Things I’ve seen in Covid19 as an ICU nurse:
- a husband and wife admitted to icu, positive for covid after sending their two teenagers back to school when it opened. She coded and died yesterday. We wheeled her body into his room so he could say goodbye to his high school sweetheart from his hospital bed. We dont expect him to survive.
- 94 year old man, married to his wife for 64 years, both tested positive after a single visit to their dentist. It was the only “outing” they had since March. Because there are so few beds available, they were sent to separate hospitals. She stroked and died shortly after. He watched her funeral on FaceTime and never got to say goodbye.
- a 25 year old who flew home from another state because his mom was afraid and asked him too. He tested positive 3 days after his flight. He died 20 days later in our ICU.
- a father/son duo who run a manufacturing company, tested positive along with the majority of their employees. They both came to our ICU. Dad died. Son was able to leave the hospital 30 days later - he learned of his father’s death after leaving, for fear of impacting his recovery.
- A schoolteacher, working for special needs children, tested positive 1 week after her school mandated they reopen. She died 10 days later. Her last words before we intubated her were, “Im going to be your next survivor!” We told her she was right, but we all knew it wouldn’t happen.
- a 45 year old woman with a 6 and 8 year old at home. After 65 days, she never woke up due to hypoxic brain injury. She never made it off a ventilator.
- tiered nursing models, where ICU patients are being cared for primarily by nurses without ICU experience while one ICU rn gets placed as a “supervising” nurse over 5 ICU patients, and monitors the regular nurses care over them. Your loved ones not getting the appropriate level of care deserved because we have no staff left to care for them.
- patients who should be in ICU unable to come to the ICU because there are no beds available. Left on the regular floor in hospital with no additional supervision or coverage because there’s not enough staff to do so.
- patients that have been sent from out of state because their home areas have no room to take them. When these patients are close to end of life, their families are hard pressed to arrive in time to say goodbye.
- a unit opened as a tiered-staffing ICU where there is no negative pressure in patient rooms and no way to install them per maintenance. Nurses are going to be required to wear PAPR during their entire shifts without taking them off while working in that unit. So 12 hours without drinking water or eating unless you can leave the unit. Which it being tiered staffing - its not safe for the ICU rn to leave because there will only be 2 ICU nurses on the unit.
We are a long ways from having herd immunity with the coming vaccines. Please wear your masks. Dont go where you dont absolutely have to go. Wash your hands. This is not the time to go on new dates, have family gatherings or big game nights or get together. Please. You have called the nursing profession “the most trustworthy” for decades - and now when we beg you to listen, to wear a simple mask and social distance, you call us liars and the trauma we see these patients go through every day a conspiracy. Please. We are breaking.
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