my grandparents, I was being a little more over the top because they didn’t want to follow the guidelines. At that time, my grandparents were very active. They liked to go places, vacations and things like that. We have a pretty big extended family, and we’d be down there all the time, and I would tell them I wanted them to live their life; I didn’t want to be dictating what they should and shouldn’t do, but I just wanted them to know that this was real. I was seeing it every day, and my patients were dying, and I did not want that to happen to them. And I think once at some point, it kind of [00:30:00] clicked with people—I’m not really sure when; maybe it was when we were locking
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down—like you said, those words suddenly were being thrown around, those big words, and they all were very cautious from that point on.
My parents are very active in church. The church stopped meeting for a bit. That was really hard on my brother too because that’s a big social thing for him is going around to churches, and I know he probably talked to you about that. Just, that was really hard on him. And with me and my husband, he was working out of the home at that time. He works from home now, but he actually worked for an airline company, and airlines were hit super hard by COVID because no one was flying all of a sudden, so that was really scary for us. Is he going to have a job, things like that.
But yeah, I just tried to be the person [00:31:00] who was relaying factual, realistic information, trying to take any politics out of it, taking feelings out of it as much as I could, just trying to urge people to be as safe as possible. That was kind of what I felt like my role was early on.
DELLINGER: Now, during the first year of the pandemic, when we went into our first big surge here, what was your personal plan of action to stay safe from the virus at work but then also to make sure that you weren’t bringing anything home to your husband and then baby Kai after you had the baby?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. So, in the first year, like I said, we lived in our N95 masks. It’s super-thick mask. I’d wore that. I’d put on a surgical mask over it, and that was just [00:32:00] walking around in the clinic, talking to each other. This wasn’t even patient care. That was just all the time, baseline.
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I was seeing COVID patients all the time. I worked in the walk-in clinic in Sapulpa at that time, so we were actually seeing those patients outside at that point, so we were fully gowning up. That means goggles. We’re putting on a gown. We’re putting on double gloves. We’re going out to cars, using throwaway stethoscopes, things like that, taking things out to them, checking oxygen in the car. And that really, I know it kept me safe because I never got sick, not only COVID, but I didn’t get anything (laughs) for that time.
It actually wasn’t until baby got here that I did get COVID. It was right before Christmas of last year of 2021, and it was from a relative that [00:33:00] stayed at my house that was sick, and I didn’t know they were sick. And we’re pretty sure it was the Omicron variant, which that’s new too. We didn’t have variants back then; it was just COVID. But thankfully, it was mild. I had to quarantine. I had to stay in my room, and I only came out to feed the baby, and I wore my mask. Even his pediatrician was like, “Kelsey, he’s already been around you. Don’t worry about it.” But like I said, I kind of cling to these safety guidelines. They really just make me feel like I have some type of control over the situation, so I was double masked and trying to feed my baby. He hated it too. He was trying to pull it off the whole time, but it made me feel better, so you know. (laughs)
DELLINGER: In the beginning of the pandemic here in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, was the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Health Department able to move quickly into a state [00:34:00] of pandemic readiness? Do you feel like the department as a whole was ready before the pandemic actually surged here in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation?
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TWO BEARS: Absolutely, yes. Kind of going back to what I mentioned where I felt like maybe the state shut down too early, like before it should have, and then it wasn’t taken as seriously later on when it needed to be done, I felt like the tribe was on top of it once that happened. We had a tent set up just for COVID patients to come, or for people who needed COVID tests. We were already trying to keep them separate from healthy patients or non-respiratory illness patients. That was within weeks after everything shut down. We built a new building for personal protective equipment, the PPE, like the masks and the gowns, because there was a time there were masks were short too.
It was just crazy for a while, [00:35:00] but I truly feel that Creek Nation did an excellent job. And they didn’t panic. Like I kind of told you, I was a little panicked with a lot of my reactions, but I really felt like they were very cool, calm, collected throughout the whole thing, so I thought they did a really great job handling everything.
DELLINGER: Now, did you just say that there was a time when you all had a shortage of PPE?
TWO BEARS: Yeah, there was. It never directly affected us too much, but there was a point where we had to kind of re-wear things longer than we would like. I remember there was a time when I had to wear my N95, kind of my under-mask, for almost two weeks because we didn’t have any. But that wasn’t just here. That was nationwide, so that was kind of, [00:36:00] I think, what triggered them to do the stockpiling, get a new distribution center for PPE and everything. So, I really felt like Creek Nation was reactive
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in a good way to every curveball that was thrown, and it was a lot. It was a lot of curveballs, but they did a good job.
DELLINGER. Right. Did you have moments too where you were short of medical supplies that you needed for the patients?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. One in particular that comes to mind, in Sapulpa, I had a patient who he kept coming in—which this is kind of a negative story, I guess, but I’m just going to go ahead and tell it because he made a big impact on me. He kept coming in for cough and getting put on our COVID schedule to get COVID tests, and he’d get evaluated. He’d be negative, and we’d say, Well, follow up with your primary care provider because this has been going on a while, [00:37:00] and you need to see what’s going on. But he couldn’t get in because of COVID. A lot of in-person visits, they were delayed. Care was delayed because of COVID, absolutely, and our policies around it.
Anyway, I ended up switching back to primary care after I got pregnant because I was considered high risk and didn’t want to work with COVID patients every day anymore. And he actually became my primary care patient at that point, so I knew his story. I brought him in. We got a scan of his chest, and he had a huge—I remember— fifteen-centimeter mass, basically. It was in his lungs. It was enveloping his trachea. It was huge. It was going around his heart. It was cancerous, and I just remember trying to get him into specialists, and they’d say, oh, it’s going to be three months because of COVID. I’m like, “I don’t know if he has three months.” This is terrible. [00:38:00] And eventually, it got so bad, he needed oxygen, and he was very weak, very frail at this
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point. He went downhill so quick. And we couldn’t get him—he just wanted portable oxygen. He was just having trouble with the tanks. They’re big. They’re heavy. He wanted portable oxygen. They told him, no, they didn’t have any, so I got mad when I was calling as high up as I could go within the tribe, and I’m like, “Why? Literally, this man’s dying. Can we just help him? Why can’t we help him?” And they actually got back to me, and we were getting it going when he passed away.
But that was a really—gosh—just terrible thing. It makes you wonder, if COVID hadn’t been going on, would that have been found sooner? Would he not have been just kept getting put on a COVID schedule over and over and over if it’s—he fell through the cracks; he really did, and that weighs on me every day. And it’s nobody’s fault. [00:39:00] Like I said, we were doing the best we could at the time, but I think absolutely, people’s health was affected even without COVID. Other things were affected, absolutely.
DELLINGER: I’d like for you to share from your medical position, your knowledge and understanding about the COVID-19 virus, including how it spread and some of the impacts that you’ve seen on the human body if the virus is contracted.
TWO BEARS: Sure. So, COVID-19, it is a coronavirus, so it’s a respiratory virus. The origins of it, still hotly debated. I’ve got a (laughs) doctor that I—Dr. Blackwell at work, we like to banter all the time, and [00:40:00] he’s got theories about where it came from. You know, is it manmade? Was it a biological warfare? I don't know if we’ll ever know the answer to that. I really don’t know. Other people think it’s a zoonotic infection,
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something that came from an animal like a bat. I don't know, but all I know, it’s a respiratory virus, so kind of interesting.
Like I said, I like to know about stuff. So, corona means crown, and it’s called that because the virus has what’s called spike proteins on it, and it gives it the appearance of like a crown. What’s interesting is those spike proteins, the placement, the number, that’s what determines what type of virus it is and then what type of variant it is. So, like the recent omicron had like twenty-five spike proteins, and that’s what made it so difficult to treat. It wasn’t responding to our antibody therapies. Like everything we had wasn’t fighting, but thankfully it wasn’t so strong. But that’s kind of [00:41:00] the nature of viruses; it changes. The more people it goes through, the longer it’s around.
Anyway, it’s spread through respiratory droplets, so that’s why we were encouraging people to mask, stay six feet away, wash your hands, etc. At my last conference for PAs, I remember they were talking about Delta. Delta was, I think, the scariest variant we’ve had so far, as far as from a health provider standpoint. And it was because it was highly contagious, so it had different variation of those spike proteins like I was talking about. They basically said you could walk into a room where someone had coughed twenty minutes ago, and you could get Delta, so that kind of speaks to how contagious this is, what we’re dealing with.
But the thing about coronavirus, [00:42:00] like I said, it is a respiratory virus, but it doesn’t just affect your respiratory tract. The big one that people talk about is losing your taste and smell, and that’s actually affecting nerves. It’s not actually in your nose and mouth. It’s affecting the nerves that go into your nose and mouth, and some people don’t regain that. I’ve had several people that never got their taste and smell back, and
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they’re pretty young, healthy people. And that’s kind of what’s scary about COVID too, is you just don’t know how bad it’s going to affect you. I think that’s what’s scary. But as time went on, with the original COVID, like before vaccines and stuff, I remember the CDC put out that Native Americans were three times more likely to die of COVID than non-Natives. And comorbidities like diabetes, heart disease, [00:43:00] obesity, things like that, a lot of our people have those, and that’s just kind of more odds stacked against us, I guess. So, I do feel like as Native people, we got hit a lot harder than other people groups, and I saw that firsthand. I literally can’t count how many of my patients, some relatives, church family that died on my Native side, I literally have not had a single COVID death on my white side of my family. So, I’ve seen that firsthand, for sure.
DELLINGER: Throughout the pandemic and especially during the first several months of the pandemic, especially when so little was known about the virus, how did you get up every day, [00:44:00] every morning and go to work knowing that you were putting yourself at risk and in a dangerous situation?
TWO BEARS: It’s really strange, Midge, because I probably sound like I’m just this anxious, worried person all the time, which I am; I’m a pretty anxious person, but something about that situation just—I don't know—it made me want to take action. It’s like I couldn’t just sit with that anxiety. Just being a part of the frontline, I think, gave me purpose and helped me get through it. So, weirdly, the virus terrified me, but it also gave me purpose because I felt like I was trying to help people fight it off and through
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education, prevention, and treatment when they did contract it. And it wasn’t really a struggle for me. [00:45:00] I just felt like I was in this place and time for a purpose, and I just felt like I had to rise to that challenge, I guess, and I hope I did. I really don’t know. I think part of being in the health field is you always feel like you could’ve done more, but I’d like to think I did what I could.
DELLINGER: So, what has been your experience as a healthcare provider of seeing on a daily basis, Muscogee citizens who are sick with COVID or even just fearful that they’ve contracted COVID?
