I cannot do it again. Well…. I could do it agin but I don’t want to. I spent a year in the COVID ICU as a staff nurse in the MICU with 7 years of ICU in that unit behind me.
Our very first patient March 2020 who we treated as Covid positive because we weren’t sure died 3 times over the weekend that they were admitted and then finally passed after a 2 hour code with 2 nurses, 1 RT, and a physician in the room. 4 pressors running at over max rates, bicarbonate gtt and pushes. Pushing epi even though it was running as an infusion. Compressions for 10-20 minutes and the a HR and a low blood pressure for a small period of time. Finally we stopped brutalizing that patient and moved onto others. Young patients just starting out in life. Thinking about traveling abroad for further schooling. Not thinking about Covid and the complications. Older people in their 80s and 90s. Too many comorbidities to list, unable to breathe, “I’m not ready to die.” Also, not thinking about Covid and the complications. People that believed that COVID was real and followed recommendations except for some small detail. People that didn’t believe COVID was real and shared it with their entire family at family reunions. Once they couldn’t breathe and needed a certain amount of help they ended up in our ICU no matter their background.
In the beginning we intubated quickly and proned them. Later on we had them self prone and waited forever watching trying to avoid putting the tube in and having the vent breathe for them. We lost multiple patients a day from April 2020 to February 2021 due to COVID. It was real in my world. It became our specialty. All other illnesses and problems requiring ICU care no longer came to us. We had no room. All we knew was COVID.
Some of the worst parts were the lack of proper PPE and the isolation. I was scared someone on my team( my ICU family) would fall ill and lose their life. We needed all hands on deck and I needed them mentally and emotionally. We were the ones that knew what was actually happening. No families in person. Sad phone calls trying to educate about mechanical ventilation, paralytic medications, PEEP, nitric oxide, proning, kidney failure, liver failure, clotting, chest tube insertions from pneumothorax, death. FaceTimes with loved ones that no longer looked like themselves but swollen faces with tubes and tubing all over them. Saying goodbye to mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, husbands, loved ones digitally. Knowing that after death came to that patient the bed would soon be filled and there wasn’t time to grieve and support the family adequately. Provide comfort and peace as best as you could and move on to the next sick patient.
Then came hope in December in the shape of a vaccine. I cried as I received it. The load began to lighten the end of February beginning of March and I turned in my notice. I needed to find my passion for nursing again. Was it really the same all over the country? Did every hospital ignore the cries for help from its nurses? Not put a focus on providing nurses with a safe clean environment in order to care for the critically ill patients they have been charged with looking after? Traveling has shown me so far that there are so many smart, funny, passionate nurses everywhere I’ve been. They are all doing the best they can with the tools they have. A lot of them are leaving.
Who will care for you when the nurses leave because they are tired of being mistreated? They are tired of being called a liar. Tired of being ignored and not treated like professionals. They are tired and scared that even though there is a vaccine for COVID there are people refusing it and there is a more viral and toxic variant of Covid that is taking advantage of that decision. The delta variant is becoming the most prominent strain in several states. States with low vaccination rates. I don’t think I can do COVID again. If it becomes a wave like last year I will be done at the bedside. I have to much loss to work through to fight again and lose and lose and lose and lose and lose and…..
