SEATTLE — Carla Marie, host of the popular Carla Marie & Anthony Show on Seattle’s 106.1 KISS FM, is sharing a personal story in hopes it resonates with fellow millennials.
Her entire family lives in her home state of New Jersey, and a little more than a week ago she learned her mother needed open heart surgery.
"She's that person that everyone can go to,” Carla Marie said. “She's 'the mom.'"
Out of an abundance of caution, Carla Marie decided to stay in Seattle rather than fly back East for the surgery. It was scheduled for tomorrow.
Then, she got another call.
“They just canceled the surgery, postponed it, because there are patients at the hospital with COVID-19 and they want to keep her safe,” she said. “I'm all for that, I get it, but it's so tough now that our doctors and nurses are making decisions like this. They shouldn't have to do that.”
The footage of Spring Breakers crowding beaches in Florida, and posts from people who publicly mock COVID-19 concerns, are hard for her to see.
"It's so frustrating, and it's sad, and it's embarrassing because a lot of those people are millennials, and I'm a millennial,” she said. "They're not realizing the trickle-down effect of what's happening. It's not just that they can get coronavirus and sit on their couch and be sick and get over it. It's who they are passing it to, and is that person then going to a hospital? Whether or not that person recovers, look at what they just did to the hospital where my mom is."
She offers a simple plea to anyone who thinks the government recommendations don’t apply to them.
"Think about the people in your life that you care about the most, and if someone else in the world - whether you knew them or not - was doing something indirectly that could hurt the people in your life, what would you do? You would be mad. You would tell them to just do that simple thing everyone around you is telling you to do,” she said. “Go sit at home, it's not that hard. And just be a good human and be compassionate, because it's really easy to do that."