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Death, Through A Nurse’s Eyes
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We’re approaching a full year of life with SARS-CoV-2. I distinctly remember the week last summer when the nation’s attention shifted from pandemic and supporting health care workers to matters of social justice, as the first surge waned and the issue of police brutality reclaimed the spotlight. I remember the letters of support, yard signs, and food shipments to the nurse’s lounges becoming less frequent, before they stopped altogether. I remember thinking, well of course, it’s the natural progression of things, care fatigue and short collective attention span. I remember thinking how the stress and trauma our nurses were experiencing hadn’t really changed, but how well they’ve adapted, and how adaptation only came through repeated exposure and conditioning, by living in this alternate universe almost round the clock. I remember thinking then, more than ever before, that I could never do the job of an ICU nurse, for more reasons than I care to list. I remember thinking every day, literally, I don’t know how they can do this job, and how fortunate I was to be in my shoes and not theirs, even when it felt like my job was unsustainable.

At the peaks of hospitalization, I’d have anywhere from fifty to seventy patients, the majority COVID, and the majority of those, vented or on the precipice. I spent my days ping-ponging around the hospital, putting out fires, managing acute decompensations, intubating, admitting and occasionally downgrading patients, and it wasn’t lost on me that the ratio of patients-to-me being so high was protective in ways that the nurses didn’t have. They worked 2 or 3 to 1, two or three patients per nurse, meaning they spent the entire day, day after day, physically and emotionally taking care of just those patients, knowing full well they’d most likely die in their care despite their efforts. It’s a hard thing to wrap your head around, emotionally, unless you spend time in that space and for that duration. My hardest days without question aren’t the days when I don’t sit for 12 hours, log a dozen procedures, bouncing from code blue to code blue, but the slower days when I’d spend more up close and personal time talking to patients as people, and their children, and parents, and siblings, and then watching them die, one after another after another, and watching their nurses treat them like their own family, already connected to them on a human to human level, experiencing the pain of their deaths in ways different from everyone else in the unit. What these nurses in particular have endured over the last year is truly incomprehensible for most people, and thank god for that.

Take 15 minutes of your day, watch this short film, and see a glimpse of what it looks and feels like through their eyes, and understand that it barely scratches the surface of their experiences and trauma. If you have a nurse friend or family or neighbor who’s been caring for these patients, reach out to them, ask them if they’d like to talk or just offer them your support and appreciation. They are stronger than most but not indestructible.



The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W
Last edited by: sphere: Feb 25, 21 13:21
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Re: Death, Through A Nurse’s Eyes [sphere] [ In reply to ]
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It is a valuable point. The pain is diffused when you don't spend so much time one on one with one person. On the other hand the sheer volume of sick and dying people you see can get quite overwealming.

They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

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Re: Death, Through A Nurse’s Eyes [sphere] [ In reply to ]
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That was very sad. The vast majority have no idea what these ICU nurses go through daily. There are still about 2,500 people dying from covid every day. The horror has become so common it's dulled people's senses to the point they don't even seem to care.

Hopefully as the people most likely to be seriously impacted are vaccinated the tremendous burden these nurses face with significantly decrease.

Don

Tri-ing to have fun. Anything else is just a bonus!
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Re: Death, Through A Nurse’s Eyes [sphere] [ In reply to ]
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Continual exposure to death. Watching people die over and over again. Being a part of that 'process.'


It eats at you.


Stronger men & women than you or I have gone before us in our respective professions. They 'came home' and made a life. You can too.

Reach out if you need to talk brother

Steve
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Re: Death, Through A Nurse’s Eyes [sphere] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks for posting. There are certain jobs where even when shown and explained, I don’t think I can fully comprehend what it would be like. I am fairly positive I wouldn’t be able to cope in the medical field right now. As mentioned in the clip and by Steve above, I hope there are mental health services made available to everyone both now and especially in the aftermath.

As the absolute coincidence of the year for me, my wife woke up and came out to tell me her test result just came back positive, literally as I was typing the above. Fever started Tuesday and got tested on Thursday. Relatively speaking, we’ve been careful. There are only 2 ways she could have gotten it. Served at church last Sunday (kids program only - no adults, they drop kids off at the curb) or I’m asymptomatic and brought it home from work (grocery).
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Re: Death, Through A Nurse’s Eyes [TimeIsUp] [ In reply to ]
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I’m sorry to hear that. I hope she and you run an uneventful course. This disease is just so strange in how it can manifest. I tested positive back in November, and within a week or two developed bilateral lateral epicondylitis (“tennis elbow”) and cervical radiculopathy, pretty much out of nowhere. I was working out, cautiously, within a week of diagnosis and it just flared up and has only gotten worse since. My right elbow feels frozen after weeks of relative immobility and it takes daily heat and NSAIDs to get it moving again. I have no other explanation for it than systemic inflammation from the virus. But I can’t complain too much given what catastrophic complications can develop with infection.

I had posted in my main thread on COVID in my ICU about a colleague who had contracted it presumably from a patient. He was a admitted, stayed on the med-surg floor for a week or so and never escalated to critical care level, but it took a physical toll. His energy level and breathing never quite recovered to his baseline, and his work schedule resumed as it was previously once he returned. I recently left the group for another job when I relocated south, and heard shortly after during a group zoom meeting (I stayed on part time) that he’s no longer with the practice and won’t be coming back. They didn’t give details but I spoke with him after. He’s got a history of childhood trauma and subsequent substance abuse, and had been in recovery for over a decade. He relapsed, no doubt in large part due to the trauma of practice in a large COVID ICU for the last 10 months, and went to an inpatient rehab facility. He will recover but as a second strike on his medical license, he likely won’t be practicing clinically again. He’s one of the smartest and most compassionate doctors I know, and he’s been destroyed by this virus. It’s tragic beyond words, and he’s just one of the thousands of health care professionals who’s been catastrophically affected. Those casualties aren’t reflected in the death toll ticker running on cable news, but they’re equally devastating.

The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W
Last edited by: sphere: Feb 27, 21 7:22
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