TWO BEARS: Oh, gosh. I could tell you so many. I’d say that there were three groups of people that I saw on a daily basis. The first one was people who didn’t care, like it was an [00:46:00] inconvenience to them. This was, I have to quarantine; I’m going to miss this and this and this, things like that. Those were easy for me because I just would test them,
make sure they weren’t having any severe symptoms, give them the instructions, and pretty much just hope that they would follow them so they wouldn’t spread it around. These were mostly young people, like teenagers and young adults and some healthier older adults too. I remember calling people with their positive test results, and we would
have to do video like this, and I’d see them in a public place. When they answered, they’d be like at QuikTrip, and I’m like, “What are you doing? I told you to quarantine.” So, that was one big group of people that were our positives.
Another group of people were the people in denial, so those were interesting. [00:47:00] I still remember very vividly, a seventy-year-old patient that I called and told
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her she was positive, and she just would not believe me. And she’s like, “There’s just no way I could get it. I’m here by myself. I don’t go anywhere.” And I’m like, “Are you sure?” Because it had just been Christmas, so I was like, “Are you sure no one’s been to your house?” She’s like, “Well, my nephews came, and they were positive last week, but there’s no way that it’s that,” and just getting it through to people, some people wouldn’t accept it. Maybe it doesn’t hurt anything, but I just tried to reiterate to them, like, “If you get worse, you need to go to the hospital. You do have it. You can deny it all you want, but you have it. You have symptoms.” Those were fun. (laughs)
The last group, those were the ones that really would get me. They’re the ones that were terrified when I would tell them they were positive. They were people with comorbidities. They were people [00:48:00] taking care of vulnerable family members. They were people with babies. They were pregnant patients. They were cancer patients. They were those people who were in that risk group who me and them both knew that this was not good. This could go downhill very quickly. Those were the hard phone calls.
And I think I told you this last time, but what got really hard on me was having my cancer patients or my patients on dialysis, really sick people, and not knowing if I was going to be like the last person they talked to. Were they going to go home and end up in the hospital and never get to speak to anyone here again? I remember that crossed my mind just all day long. And another just heartbreaking part of that was [00:49:00] when I’d call and tell them they were positive, and they said they got it from the funeral of a family member who had just died from it. I just remember a guy just had a breakdown on the phone because he literally just saw his sister die from it, had just
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started mourning her death from it, and now he’s getting this potential death sentence too. It was like a horror movie.
I was referring a lot of people to our behavioral health at that time too just to talk because that’s heavy enough, losing your family, but Midge, I can’t tell you how many calls I made like that, where they were like, Oh, this person just died from it. I was just with my family. It was just so—it was terrible. And even in our local church here, there aren’t very many Native pastors left. They’re all very [00:50:00] getting up there in age and passing away, and one came to preach a funeral, and that pastor got it and died. It felt like every day, I was waking up and finding out someone else was gone, kind of like I told you, I know I’m looking at things that probably aren’t good for me, but I look at obituaries. I still do it at least once or twice a week, just looking to see if my patients have passed.
I remember there was a week where it was literally every day, I knew someone that had died, and a lot of it was COVID related. Those were just a handful of my experiences, but it really, now that I think about it, can be lumped into those three groups. And the emotional ones were really hard. They were really hard.
DELLINGER: [00:51:00] I want to talk about this a little bit more, the mental trauma. What do you think has been the extent of mental and emotional trauma caused by COVID to Muscogee citizens, as well as other frontline medical providers?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. I guess I’ll start from the perspective of medical providers ourselves. Burnout is a really big thing right now. We’re getting to a point in our society,
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because there’s so many different places that we’re getting information from, and it’s conflicting, a lot of people don’t trust us anymore as healthcare providers when it comes to COVID. It’s really odd to me; people, even today, will come to me, and very pleasant. They listen [00:52:00] to what I say. They follow my recommendations, but they will literally just get nasty with me if I try to talk to them about the COVID vaccine or something like that. That’s just to say there’s been a huge kind of shift in how patients perceive and interact with us when it comes to COVID, but it’s become such a big part of our lives. It’s like, at this point, I have to talk to you about the COVID vaccine because that is something that’s measured for me.
And there’s still some providers that may not believe in it, but we’re supposed to be asking. We’re supposed to be offering. So, like I said, belief, politics, it has no role in it. This is something that we’re doing for overall health. Anyway, sorry, that’s a tangent. But we’re getting just burnt out because people are being a lot more difficult to us, [00:53:00] I guess, when it comes to things like that. And just personally, when I hear stories about us running out of—we’re running out of rooms; we’re sending people out of state; we’re short-staffed everywhere, all the time, it wears a lot on you just physically, mentally emotionally, just every day. And there’s really no sign that that’s getting better. I know that’s been really hard on people as a result of the burnout.
As far as patients, like I said, I really have been sending a lot of people to our behavioral health with COVID-related issues. I’ve had quite a few people that deal with anxiety and panic attacks since having COVID, whether that was because they had very severe symptoms, and they’re still dealing with the trauma from that, like [00:54:00] being on a ventilator, being in an ICU, being told you’re not going to make it. That’s very
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traumatic for a person. But then there’s also the people who had milder symptoms, but they’re still dealing with this chronic shortness of breath that makes them feel this sense of doom like all the time, physiologically. So, I feel like it’s mental and physical that people are dealing with these problems. There’s also, of course, a lot of grief just from all the loss, whether it’s family members, friends, the loss of a life that we can’t really live anymore. We’re grieving. There’s just a lot of things that are gone, basically, and who knows if we’ll ever be able to go back to being carefree and basic things, going to the movies, going to the malls? Some people still have a lot of fear associated with those things. [00:55:00]
And then depression too, we’re seeing a lot of depression. I don’t know if that’s directly related to COVID or not, but I know I’ve had patients tell me that the isolation is not good for their mental health. They’re the type of people that need to be around others and need to be able to interact, and it definitely had a negative impact on them and maybe, I don’t want to say triggered depression, but it absolutely could’ve contributed to that. So, that’s probably the big things that I’ve been seeing.
Oh, and I can’t not mention this, but a lot of people self-medicate. We’ve been seeing a lot of people substance abuse that are kind of self-medicating these problems. Drugs and alcohol, that’s a really big thing for me. I try to always screen patients for that [00:56:00] so we can try to help them if we can because of course my thing is, what’s the root cause of this? You’re self-medicating some type of hurt. What is it? How can we help you with that? I try to tell people I don’t want to just tell you this and kick you out on the street and say good luck. We’ve got a really good behavioral health program that
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we try to stay with them long term and keep an eye on them and everything. But I think those are probably the big ways I’ve seen it affect my patients.
DELLINGER: At the end of the day, when you’ve had one of these really emotionally draining days, how do you go home and take care of yourself?
TWO BEARS: I cried a lot. I remember crying on the drive [00:57:00] home a lot. It was a thirty-five-minute drive, and I would call my mom or call just family, my brother, my sister. There was a good, I think, six months that I didn’t see them, and that was hard on me, but we would Skype and watch movies on Netflix together. And we still talk about that. Those were really good times for us, something that we normally wouldn’t’ve done. We wouldn’t’ve made time to do that together.
I also like writing. That was something I got back into. I remember my mom told me I should write down the things that I’m seeing and experiencing, and it’s important to remember them. So, I didn’t do it consistently, but I tried to write just on the really bad days, just to kind of help me process things, just get it out of my head and onto something else. [00:58:00] And just spent a lot of time with my husband too. He really was a rock for me and just talked me through things, and he’s a very calm, stable person, so he really helped kind of my emotions and everything, kind of helped. He was just a rock, really.
DELLINGER: Has the Muscogee (Creek) Nation made any special types of services or tools available to their medical frontline workers who may be struggling with emotional and mental trauma?
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TWO BEARS: Yeah. So, I don't know if we’re still doing it, but I remember back when things got really bad, they actually got a chaplain. His name was Grover Wind. I think he’s in a different role now at the tribe, but he would come around to the clinics and [00:59:00] just talk to you, pray with you, whatever you felt like you needed. And I remember, (laughs) I was so busy, I never really got the chance to go talk to him, but just seeing him in the hall, it weirdly made me feel better just knowing someone was there to try to help us with all the stuff in here. That was kind of a new thing.
And they did offer us hazard pay at some point. And I remember that meant a lot because it was hazardous, (laughs) what we were doing. It was scary, so just that financial compensation of, thank you for doing what you’re doing, that really did mean a lot to us too. I don’t really remember any other things from that time, but I do remember there was—this wasn’t Creek Nation, but there were a lot of [01:00:00] apps and things across the country that were offering things to healthcare workers, and there was this meditation app called Headspace, and if you could prove you were a frontline worker, they would give you free access to the app, so I downloaded that, and that was a nice little tool to use when you needed it. And I actually did go to counseling virtually during this whole process due to some other kind of unrelated-to-COVID issues in a way, but counseling really helped me a lot, and just giving me the time to do that was good.
DELLINGER: Thank you for sharing that.
TWO BEARS: Yeah.
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DELLINGER: Mrs. Two Bears, have you been vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus?
TWO BEARS: I have, yeah. So, I’ll just tell the full story real quick. I was supposed to be one of the first people to get it [01:01:00] in the tribe, but I found out I was pregnant just days before I was supposed to get it, so I actually declined it and didn’t get it until after I had the baby, so I was actually one of the last ones in my family to get it.
DELLINGER: What was that like for you, being pregnant and being a frontline worker during a devastating pandemic?
TWO BEARS: It was really scary because, well, I mentioned this to you before, but I’d actually had a miscarriage six months prior to that, so I already that extra anxiety, extra fear just from having a pregnancy loss before. But adding this on top of it, it was a lot. It was too much, and that’s why I stepped back from my role with COVID patients every day. I mean, I had to do that for my health, not just physically but mentally, because it was really [01:02:00] hard on me.
My work was very accommodating. Like I said, we were only seeing people in the car anyway, but they were letting me do phone visits with people, but just, I didn’t feel that was adequate care for our people. I felt like they deserved someone that could go out and see them in person, so I ultimately stepped down, even though I really loved the role. So, that was a really hard decision for me to make, but I’m glad I did it. I think it was the best thing for me. But yeah, it was very scary, and just especially that first
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trimester, just getting through that was the worst part, I think. But everything turned out fine, so he’s here, and he’s healthy. I can hear him in there yelling right now. (laughs)
DELLINGER: I want to go back to the vaccine. Which vaccine did you receive? TWO BEARS: I got Pfizer.
DELLINGER: And did you have any side effects? [01:03:00]
TWO BEARS: Did I? Gosh. For the first one, my arm was sore, and then second one, I had more generalized body aches and some fatigue. But I remember I timed it for a Friday so I could just be lazy for a couple days (laughs) if I needed to, so I really didn’t have too much trouble with it, but oh my gosh, I had so many people calling and texting me about side effects. And we’ve seen that people who have had COVID before tend to have more side effects, so I tried to warn people (laughs) about that before they get it, like, “You still should get it, but watch out for this.” I try to be very honest. I don’t want to fool people into doing anything.
DELLINGER: After you received even your first vaccine shot, how did that change life for you?
TWO BEARS: I felt [01:04:00] relieved, I think because it had been something I’d been so worried about for so long, being pregnant, not knowing how it would affect my baby.
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Once he was like out in the world, I felt a lot safer about it, and I knew he would be getting antibodies through breastmilk at that point. To me, it was just another tool to give me a little more power over the situation.
DELLINGER: What are some of the COVID-19-related services that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Health Department has made available to Muscogee citizens, as well as non-Muscogee people?
TWO BEARS: Gosh, there’s so many. I think one of the first changes that we made due to COVID was actually with our pharmacy. We started mailing medications, and we’re still doing that to this day. Patients love it. But that was just to save people [01:05:00] from having to come in, stand at the window. So, that was directly related to COVID.
Probably after we did that, it was the vaccine. When the tribe got them—and I’ll admit, this kind of frustrated me at the time, but when we started giving vaccines, we were offering them to the community as a whole, so Natives and non-Natives, and I just remember being really frustrated by that because I had lots of patients that wanted it, and I’m like, “Why are we not just giving it to our Native people first and then worry about everybody else?” That was kind of a point of contention for me.
But like I said, looking back, I can see why we did what we did. With something like this, it is important to treat the whole community because it is so communicable, and that is protecting our citizens by protecting everybody. So, I see the reasoning now, but at the time, I did not. I was [01:06:00] more like, “My patients want it. Why aren’t we
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giving it to them?” Anyway, that was a big thing we did, was the vaccines. We did a really good job with that, I think.
At one point, I remember, we actually had a home health service that would go out and do bloodwork on patients so like our elderly patients wouldn’t have to come in. We actually sent a nurse out to them to check their blood pressure and their weight and do their labs and stuff. That was a COVID-19-related service we did. I remember,
weirdly, the whole pandemic was like just a source—I was just constantly getting these ideas, like what can we do to see more people, take care of more people? And I remember, I went to my health administrator with this idea to take to the tribe, like what if, when someone tested positive, we could send them a two-week supply of water, food, medicine to take for their symptoms, just handouts, [01:07:00] and that never got off the ground. (laughs)
But I just was always trying to come up with like, how can we help people deal with this? Because we’re asking a lot of people. To go be by yourself for two weeks, that’s not an easy thing to do, and I felt like we should’ve been facilitating that a little more, helping people with that. I remember reading about, I think it was like Sweden or Korea—I can’t remember—but there were countries who were doing that for their citizens, sending out two weeks of supplies. And I was like, “We could totally do that,” but like I said, that never got off the ground, unfortunately. But I had lots of ideas. (laughs)
DELLINGER: That sounds like a great idea, actually. Okay, is that all you’d like to share on that question?
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TWO BEARS: I think so.
DELLINGER: Will you share a little bit about the monoclonal [01:08:00] antibody treatment?
TWO BEARS: Yeah, for sure. That was like gamechanger when that came onboard. Gosh, there was a point—I remember—I think I sent like ten patients to get that one day when it first started. I really think it saved people’s lives. We got it back in, I think it was early 2021. Like January was when it was really widely available for our patients, and we were kind of restricting who it was for at that time, which was frustrating. They had to meet the criteria, so either be over age sixty-five or have a comorbidity, so that was frustrating when I’d have a whole family of people positive, but only like half of them could get the treatment. How do you—I hated being the person to tell them, like, “Sorry, you don’t qualify,” which eventually, it [01:09:00] became where anyone could get it, but when it first started, it wasn’t like that.
And I don’t like limiting access to care. You can tell that’s a big thing for me. I don’t like denying people treatment. But that was the only bad thing about it. Other than that, it was all good. We would try to get people to go in as early as possible. We seemed to have the best results that way. But people, like when I’d follow up with them, they would say they literally started feeling better while the infusion was running. It was pretty incredible how well it worked for those first waves.
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DELLINGER: At this point in the pandemic, which again, we’re well over two years now—we’re going into a third year—what is your knowledge about the overall toll of the illness and death [01:10:00] in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation due to COVID-19?
TWO BEARS: Ooh, that’s a great question. I actually don’t know what the toll is in the tribe itself.
DELLINGER: Let me ask you this: from what you see on a day-to-day, do you feel like the rate of death has slowed?
TWO BEARS: I do, yeah. Honestly, I feel like just personally, the worst that I saw it was prior to vaccines, prior to the monoclonal antibody. It was absolutely fall, winter of 2020. That was when I feel like the deaths were the worst. I honestly do feel like the vaccines have played a big role in helping protect our citizens. I actually read that Native Americans [01:11:00] were the most highly vaccinated people group in the country, which I thought was really cool because like I said, I think our tribe, but all tribes really, have just really tried to get it out there to our people.
I do feel like it’s slowing down, but I’m still seeing people with long-term complications. I’ve never had so many patients on oxygen therapy since I’ve been doing this, and just the breathing issues, I feel like that’s the most debilitating thing, and then the people that have been in the hospital. Just in the last couple months, I can think of at least four patients I’ve had that had to be sent out of state because we didn’t have beds, and they were in the hospital at least four weeks. They had ICU stays. I remember one
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lady actually told me the doctor told her, “You’re probably [01:12:00] not going to live.” I won’t share all of what she told me, but it was very upsetting to her. We’re still seeing these near-death experiences, which they’re almost just as bad as the death because these
people are having to come back from that and try to function and recover and all these things. I don’t mean to say that it’s worse than death or anything, but it’s not all just roses. Just because people aren’t dying doesn’t mean we’re not still seeing severe long term complications from this illness, you know?
DELLINGER: Yeah, I think that’s important. Thank you for sharing that. I’m going to shift gears here a little bit. What are your thoughts about how—so, kind of take your brain back to the beginning of the pandemic again and coming forward— [01:13:00] what are your thoughts about how the Muscogee (Creek) Nation has handled the pandemic in relation to, say, the State of Oklahoma?
TWO BEARS: Like I said, I feel like as a whole, the tribe has really done an excellent job. Relative to the state, much, much better job. That’s just my opinion. I remember a point early on when our governor was the first governor to get COVID, and he was spotted out in a grocery store with no mask on after he tested positive, and I just remember thinking what a joke that makes us look like. But I feel like that kind of set an example for a lot of our fellow Oklahomans to follow, unfortunately, and I think a lot of people—I feel like our state leadership has never really [01:14:00] given COVID the respect it deserved. They really underplayed it, personally I think because it affected the
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economy, and money is where it’s at for a lot of those type of people, but with the tribe, I don’t think we had that issue.
I never felt like money played as big a role in things like it did for the state. Like if we needed to close due to whatever, like if we had so many employees out that were sick and we needed to go down to half-staff, we would do that. There was a point in Sapulpa where they had us working from home half the week and then switching off and coming in just to help protect each other. I have always felt like we—like I said, the tribe handled it with the respect it deserved. We never underestimated it. I don’t think we ever [01:15:00] overestimated it either. I think we just were reactive, and we did what we had to do based on the information we had at the time.
DELLINGER: Right. What are your thoughts about the COVID-19 pandemic becoming a global endemic? There’s talk. I’m starting to hear talk about that now.
TWO BEARS: Yeah. So, that’s kind of what we’ve been talking about too at work, like that it’s just going to be like the flu one day, like every winter, we have our strep and flu tests, and we’re just going to throw in the COVID now. It’s just going to be something that’s always there, and that does seem to be the case. I don’t think it’s really going away. I just hope that it eventually will mutate into something much less scary and hopefully not as severe, like a flu. But the thing is, the flu still [01:16:00] kills people too. I mean, I don’t think we’re ever going to be completely safe from it, but I hope it just becomes more a part of our life and not so much ruling it. But yeah, I definitely think it’s here to stay. I don’t think it’s going anywhere.
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DELLINGER: Right, Mrs. Two Bears, we’re down to our last couple of questions. For future generations of Muscogee who may find themselves—I hope not—but who may find themselves trying to survive a global health and economic crisis such as our ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, what words of advice or wisdom do you have for them about living with and surviving such a catastrophic event?
TWO BEARS: I think I would definitely say, lean on [01:17:00] the people you love. You might not agree with them all of the time. Probably most of the time, you won’t, but just continue to love each other as much as you can because at the end of the day, that’s all that matters is the people you love. And that’s what it would come down to every time. No matter what was happening in my life, I still had my people that would hold me up, and that’s how we got through, honestly. So, I would just say that. Just remember what’s important, and that’s the people around you and to love them while you can, while they’re here, while you’re here.
And that includes the tribe too. Like I said, I hope I came across that I’m proud of my tribe. I’m proud of our leadership. I really feel like they did a fantastic job. And rely on your people too. If you need help, ask for it. Don’t be [01:18:00] afraid, because promise you, there’s someone that wants to help you there. And I hope I was that person for people. Like I said, that’s all I can do is look back and say I hope I was that to someone, but that’s what I would say.
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DELLINGER: Thank you. Now, is there anything else that you would like to say or share about the COVID-19 pandemic, your experiences with the pandemic?
TWO BEARS: I don't know who’ll be watching this, but I just want people to know that it’s been a privilege to be taking care of people during this time, to get to know people that have passed away. I know I can’t like (laughs )[01:19:00] list my patients because of HIPAA, but I don't know, maybe some people’ll be watching this that know I took care of their family, and I just want them to know that I loved them, and they made an impact on me, and I’ll never forget them, and they’ve helped make me who I am and be a better provider and that their lives meant something. I think that’s what I would say.
DELLINGER: All right, well, mvto, thank you so much for those words, and thank you for your service—
TWO BEARS: Thank you.
DELLINGER: —that you are providing to our citizens, and again, thank you for taking time out of your busy life to be a part of this project and have this conversation and interview with me.
TWO BEARS: Absolutely. Thanks for giving me the opportunity, Midge. I really appreciate it. [01:20:00]
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END OF INTERVIEW
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Historic and Cultural Preservation Department Oral History Program
“A Twenty-First Century Pandemic in Indian Country: The Resilience of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Against Covid-19”
As Remembered by: Mrs. Kelsey Two Bears
Interview by: Ms. Midge Dellinger
Date: February 27, 2022
Transcription: The Audio Transcription Company
Edited by: Ms. Midge Dellinger
MIDGE DELLINGER: This is Midge Dellinger, oral historian for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Today is February 27, 2022, and I’m at my home in Tulsa, Oklahoma, interviewing Muscogee citizen, Mrs. Kelsey Two Bears, who is at her home in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. This interview is being performed remotely due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. I’m performing this interview on behalf of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Historic and Cultural Preservation Department for the oral history project, titled “A Twenty-First-Century Pandemic in Indian Country: The Resilience of a Muscogee (Creek) Nation Against COVID-19.”
Mrs. Two Bears, thank you so much for being here today and taking time out of your schedule to do this interview with me. So, we’re going to start this interview with some questions about your personal background, [00:01:00] and I’d like to begin with, what is your tribal town and clan?
KELSEY TWO BEARS: So, my clan is Ecokvlke (Deer Clan). We don’t really have a tribal town. I probably do somewhere along the way, but my family’s not super ceremonial.
DELLINGER: And where you born, and where did you grow up?
TWO BEARS: I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I grew up the first eight years of life in Bixby, and then me and my family moved to Hanna, and that’s where I pretty much spent my teenage years, until I went to college and stuff.
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DELLINGER: All right. I’d like for you to tell me a little bit about your family. Who are your parents?
TWO BEARS: So, my dad is Darrell Proctor. He is currently a Councilor Representative for McIntosh District, and my mom is Robin Proctor. She is an accountant [00:02:00]/babysitter extraordinaire. She watches my son for me.
DELLINGER: Okay. Now, where did your parents grow up?
TWO BEARS: So, they both grew up in Hanna, actually, super small town, so with them being married and together, that means I’m related to most of the town (laughs) because both their families are from there.
DELLINGER: Right. And now, with your dad, you just stated that he is a Muscogee (Creek) Nation National Council Representative.
TWO BEARS: Right.
DELLINGER: Does he have another occupation? Does he have other work that he does?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. Right now, he’s working for AEP. I think it’s like an electrician somewhere in that realm is what he does. He works like at power plants and stuff.
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DELLINGER: All right, and siblings, who are your siblings?
TWO BEARS: Yeah, so the next person in my family [00:03:00] is my sister Amberly. She’s twenty-five. She actually just got her CPA license, so she’s an accountant like my mom. She just got a job with the tribe also. Then my little brother, his name’s Darrell, Darrell Proctor II, and he is in school in his last semester. He’s doing an engineering degree at OSUIT here in town.
DELLINGER: All right, great. Now, I always like to ask people to share a little bit about their grandparents too. Grandparents are important. So, will you talk a little bit about your grandparents?
TWO BEARS: Sure. So, my mom’s parents were James and Pat Berry. My grandmother—she’s my Grandmother and Grandpa is what I called them—she really helped raise me, so we’re still super close. They both still live in Hanna. She was the superintendent at Hanna schools. She was the first female superintendent in our county, [00:04:00] so that was really special, and she didn’t go back to school until she was in her fifties, so she always really pushed education for us, was a big influence for me.
And then on my dad’s side, we have my Me-ma. Her name’s Minnie Cannon. I don’t really know my dad’s dad. We didn’t really get the chance to know him. They weren’t close at all, but he was a Keetoowah Cherokee citizen from Tahlequah, and he’s passed away. But those are kind of my grandparents. And I also had a great-grandma. I
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called her Granny. She passed away in 2010, but that was my mom’s grandma. So, she was a pretty big influence on me too, growing up.
DELLINGER: Okay. Now, so you attended Hanna High School.
TWO BEARS: Yes.
DELLINGER: Is that correct? And when did you graduate from Hanna? TWO BEARS: So, I graduated from high school in 2009.
DELLINGER: 2009?
TWO BEARS: Mm-hmm.
DELLINGER: And there is [00:05:00] something significant about your high school graduation, correct?
TWO BEARS: Yeah, if you’re talking about the number of students in my class, yes. (laughs) I’m not sure. What were you referring to? (laughs)
DELLINGER: With our previous conversation, you told me that you actually graduated from high school early.
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TWO BEARS: Oh, right. Sorry. (laughs) That’s like my little trivia fact whenever someone asks trivia, is like, I had six people in my class, and that’s always interesting to people.
DELLINGER: Yeah, that’s good information too.
TWO BEARS: Yeah. Yeah, I did. I skipped a grade. I skipped the seventh grade, so I did graduate a year early. I was sixteen when I graduated high school.
DELLINGER: Yeah, you’re sixteen years old, and you graduate high school, and where did you go off to college?
TWO BEARS: I went to Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee. I actually got a full academic scholarship to go there, and I studied biology. I don’t remember if I mentioned this when I talked to you before. I also was a walk-on softball [00:06:00] player. I pitched for the JV team, so I got a little scholarship money for doing that too. It was really fun.
DELLINGER: Right, so that means you played ball at Hanna?
TWO BEARS: I did, yeah.
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DELLINGER: Okay. No, that’s fantastic. I love knowing that. Okay, so you went to Shawnee, Oklahoma Baptist University, got a BA in Biology, and so when did you graduate from there?
TWO BEARS: 2013.
DELLINGER: 2013.
TWO BEARS: Yeah.
DELLINGER: And I want to ask you this before I go on with something else. At what age did you know that you wanted to work in the medical field?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. So, I can’t really pinpoint an age. It’s just something that’s always been there, but I know, thinking back when I was like five or six, I really liked to write stories and books. That was something my grandmother did with me, and I remember [00:07:00] making an anatomy book when I was that age, and I was just really fascinated by the human body and healing people and things like that, just from that age, I really distinctly remember. So, I would say it probably started around there.
DELLINGER: Okay, great. Now, where did life take you then after you graduated from OBU?
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TWO BEARS: So, after I graduated, I had applied to Physician Assistant school during my senior year. I didn’t really come upon that career path until I was a junior. I didn’t even know what one was. I had thrown around like medical school, optometry school, pretty much all health-related fields, but nothing felt right until I found out what a PA was, so I chose that route. I applied my first year, [00:08:00] and I got waitlisted, so they didn’t really reject me, but they didn’t take me either, so that was really kind of hard for me because as you can probably tell, I like going through things as quick as I can, trying to finish school early, and now I’m being told, “No, you’re not in yet.” So, that was really hard on me, honestly.
But I worked on that year off, got some experience. They told me to get some real-life experience before I came back and applied, and I worked at a doctor’s office with Dr. Anderson here in town. He was awesome. He became a really good mentor to me. And yeah, I got in the next year, so that was in 2014 when I started PA school, and I graduated in December 2016.
DELLINGER: Okay. How many years have you liked in Okmulgee? TWO BEARS: I have been here since 2015, so going on [00:09:00] seven years now. DELLINGER: Tell me a little bit about your family life there in Okmulgee.
TWO BEARS: Sure. So, my husband, Yonah, that’s the reason I live here. He had a house here. His parents had it first, and then he ended up kind of moving in and just
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stayed. (laughs) So, when we got married, I moved in with him, and on July 29, 2021, we welcomed our first son. His name’s Kai Eric Two Bears. He’s about to be seven months old. He’s just like the light of both of our lives. He’s the best.
DELLINGER: Right. And what year did you get married?
TWO BEARS: 2015, in the middle of school. (laughs)
DELLINGER: Oh, okay. Okay. You were very ambitious.
TWO BEARS: I was, yeah. I actually had a professor tell me I probably shouldn’t get married during school because it would be too stressful, and that just made me want to do it more, so I did. (laughter)
DELLINGER: Okay. [00:10:00] Will you share a little bit about Yonah?
TWO BEARS: Yeah, sure. So, Yonah, he’s thirty. He was born in North Carolina, spent first few years of his life in Cherokee. That’s where his family’s from. They’re Eastern Band. And then they moved to Alabama, where his mom was from, and that’s where he lived until he moved out here when he was eighteen, nineteen. I guess he was nineteen. So, yeah, and we met at school. He went to OBU also and studied music. He’s a really talented musician, playes like Native flute, trumpet, guitar, violin, some piano. I can’t remember all the stuff he can play, honestly. He’s just really gifted at it.
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But he actually works in IT. He was training to become a pilot for a little bit, but once our son was born, he didn’t really want to do that much anymore because it was going to take him away from home a lot, so [00:11:00] he’s back in IT now. And he also is like a beekeeper and a woodworker. He’s kind of a Renaissance man kind of guy, so he’s got a lot of hobbies. (laughs)
DELLINGER: All right, that’s great. He stays busy. Can you please spell his name for me?
TWO BEARS: Oh, sure. It’s Y-O-N-A-H. It’s like Jonah with a Y.
DELLINGER: Okay. Great. And didn’t you tell me that it means—like his first name and his last name are the same?
TWO BEARS: Yeah, so Yonah means bear in Cherokee, so his name is like Bear Two Bears in English, which cracks me up. Yeah.
DELLINGER: (laughs) That’s cool. I like that. Now, Mrs. Two Bears, where do you work?
TWO BEARS: So, I work at Okmulgee Indian Health Center as a physician assistant. So, I know this question’s probably coming, so I’m just going to describe what a physician assistant is. It’s basically an accelerated medical program. [00:12:00] So, typical medical
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schools are four years of medical school, followed by a residency, fellowship if they want, usually takes at least, minimum, seven years beyond your undergrad degree. So, with PA school, it ranges from twenty-four to thirty months. Mine was thirty months at OU Tulsa. That’s where I ended up going.
It’s basically, we get to do a lot of the same things that physicians do, but we work under a supervising physician, so we kind of have more, I guess, not as much autonomy as a physician in some ways. But I’m very satisfied with my role in the clinic. I feel like I get to help people every day, which is all I want to do, and a little bit of that liability is off my shoulders since I’m not a physician. I’ve got a really great supervising physician. We’re really close buddies. His name’s Dr. Blackwell; shout him out [00:13:00] in here because I bet he’ll watch this. (laughs) But yeah, he’s really awesome. I can just go into his office if I’ve got a really complicated patient or something that’s really complex, and he's always willing to help me out. So, I really like that being a PA means you’re part of a team. You’re not just alone. So, that’s what really drew me to the career.
DELLINGER: Okay, great. Thank you for that explanation. Now, how long have you worked for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Health Department?
TWO BEARS: So, I started in January 2017, so I just had my five-year—actually, it’s going to be five years on January thirty-first, in just a few days. So, they were my first and only job as a PA. (laughs)
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DELLINGER: That’s all right. Now, what are some of your community interests and engagements?
TWO BEARS: Well, prior to COVID, [00:14:00] I should say, there were quite a few things I enjoyed doing. We were going to church pretty regularly, a Baptist church here in town called Belvin, and we would do a lot of outreach there. And I’ve done some mission work in the past, like we went to Alaska to a village there and visited back in 2013. Me and my husband, we were also doing music at that time, like playing music and singing hymns and stuff together, so that was really fun.
But like I said COVID, we haven’t done any of that since COVID hit, so (laughs) that’s not really current. But I’m also, as far as current, I do a lot of writing. I really like creative writing. It’s one of my dreams to write a novel one day. I really want to write it about just my experiences as a PA, honestly, because I feel like I’ve had a lot of interesting experiences in this job. But one day, I’ll do it. I don't know. [00:15:00] I’m a procrastinator sometimes. (laughs)
DELLINGER: Now, you just touched on something I want to ask you about. So, you like to sing?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. (laughs)
DELLINGER: Do you ever sing with your brother?
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TWO BEARS: So, not really. I kind of missed that boat. He started doing that after I’d already left home, and him and my sister are kind of the duo, but I like to sing too. But I’m very shy. I’m very bad in front of crowds.
DELLINGER: (laughs) All right. Now, aside from the creative writing, because I know we talked about that before, is there anything else that you like to do to enjoy your free time?
TWO BEARS: Let’s see. Really honestly, I love reading and watching TV. It’s something I really enjoy. I’ll literally put something on and be like, I just don’t want to think anymore, and I just love really, [00:16:00] I call it my trash TV shows, (laughs) but like reality shows, they just entertain me to no end, so stuff like that, I really like, just turning my brain off because during the day, sometimes I’m in some pretty emotionally draining situations, so I really like comedies and stuff like that. It really helps me kind of unwind.
And spending time with my son is really great too, just playing with him. And he’s starting to really interact with the world more and just seeing things through his eyes is really refreshing. Like I can come home from lunch and have a stressful morning, and then by the time I’m done and seen him, he just completely turns my day around.
DELLINGER: That’s great. All right. Well, listen, thank you so much for sharing these things about your personal life. I think we’re going to go ahead now and transition into some questions about your experiences with the COVID pandemic, [00:17:00] and I’m
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going to start with this: so, the United States is now more than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic. But when in 2020 did you first hear about COVID-19, and how did you first hear about it?
TWO BEARS: Okay. So, I actually heard about it in January, pretty close to the new year, on Reddit. (laughs) I love that site. That’s where I first heard about it, and I remember—this is kind of bad because I’ve unfollowed it since then, but they originally called it the China flu, which that kind of became a political thing. But initially, that’s the place it was located. That’s where it originated, so people were calling it like a Chinese flu, and I remember that’s what the group was called. And it was just talking about how destructive it was in China and how quickly it was spreading [00:18:00] and that this had the potential to really affect humanity in a huge way. And I remember talking to people about it at work, and everyone was just kind of, you know, shoo-shooing it, like it’s not a big deal; it’s whatever.
And it wasn’t really until it came to the States, like in New York City, that’s when I started kind of panicking. I remember. And still, no one else was alarmed. This was in February. I remember February, early March 2020. And on the Reddit pages, I remember reading these just detailed accounts from these ER physicians, PA’s, nurse practitioners, nurses, just very detailed. They were getting to a point where they had trucks in the back for the bodies. They were rationing care. They were having to choose who would get a ventilator, who would receive care just because they were so short. And I knew people from [00:19:00] my training who were having to go to New York City to help because it was just hitting them so hard. And that’s when it kind of became real to me, and I literally
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felt like a crazy person, like a Paul Revere figure, because I was going around being like, “Guys, this is coming. This is coming.” And everyone, I think, thought I was crazy. So, I had a lot of fear, honestly, and anxiety around it, and I think part of my personality and nature is I want to learn as much about something as I can, even if it scares me. And it probably wasn’t the best for my mental health, but I was consuming those reports all the time, like I was listening to NPR on the way to work every day and on the way home. I was just constantly—I was in it. I was immersed in it. So, sorry, that was a really long answer, but that’s kind of like where I first heard it and kind of how it [00:20:00] enveloped my life, I guess.
DELLINGER: Okay. So, just to recap real quick, when you first read about it on that website, it was still in China?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. I actually learned about it very, very early on. And like I said, I just kind of have an interest in those type of things, so I was actually following it from really close to the beginning of when it was isolated. Yeah.
DELLINGER: But again, your initial thoughts were what? Did you initially think, hey, this thing could come into Oklahoma and the Muscogee (Creek) Nation?
TWO BEARS: At first, no. It wasn’t until I saw how quickly it was spreading, how many people were dying, and again, I hate that something like this is political, but in the current world, China is known to be very secretive and not report things that paint them in a
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negative light, so [00:21:00] I was paying attention and like, wow, if this is what they’re reporting, it must be ten times worse, was what I was thinking. So, it just kind of put me on guard, but no, I wasn’t at the point where—what it became, so quickly, it snowballed.
Like by March was when we were shutting down as a country. I mean, it was within three months. It was crazy.
DELLINGER: Right. So, what were some of the initial conversations, maybe even in January when you first read about it, but what were some of the initial conversations that you had with your family and friends about the virus?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. Really, those very early days, I wasn’t talking much to my family and friends; it was more coworkers, like from a medical perspective, like, “Hey, did you guys hear about this virus? What could this mean?” It was more like an oddity or an interest. I didn’t really start talking to my family about it seriously until, like I said, it was here. [00:22:00] Really, when it was in New York City and when it was hitting them so hard, that’s when I really started talking to my family about it, like this is really serious; we need to start taking precautions and preparing for the world to shut down because, I mean, that’s what happened. I was trying to encourage people to get groceries and make sure you’re set up for a few weeks at a time. It was like we flipped into survival mode so quick, but I felt like no one was paying attention, or their mind wasn’t in that place with me until much later, I guess.
DELLINGER: Yeah. How frustrating was that for you?
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TWO BEARS: (laughs) Incredibly. Yeah. And I’ll tell you, Midge, my family, I know they love me, but they’ll tell you, I can be dramatic, so I almost felt like the girl who cried wolf sometimes because I was just being so just doom and gloom, I guess, because like I said, this stuff was coming in my head [00:23:00] like constantly, and I was just hearing real reports from people like in New York City. And of course, my family’s not going to think something that’s in New York City’s going to happen to us. Those are different people; that’s a different place. But COVID doesn’t care who you are. It doesn’t matter. Yeah, it was very frustrating, honestly.
DELLINGER: Between January of 2020 and March of 2020, at what point did your medical colleagues get onboard with what was happening?
TWO BEARS: I remember, the first time that I talked to someone else that seemed to kind of get it was in February. I remember it was mid-February, and she worked in an urgent care, and she’s like, “Yeah, I started asking people who are coming in with respiratory symptoms if they’ve had any travel to China, any contact with anyone that’s been from China,” and I just remember thinking like, [00:24:00] okay, so you’re taking this seriously. (laughs) Just, I remember it was kind of a relief, like I wasn’t crazy, like that someone else was paying attention to this. But as far as everyone else, it really wasn’t. It was spring break of March 2020. I don’t remember the week exactly, but that was when everything shut down. I think that’s when everyone knew this was—well, even then, Midge, people weren’t thinking it was a big deal.
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I remember we were very divided. Like half of us were like me, kind of, I guess, more fear based, knowing something big was coming. And the other half, which I understand now because I have a child, but the other half was like, how am I going to get childcare? Why are we shutting down schools? This isn’t even here. Why are we making such a big deal out of this? It’s just a flu. I remember one of my best friends saying that, and we didn’t see eye-to-eye on that. But like I said, I do understand that perspective. [00:25:00]
But it was just such a long, gradual, drawn-out thing for it to become bad here around us, and I think we shut down—honestly, I don't know, but it may have been a little bit early because it wasn’t here yet. Maybe that kept it from getting here. There’s no way to know now, but I think because we shut down so early, people didn’t see really how bad it could get until much later on. And by then, it was too late.
DELLINGER: Yeah, I think for a lot of people, we were just watching it on the TV happen in other places. But yeah, I understand what you’re saying there. So, you just touched on something: the lockdowns and the shelter-in-place safety measures, we started hearing these words, and we started being told to social distance. At that time, [00:26:00] what were your thought about these safety measures, and how did those words themselves make you feel?
TWO BEARS: So, I just remember the word “quarantine” just sounded so, I guess, scary to me. That seems like such a simple thing, but just the fact that we were even having to do that. Like I remember, in our job, we have to get fitted for N95 masks, and they’re
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respirators. Everyone knows what they are now, but back then, I was like, “Why would we even need these?” And they were like, oh, in case something comes in, like a patient with tuberculosis, some kind of airborne disease, and I remember thinking, I’m never going to need that. And suddenly, (laughs) we’re living in our N95s. And Midge, I just forgot your original question. (laughs) [00:27:00] I’m sorry; I was going somewhere with that.
DELLINGER: Oh, no, that’s okay. I had asked, when everything started locking down and shutting down, especially as a medical person, what were your thoughts about these safety measures? But then also, how did the words themselves—these are words that we’ve not heard before, right?
TWO BEARS: Right.
DELLINGER: And so, how did these words make you feel?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. I think that’s what I was going with that story. I was just equating an N95 mask, that’s something I knew of. It was there, but it just took on a whole new meaning now and a whole new lifeline almost. I personally kind of clung to whatever little guidance we got from the CDC. It actually brought me comfort to be like, okay, this is something I can do. I can stay at home. I can wear this mask. I can try to stay six feet from others. I can wash my hands. [00:28:00] I can quarantine if I’m around somebody that’s sick. To me, those gave me power in a helpless situation. Like I said though, the
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idea of having to quarantine and things, that was scary to me, but those tools for prevention, I clung to those like nothing. It was everything to me.
DELLINGER: Now, once we did get into that situation where things were locked down and people were sheltering in place, you’ve kind of already touched on this a little bit, but those safety measures separated people; they isolated people. And as the medical person in your family, at that time, how did you continue taking care of your family and help keeping them protected from the virus, so meaning not just your husband but your parents and your siblings [00:29:00] and your grandparents?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. So, with my parents, I was constantly just trying to relay just the reality. I was trying not to be dramatic, but I also wasn’t wanting to underplay it because that’s how I like to be told information: just give it to me straight. That’s how I like to hear things.
With my grandparents, I was being a little more over the top because they didn’t want to follow the guidelines. At that time, my grandparents were very active. They liked to go places, vacations and things like that. We have a pretty big extended family, and we’d be down there all the time, and I would tell them I wanted them to live their life; I didn’t want to be dictating what they should and shouldn’t do, but I just wanted them to know that this was real. I was seeing it every day, and my patients were dying, and I did not want that to happen to them. And I think once at some point, it kind of [00:30:00] clicked with people—I’m not really sure when; maybe it was when we were locking
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down—like you said, those words suddenly were being thrown around, those big words, and they all were very cautious from that point on.
My parents are very active in church. The church stopped meeting for a bit. That was really hard on my brother too because that’s a big social thing for him is going around to churches, and I know he probably talked to you about that. Just, that was really hard on him. And with me and my husband, he was working out of the home at that time. He works from home now, but he actually worked for an airline company, and airlines were hit super hard by COVID because no one was flying all of a sudden, so that was really scary for us. Is he going to have a job, things like that.
But yeah, I just tried to be the person [00:31:00] who was relaying factual, realistic information, trying to take any politics out of it, taking feelings out of it as much as I could, just trying to urge people to be as safe as possible. That was kind of what I felt like my role was early on.
DELLINGER: Now, during the first year of the pandemic, when we went into our first big surge here, what was your personal plan of action to stay safe from the virus at work but then also to make sure that you weren’t bringing anything home to your husband and then baby Kai after you had the baby?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. So, in the first year, like I said, we lived in our N95 masks. It’s super-thick mask. I’d wore that. I’d put on a surgical mask over it, and that was just [00:32:00] walking around in the clinic, talking to each other. This wasn’t even patient care. That was just all the time, baseline.
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I was seeing COVID patients all the time. I worked in the walk-in clinic in Sapulpa at that time, so we were actually seeing those patients outside at that point, so we were fully gowning up. That means goggles. We’re putting on a gown. We’re putting on double gloves. We’re going out to cars, using throwaway stethoscopes, things like that, taking things out to them, checking oxygen in the car. And that really, I know it kept me safe because I never got sick, not only COVID, but I didn’t get anything (laughs) for that time.
It actually wasn’t until baby got here that I did get COVID. It was right before Christmas of last year of 2021, and it was from a relative that [00:33:00] stayed at my house that was sick, and I didn’t know they were sick. And we’re pretty sure it was the Omicron variant, which that’s new too. We didn’t have variants back then; it was just COVID. But thankfully, it was mild. I had to quarantine. I had to stay in my room, and I only came out to feed the baby, and I wore my mask. Even his pediatrician was like, “Kelsey, he’s already been around you. Don’t worry about it.” But like I said, I kind of cling to these safety guidelines. They really just make me feel like I have some type of control over the situation, so I was double masked and trying to feed my baby. He hated it too. He was trying to pull it off the whole time, but it made me feel better, so you know. (laughs)
DELLINGER: In the beginning of the pandemic here in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, was the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Health Department able to move quickly into a state [00:34:00] of pandemic readiness? Do you feel like the department as a whole was ready before the pandemic actually surged here in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation?
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TWO BEARS: Absolutely, yes. Kind of going back to what I mentioned where I felt like maybe the state shut down too early, like before it should have, and then it wasn’t taken as seriously later on when it needed to be done, I felt like the tribe was on top of it once that happened. We had a tent set up just for COVID patients to come, or for people who needed COVID tests. We were already trying to keep them separate from healthy patients or non-respiratory illness patients. That was within weeks after everything shut down. We built a new building for personal protective equipment, the PPE, like the masks and the gowns, because there was a time there were masks were short too.
It was just crazy for a while, [00:35:00] but I truly feel that Creek Nation did an excellent job. And they didn’t panic. Like I kind of told you, I was a little panicked with a lot of my reactions, but I really felt like they were very cool, calm, collected throughout the whole thing, so I thought they did a really great job handling everything.
DELLINGER: Now, did you just say that there was a time when you all had a shortage of PPE?
TWO BEARS: Yeah, there was. It never directly affected us too much, but there was a point where we had to kind of re-wear things longer than we would like. I remember there was a time when I had to wear my N95, kind of my under-mask, for almost two weeks because we didn’t have any. But that wasn’t just here. That was nationwide, so that was kind of, [00:36:00] I think, what triggered them to do the stockpiling, get a new distribution center for PPE and everything. So, I really felt like Creek Nation was reactive
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in a good way to every curveball that was thrown, and it was a lot. It was a lot of curveballs, but they did a good job.
DELLINGER. Right. Did you have moments too where you were short of medical supplies that you needed for the patients?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. One in particular that comes to mind, in Sapulpa, I had a patient who he kept coming in—which this is kind of a negative story, I guess, but I’m just going to go ahead and tell it because he made a big impact on me. He kept coming in for cough and getting put on our COVID schedule to get COVID tests, and he’d get evaluated. He’d be negative, and we’d say, Well, follow up with your primary care provider because this has been going on a while, [00:37:00] and you need to see what’s going on. But he couldn’t get in because of COVID. A lot of in-person visits, they were delayed. Care was delayed because of COVID, absolutely, and our policies around it.
Anyway, I ended up switching back to primary care after I got pregnant because I was considered high risk and didn’t want to work with COVID patients every day anymore. And he actually became my primary care patient at that point, so I knew his story. I brought him in. We got a scan of his chest, and he had a huge—I remember— fifteen-centimeter mass, basically. It was in his lungs. It was enveloping his trachea. It was huge. It was going around his heart. It was cancerous, and I just remember trying to get him into specialists, and they’d say, oh, it’s going to be three months because of COVID. I’m like, “I don’t know if he has three months.” This is terrible. [00:38:00] And eventually, it got so bad, he needed oxygen, and he was very weak, very frail at this
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point. He went downhill so quick. And we couldn’t get him—he just wanted portable oxygen. He was just having trouble with the tanks. They’re big. They’re heavy. He wanted portable oxygen. They told him, no, they didn’t have any, so I got mad when I was calling as high up as I could go within the tribe, and I’m like, “Why? Literally, this man’s dying. Can we just help him? Why can’t we help him?” And they actually got back to me, and we were getting it going when he passed away.
But that was a really—gosh—just terrible thing. It makes you wonder, if COVID hadn’t been going on, would that have been found sooner? Would he not have been just kept getting put on a COVID schedule over and over and over if it’s—he fell through the cracks; he really did, and that weighs on me every day. And it’s nobody’s fault. [00:39:00] Like I said, we were doing the best we could at the time, but I think absolutely, people’s health was affected even without COVID. Other things were affected, absolutely.
DELLINGER: I’d like for you to share from your medical position, your knowledge and understanding about the COVID-19 virus, including how it spread and some of the impacts that you’ve seen on the human body if the virus is contracted.
TWO BEARS: Sure. So, COVID-19, it is a coronavirus, so it’s a respiratory virus. The origins of it, still hotly debated. I’ve got a (laughs) doctor that I—Dr. Blackwell at work, we like to banter all the time, and [00:40:00] he’s got theories about where it came from. You know, is it manmade? Was it a biological warfare? I don't know if we’ll ever know the answer to that. I really don’t know. Other people think it’s a zoonotic infection,
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something that came from an animal like a bat. I don't know, but all I know, it’s a respiratory virus, so kind of interesting.
Like I said, I like to know about stuff. So, corona means crown, and it’s called that because the virus has what’s called spike proteins on it, and it gives it the appearance of like a crown. What’s interesting is those spike proteins, the placement, the number, that’s what determines what type of virus it is and then what type of variant it is. So, like the recent omicron had like twenty-five spike proteins, and that’s what made it so difficult to treat. It wasn’t responding to our antibody therapies. Like everything we had wasn’t fighting, but thankfully it wasn’t so strong. But that’s kind of [00:41:00] the nature of viruses; it changes. The more people it goes through, the longer it’s around.
Anyway, it’s spread through respiratory droplets, so that’s why we were encouraging people to mask, stay six feet away, wash your hands, etc. At my last conference for PAs, I remember they were talking about Delta. Delta was, I think, the scariest variant we’ve had so far, as far as from a health provider standpoint. And it was because it was highly contagious, so it had different variation of those spike proteins like I was talking about. They basically said you could walk into a room where someone had coughed twenty minutes ago, and you could get Delta, so that kind of speaks to how contagious this is, what we’re dealing with.
But the thing about coronavirus, [00:42:00] like I said, it is a respiratory virus, but it doesn’t just affect your respiratory tract. The big one that people talk about is losing your taste and smell, and that’s actually affecting nerves. It’s not actually in your nose and mouth. It’s affecting the nerves that go into your nose and mouth, and some people don’t regain that. I’ve had several people that never got their taste and smell back, and
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they’re pretty young, healthy people. And that’s kind of what’s scary about COVID too, is you just don’t know how bad it’s going to affect you. I think that’s what’s scary. But as time went on, with the original COVID, like before vaccines and stuff, I remember the CDC put out that Native Americans were three times more likely to die of COVID than non-Natives. And comorbidities like diabetes, heart disease, [00:43:00] obesity, things like that, a lot of our people have those, and that’s just kind of more odds stacked against us, I guess. So, I do feel like as Native people, we got hit a lot harder than other people groups, and I saw that firsthand. I literally can’t count how many of my patients, some relatives, church family that died on my Native side, I literally have not had a single COVID death on my white side of my family. So, I’ve seen that firsthand, for sure.
DELLINGER: Throughout the pandemic and especially during the first several months of the pandemic, especially when so little was known about the virus, how did you get up every day, [00:44:00] every morning and go to work knowing that you were putting yourself at risk and in a dangerous situation?
TWO BEARS: It’s really strange, Midge, because I probably sound like I’m just this anxious, worried person all the time, which I am; I’m a pretty anxious person, but something about that situation just—I don't know—it made me want to take action. It’s like I couldn’t just sit with that anxiety. Just being a part of the frontline, I think, gave me purpose and helped me get through it. So, weirdly, the virus terrified me, but it also gave me purpose because I felt like I was trying to help people fight it off and through
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education, prevention, and treatment when they did contract it. And it wasn’t really a struggle for me. [00:45:00] I just felt like I was in this place and time for a purpose, and I just felt like I had to rise to that challenge, I guess, and I hope I did. I really don’t know. I think part of being in the health field is you always feel like you could’ve done more, but I’d like to think I did what I could.
DELLINGER: So, what has been your experience as a healthcare provider of seeing on a daily basis, Muscogee citizens who are sick with COVID or even just fearful that they’ve contracted COVID?
TWO BEARS: Oh, gosh. I could tell you so many. I’d say that there were three groups of people that I saw on a daily basis. The first one was people who didn’t care, like it was an [00:46:00] inconvenience to them. This was, I have to quarantine; I’m going to miss this and this and this, things like that. Those were easy for me because I just would test them,
make sure they weren’t having any severe symptoms, give them the instructions, and pretty much just hope that they would follow them so they wouldn’t spread it around. These were mostly young people, like teenagers and young adults and some healthier older adults too. I remember calling people with their positive test results, and we would
have to do video like this, and I’d see them in a public place. When they answered, they’d be like at QuikTrip, and I’m like, “What are you doing? I told you to quarantine.” So, that was one big group of people that were our positives.
Another group of people were the people in denial, so those were interesting. [00:47:00] I still remember very vividly, a seventy-year-old patient that I called and told
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her she was positive, and she just would not believe me. And she’s like, “There’s just no way I could get it. I’m here by myself. I don’t go anywhere.” And I’m like, “Are you sure?” Because it had just been Christmas, so I was like, “Are you sure no one’s been to your house?” She’s like, “Well, my nephews came, and they were positive last week, but there’s no way that it’s that,” and just getting it through to people, some people wouldn’t accept it. Maybe it doesn’t hurt anything, but I just tried to reiterate to them, like, “If you get worse, you need to go to the hospital. You do have it. You can deny it all you want, but you have it. You have symptoms.” Those were fun. (laughs)
The last group, those were the ones that really would get me. They’re the ones that were terrified when I would tell them they were positive. They were people with comorbidities. They were people [00:48:00] taking care of vulnerable family members. They were people with babies. They were pregnant patients. They were cancer patients. They were those people who were in that risk group who me and them both knew that this was not good. This could go downhill very quickly. Those were the hard phone calls.
And I think I told you this last time, but what got really hard on me was having my cancer patients or my patients on dialysis, really sick people, and not knowing if I was going to be like the last person they talked to. Were they going to go home and end up in the hospital and never get to speak to anyone here again? I remember that crossed my mind just all day long. And another just heartbreaking part of that was [00:49:00] when I’d call and tell them they were positive, and they said they got it from the funeral of a family member who had just died from it. I just remember a guy just had a breakdown on the phone because he literally just saw his sister die from it, had just
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started mourning her death from it, and now he’s getting this potential death sentence too. It was like a horror movie.
I was referring a lot of people to our behavioral health at that time too just to talk because that’s heavy enough, losing your family, but Midge, I can’t tell you how many calls I made like that, where they were like, Oh, this person just died from it. I was just with my family. It was just so—it was terrible. And even in our local church here, there aren’t very many Native pastors left. They’re all very [00:50:00] getting up there in age and passing away, and one came to preach a funeral, and that pastor got it and died. It felt like every day, I was waking up and finding out someone else was gone, kind of like I told you, I know I’m looking at things that probably aren’t good for me, but I look at obituaries. I still do it at least once or twice a week, just looking to see if my patients have passed.
I remember there was a week where it was literally every day, I knew someone that had died, and a lot of it was COVID related. Those were just a handful of my experiences, but it really, now that I think about it, can be lumped into those three groups. And the emotional ones were really hard. They were really hard.
DELLINGER: [00:51:00] I want to talk about this a little bit more, the mental trauma. What do you think has been the extent of mental and emotional trauma caused by COVID to Muscogee citizens, as well as other frontline medical providers?
TWO BEARS: Yeah. I guess I’ll start from the perspective of medical providers ourselves. Burnout is a really big thing right now. We’re getting to a point in our society,
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because there’s so many different places that we’re getting information from, and it’s conflicting, a lot of people don’t trust us anymore as healthcare providers when it comes to COVID. It’s really odd to me; people, even today, will come to me, and very pleasant. They listen [00:52:00] to what I say. They follow my recommendations, but they will literally just get nasty with me if I try to talk to them about the COVID vaccine or something like that. That’s just to say there’s been a huge kind of shift in how patients perceive and interact with us when it comes to COVID, but it’s become such a big part of our lives. It’s like, at this point, I have to talk to you about the COVID vaccine because that is something that’s measured for me.
And there’s still some providers that may not believe in it, but we’re supposed to be asking. We’re supposed to be offering. So, like I said, belief, politics, it has no role in it. This is something that we’re doing for overall health. Anyway, sorry, that’s a tangent. But we’re getting just burnt out because people are being a lot more difficult to us, [00:53:00] I guess, when it comes to things like that. And just personally, when I hear stories about us running out of—we’re running out of rooms; we’re sending people out of state; we’re short-staffed everywhere, all the time, it wears a lot on you just physically, mentally emotionally, just every day. And there’s really no sign that that’s getting better. I know that’s been really hard on people as a result of the burnout.
As far as patients, like I said, I really have been sending a lot of people to our behavioral health with COVID-related issues. I’ve had quite a few people that deal with anxiety and panic attacks since having COVID, whether that was because they had very severe symptoms, and they’re still dealing with the trauma from that, like [00:54:00] being on a ventilator, being in an ICU, being told you’re not going to make it. That’s very
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traumatic for a person. But then there’s also the people who had milder symptoms, but they’re still dealing with this chronic shortness of breath that makes them feel this sense of doom like all the time, physiologically. So, I feel like it’s mental and physical that people are dealing with these problems. There’s also, of course, a lot of grief just from all the loss, whether it’s family members, friends, the loss of a life that we can’t really live anymore. We’re grieving. There’s just a lot of things that are gone, basically, and who knows if we’ll ever be able to go back to being carefree and basic things, going to the movies, going to the malls? Some people still have a lot of fear associated with those things. [00:55:00]
And then depression too, we’re seeing a lot of depression. I don’t know if that’s directly related to COVID or not, but I know I’ve had patients tell me that the isolation is not good for their mental health. They’re the type of people that need to be around others and need to be able to interact, and it definitely had a negative impact on them and maybe, I don’t want to say triggered depression, but it absolutely could’ve contributed to that. So, that’s probably the big things that I’ve been seeing.
Oh, and I can’t not mention this, but a lot of people self-medicate. We’ve been seeing a lot of people substance abuse that are kind of self-medicating these problems. Drugs and alcohol, that’s a really big thing for me. I try to always screen patients for that [00:56:00] so we can try to help them if we can because of course my thing is, what’s the root cause of this? You’re self-medicating some type of hurt. What is it? How can we help you with that? I try to tell people I don’t want to just tell you this and kick you out on the street and say good luck. We’ve got a really good behavioral health program that
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we try to stay with them long term and keep an eye on them and everything. But I think those are probably the big ways I’ve seen it affect my patients.
DELLINGER: At the end of the day, when you’ve had one of these really emotionally draining days, how do you go home and take care of yourself?
TWO BEARS: I cried a lot. I remember crying on the drive [00:57:00] home a lot. It was a thirty-five-minute drive, and I would call my mom or call just family, my brother, my sister. There was a good, I think, six months that I didn’t see them, and that was hard on me, but we would Skype and watch movies on Netflix together. And we still talk about that. Those were really good times for us, something that we normally wouldn’t’ve done. We wouldn’t’ve made time to do that together.
I also like writing. That was something I got back into. I remember my mom told me I should write down the things that I’m seeing and experiencing, and it’s important to remember them. So, I didn’t do it consistently, but I tried to write just on the really bad days, just to kind of help me process things, just get it out of my head and onto something else. [00:58:00] And just spent a lot of time with my husband too. He really was a rock for me and just talked me through things, and he’s a very calm, stable person, so he really helped kind of my emotions and everything, kind of helped. He was just a rock, really.
DELLINGER: Has the Muscogee (Creek) Nation made any special types of services or tools available to their medical frontline workers who may be struggling with emotional and mental trauma?
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TWO BEARS: Yeah. So, I don't know if we’re still doing it, but I remember back when things got really bad, they actually got a chaplain. His name was Grover Wind. I think he’s in a different role now at the tribe, but he would come around to the clinics and [00:59:00] just talk to you, pray with you, whatever you felt like you needed. And I remember, (laughs) I was so busy, I never really got the chance to go talk to him, but just seeing him in the hall, it weirdly made me feel better just knowing someone was there to try to help us with all the stuff in here. That was kind of a new thing.
And they did offer us hazard pay at some point. And I remember that meant a lot because it was hazardous, (laughs) what we were doing. It was scary, so just that financial compensation of, thank you for doing what you’re doing, that really did mean a lot to us too. I don’t really remember any other things from that time, but I do remember there was—this wasn’t Creek Nation, but there were a lot of [01:00:00] apps and things across the country that were offering things to healthcare workers, and there was this meditation app called Headspace, and if you could prove you were a frontline worker, they would give you free access to the app, so I downloaded that, and that was a nice little tool to use when you needed it. And I actually did go to counseling virtually during this whole process due to some other kind of unrelated-to-COVID issues in a way, but counseling really helped me a lot, and just giving me the time to do that was good.
DELLINGER: Thank you for sharing that.
TWO BEARS: Yeah.
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DELLINGER: Mrs. Two Bears, have you been vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus?
TWO BEARS: I have, yeah. So, I’ll just tell the full story real quick. I was supposed to be one of the first people to get it [01:01:00] in the tribe, but I found out I was pregnant just days before I was supposed to get it, so I actually declined it and didn’t get it until after I had the baby, so I was actually one of the last ones in my family to get it.
DELLINGER: What was that like for you, being pregnant and being a frontline worker during a devastating pandemic?
TWO BEARS: It was really scary because, well, I mentioned this to you before, but I’d actually had a miscarriage six months prior to that, so I already that extra anxiety, extra fear just from having a pregnancy loss before. But adding this on top of it, it was a lot. It was too much, and that’s why I stepped back from my role with COVID patients every day. I mean, I had to do that for my health, not just physically but mentally, because it was really [01:02:00] hard on me.
My work was very accommodating. Like I said, we were only seeing people in the car anyway, but they were letting me do phone visits with people, but just, I didn’t feel that was adequate care for our people. I felt like they deserved someone that could go out and see them in person, so I ultimately stepped down, even though I really loved the role. So, that was a really hard decision for me to make, but I’m glad I did it. I think it was the best thing for me. But yeah, it was very scary, and just especially that first
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trimester, just getting through that was the worst part, I think. But everything turned out fine, so he’s here, and he’s healthy. I can hear him in there yelling right now. (laughs)
DELLINGER: I want to go back to the vaccine. Which vaccine did you receive? TWO BEARS: I got Pfizer.
DELLINGER: And did you have any side effects? [01:03:00]
TWO BEARS: Did I? Gosh. For the first one, my arm was sore, and then second one, I had more generalized body aches and some fatigue. But I remember I timed it for a Friday so I could just be lazy for a couple days (laughs) if I needed to, so I really didn’t have too much trouble with it, but oh my gosh, I had so many people calling and texting me about side effects. And we’ve seen that people who have had COVID before tend to have more side effects, so I tried to warn people (laughs) about that before they get it, like, “You still should get it, but watch out for this.” I try to be very honest. I don’t want to fool people into doing anything.
DELLINGER: After you received even your first vaccine shot, how did that change life for you?
TWO BEARS: I felt [01:04:00] relieved, I think because it had been something I’d been so worried about for so long, being pregnant, not knowing how it would affect my baby.
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Once he was like out in the world, I felt a lot safer about it, and I knew he would be getting antibodies through breastmilk at that point. To me, it was just another tool to give me a little more power over the situation.
DELLINGER: What are some of the COVID-19-related services that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Health Department has made available to Muscogee citizens, as well as non-Muscogee people?
TWO BEARS: Gosh, there’s so many. I think one of the first changes that we made due to COVID was actually with our pharmacy. We started mailing medications, and we’re still doing that to this day. Patients love it. But that was just to save people [01:05:00] from having to come in, stand at the window. So, that was directly related to COVID.
Probably after we did that, it was the vaccine. When the tribe got them—and I’ll admit, this kind of frustrated me at the time, but when we started giving vaccines, we were offering them to the community as a whole, so Natives and non-Natives, and I just remember being really frustrated by that because I had lots of patients that wanted it, and I’m like, “Why are we not just giving it to our Native people first and then worry about everybody else?” That was kind of a point of contention for me.
But like I said, looking back, I can see why we did what we did. With something like this, it is important to treat the whole community because it is so communicable, and that is protecting our citizens by protecting everybody. So, I see the reasoning now, but at the time, I did not. I was [01:06:00] more like, “My patients want it. Why aren’t we
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giving it to them?” Anyway, that was a big thing we did, was the vaccines. We did a really good job with that, I think.
At one point, I remember, we actually had a home health service that would go out and do bloodwork on patients so like our elderly patients wouldn’t have to come in. We actually sent a nurse out to them to check their blood pressure and their weight and do their labs and stuff. That was a COVID-19-related service we did. I remember,
weirdly, the whole pandemic was like just a source—I was just constantly getting these ideas, like what can we do to see more people, take care of more people? And I remember, I went to my health administrator with this idea to take to the tribe, like what if, when someone tested positive, we could send them a two-week supply of water, food, medicine to take for their symptoms, just handouts, [01:07:00] and that never got off the ground. (laughs)
But I just was always trying to come up with like, how can we help people deal with this? Because we’re asking a lot of people. To go be by yourself for two weeks, that’s not an easy thing to do, and I felt like we should’ve been facilitating that a little more, helping people with that. I remember reading about, I think it was like Sweden or Korea—I can’t remember—but there were countries who were doing that for their citizens, sending out two weeks of supplies. And I was like, “We could totally do that,” but like I said, that never got off the ground, unfortunately. But I had lots of ideas. (laughs)
DELLINGER: That sounds like a great idea, actually. Okay, is that all you’d like to share on that question?
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TWO BEARS: I think so.
DELLINGER: Will you share a little bit about the monoclonal [01:08:00] antibody treatment?
TWO BEARS: Yeah, for sure. That was like gamechanger when that came onboard. Gosh, there was a point—I remember—I think I sent like ten patients to get that one day when it first started. I really think it saved people’s lives. We got it back in, I think it was early 2021. Like January was when it was really widely available for our patients, and we were kind of restricting who it was for at that time, which was frustrating. They had to meet the criteria, so either be over age sixty-five or have a comorbidity, so that was frustrating when I’d have a whole family of people positive, but only like half of them could get the treatment. How do you—I hated being the person to tell them, like, “Sorry, you don’t qualify,” which eventually, it [01:09:00] became where anyone could get it, but when it first started, it wasn’t like that.
And I don’t like limiting access to care. You can tell that’s a big thing for me. I don’t like denying people treatment. But that was the only bad thing about it. Other than that, it was all good. We would try to get people to go in as early as possible. We seemed to have the best results that way. But people, like when I’d follow up with them, they would say they literally started feeling better while the infusion was running. It was pretty incredible how well it worked for those first waves.
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DELLINGER: At this point in the pandemic, which again, we’re well over two years now—we’re going into a third year—what is your knowledge about the overall toll of the illness and death [01:10:00] in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation due to COVID-19?
TWO BEARS: Ooh, that’s a great question. I actually don’t know what the toll is in the tribe itself.
DELLINGER: Let me ask you this: from what you see on a day-to-day, do you feel like the rate of death has slowed?
TWO BEARS: I do, yeah. Honestly, I feel like just personally, the worst that I saw it was prior to vaccines, prior to the monoclonal antibody. It was absolutely fall, winter of 2020. That was when I feel like the deaths were the worst. I honestly do feel like the vaccines have played a big role in helping protect our citizens. I actually read that Native Americans [01:11:00] were the most highly vaccinated people group in the country, which I thought was really cool because like I said, I think our tribe, but all tribes really, have just really tried to get it out there to our people.
I do feel like it’s slowing down, but I’m still seeing people with long-term complications. I’ve never had so many patients on oxygen therapy since I’ve been doing this, and just the breathing issues, I feel like that’s the most debilitating thing, and then the people that have been in the hospital. Just in the last couple months, I can think of at least four patients I’ve had that had to be sent out of state because we didn’t have beds, and they were in the hospital at least four weeks. They had ICU stays. I remember one
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lady actually told me the doctor told her, “You’re probably [01:12:00] not going to live.” I won’t share all of what she told me, but it was very upsetting to her. We’re still seeing these near-death experiences, which they’re almost just as bad as the death because these
people are having to come back from that and try to function and recover and all these things. I don’t mean to say that it’s worse than death or anything, but it’s not all just roses. Just because people aren’t dying doesn’t mean we’re not still seeing severe long term complications from this illness, you know?
DELLINGER: Yeah, I think that’s important. Thank you for sharing that. I’m going to shift gears here a little bit. What are your thoughts about how—so, kind of take your brain back to the beginning of the pandemic again and coming forward— [01:13:00] what are your thoughts about how the Muscogee (Creek) Nation has handled the pandemic in relation to, say, the State of Oklahoma?
TWO BEARS: Like I said, I feel like as a whole, the tribe has really done an excellent job. Relative to the state, much, much better job. That’s just my opinion. I remember a point early on when our governor was the first governor to get COVID, and he was spotted out in a grocery store with no mask on after he tested positive, and I just remember thinking what a joke that makes us look like. But I feel like that kind of set an example for a lot of our fellow Oklahomans to follow, unfortunately, and I think a lot of people—I feel like our state leadership has never really [01:14:00] given COVID the respect it deserved. They really underplayed it, personally I think because it affected the
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economy, and money is where it’s at for a lot of those type of people, but with the tribe, I don’t think we had that issue.
I never felt like money played as big a role in things like it did for the state. Like if we needed to close due to whatever, like if we had so many employees out that were sick and we needed to go down to half-staff, we would do that. There was a point in Sapulpa where they had us working from home half the week and then switching off and coming in just to help protect each other. I have always felt like we—like I said, the tribe handled it with the respect it deserved. We never underestimated it. I don’t think we ever [01:15:00] overestimated it either. I think we just were reactive, and we did what we had to do based on the information we had at the time.
DELLINGER: Right. What are your thoughts about the COVID-19 pandemic becoming a global endemic? There’s talk. I’m starting to hear talk about that now.
TWO BEARS: Yeah. So, that’s kind of what we’ve been talking about too at work, like that it’s just going to be like the flu one day, like every winter, we have our strep and flu tests, and we’re just going to throw in the COVID now. It’s just going to be something that’s always there, and that does seem to be the case. I don’t think it’s really going away. I just hope that it eventually will mutate into something much less scary and hopefully not as severe, like a flu. But the thing is, the flu still [01:16:00] kills people too. I mean, I don’t think we’re ever going to be completely safe from it, but I hope it just becomes more a part of our life and not so much ruling it. But yeah, I definitely think it’s here to stay. I don’t think it’s going anywhere.
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DELLINGER: Right, Mrs. Two Bears, we’re down to our last couple of questions. For future generations of Muscogee who may find themselves—I hope not—but who may find themselves trying to survive a global health and economic crisis such as our ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, what words of advice or wisdom do you have for them about living with and surviving such a catastrophic event?
TWO BEARS: I think I would definitely say, lean on [01:17:00] the people you love. You might not agree with them all of the time. Probably most of the time, you won’t, but just continue to love each other as much as you can because at the end of the day, that’s all that matters is the people you love. And that’s what it would come down to every time. No matter what was happening in my life, I still had my people that would hold me up, and that’s how we got through, honestly. So, I would just say that. Just remember what’s important, and that’s the people around you and to love them while you can, while they’re here, while you’re here.
And that includes the tribe too. Like I said, I hope I came across that I’m proud of my tribe. I’m proud of our leadership. I really feel like they did a fantastic job. And rely on your people too. If you need help, ask for it. Don’t be [01:18:00] afraid, because promise you, there’s someone that wants to help you there. And I hope I was that person for people. Like I said, that’s all I can do is look back and say I hope I was that to someone, but that’s what I would say.
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DELLINGER: Thank you. Now, is there anything else that you would like to say or share about the COVID-19 pandemic, your experiences with the pandemic?
TWO BEARS: I don't know who’ll be watching this, but I just want people to know that it’s been a privilege to be taking care of people during this time, to get to know people that have passed away. I know I can’t like (laughs )[01:19:00] list my patients because of HIPAA, but I don't know, maybe some people’ll be watching this that know I took care of their family, and I just want them to know that I loved them, and they made an impact on me, and I’ll never forget them, and they’ve helped make me who I am and be a better provider and that their lives meant something. I think that’s what I would say.
DELLINGER: All right, well, mvto, thank you so much for those words, and thank you for your service—
TWO BEARS: Thank you.
DELLINGER: —that you are providing to our citizens, and again, thank you for taking time out of your busy life to be a part of this project and have this conversation and interview with me.
TWO BEARS: Absolutely. Thanks for giving me the opportunity, Midge. I really appreciate it. [01:20:00]
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END OF INTERVIEW
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February 27, 2022Original Date:
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