Tag: covid

Part 2 Covid for Me

If Covid has taught us anything, it should be to love others, be an active participant in your life, and not procrastinate living.

In the course of caring for patients, many nurses have contracted Covid. It is an inherent risk of the personal patient care setting. We reach toward and push aside caution to ensure that our patients and their families have the best that we can give. From the very beginning of Covid, each one of us knew the risk. August 2021 was my turn.

On a Friday in August, Covid snuck itself into my body. The following Tuesday came the realization that after 20 months of working with Covid patients, I was now a Covid patient. I have comorbidities that put me in a higher risk category. I do not regret my choices nor my sacrifice. All we have is the care we give to others and the sacrifices we make to better the lives of those around us. My faith is strong, and my support system is on a firm foundation.

I didn’t feel great, but I didn’t feel horrible. I admit to a false sense of security that my Covid was a mild case, and like I have done my whole life, I continued to care for my family and my responsibilities.
The following Sunday, I noticed a change. I felt worse, and my cough was a little wetter, my fatigue more impairing. We knew I needed to be seen by Monday, so we took our first trip to the ER. Labs, chest x-ray, IV fluids, breathing treatments were administered, and we all felt comfortable for my return home.
Unfortunately, we still have an incomplete picture of how Covid attacks the body. After months of caring for Covid patients and now after having it myself, I believe that Covid attacks the central nervous system as it causes generalized inflammation in the body. While all tests indicated I was holding my own, my body wasn’t so confident. As I became sicker I lost track of time at home, as my appetite dwindled, I became more lethargic, forgetting to hydrate. My time became a heavy blanket that dragged me down, making every effort feel like I was wading through the ocean. By Wednesday, we knew we had to return to the ER. Once again, Vern dropped me off at the doors and waited in the parking lot while tests were performed. This time it was clear that the inflammation was overcoming my lung’s ability to function.


Covid pneumonia covers the inside of the lungs with a spiderweb of infiltrates, causing tightness and pain when breathing. As a result, it becomes difficult for your body to oxygenate, and your oxygen saturation levels drop. If not caught and treated quickly, the body starts to experience failure. There are specific lab values that we identify as markers for severe covid disease. Ferritin and LDH levels spike, liver enzymes indicate acute liver damage, severe dehydration and hypoxia set in, and the heart bears the stress of circulatory collapse. In turn, pain increases, appetite diminishes, and lethargy is so complete that even drinking fluids is too much. This is about the time that the emotional and psychological despair sets in, and you begin to contemplate what the future holds. It isn’t a good headspace, and for those who are severely ill, on high-flow, have dealt with long-term chronic illness, being secluded in their room without the support of friends and family, the will to live can start to slip away.


I was admitted to Med-Surg on low-flow oxygen, and we started to work on getting me through the next few days. We threw every treatment we had at Covid. I can’t speak highly enough about my coworkers and friends; they are amazing at their jobs and wonderfully caring. Even though I was in isolation, I was being checked on and cared for. Day 3 was the hardest, and I spent quite a bit of that day in tears feeling alone and sad. I felt loneliness, despair, and immense sadness.


My hospitalization lasted 4 days. On the 4th day, we decided that it would be better for my mental health to be home with my family. I was still on oxygen, but we could set up resources, and I went home.
Going home didn’t fix things. I was still sick, still weak, and my family was still battling Covid. It would be 15 days of oxygen, a cardiac echo, doctor’s appointments, chest x-ray, CT scan, and lung function testing. Others have had their own journey that has taken longer, or was more severe.

I’m happy to say we have all recovered. You could say I was blessed or lucky; however, I have worked diligently using nutrition, homeopathy, herbs, and essential oils to both prevent illness and give my body the tools to fight infection should it occur. I utilized my resources and went for help when I worsened. I didn’t wait because I knew waiting increases severity and the risk of intubation and death. As I told my friends and family, Covid was not winning this fight! Do not doubt that I know things could have been different. There is no guarantee in this life.

This post is dedicated to those fighting disease and those that support them. No matter what we do in life, disease finds us. Illness occurs. Covid is just one of hundreds of diseases that change our lives. No one is exempt. I do not know why some are cured, and others are not. Nor do I understand why some live and some die. What I do know is that no matter the challenge we face, those who love us help us carry our burdens and help bring us peace and joy. I can’t thank those special people in our lives enough. They are truly angels!!!!

Part 1 Being a Nurse During Covid

 

*Disclaimer: I will not waiver that personal autonomy and informed choice is a human right. No one has the right to coerce, threaten, mandate, or legalize away the right of each of us to choose our risk. I do not have to agree with your choices to support the right to determine what risks and benefits are acceptable in your decision-making.   

There are many activities that humans participate in where they have chosen their comfort with risk, yet other humans find those activities too risky. I have no desire to skydive, swim with sharks, free climb a cliff, ride a motorcycle, race a car, use tobacco, use marijuana, etc. For me, those carry too much risk. However, I had several children; I became a nurse, stopped for and ran toward accidents, broke up fights, and defended a victim, putting my safety at risk. Personal risk evaluation is just that, personal. No one can tell you what risk ratio is appropriate for you.  

The hospital is a hard place to be for staff and patients right now. We have lived in a constant state of stress and anxiety. Restrictions in the name of Covid and safety have removed support from friends and family that often grounds us and helps us feel safe when we are sick. We have forsaken therapeutic touch and empathy for patient isolation and PPE, setting restrictions and limitations where people need humanity. The fear and politics of Covid have created a system of isolation so complete that some patients would rather go home to die than sit behind a closed door fighting to breathe. The very thought of being isolated from friends and loved ones is so debilitating that patients refuse medical help or leave AMA to continue to have access to that support system.  

Nurses are used to working around hospital politics and red tape while advocating for their patients. The current environment goes beyond these limitations and creates daily moral and ethical challenges that drain us emotionally and psychologically.  Every shift comes with the knowledge that we are short-staffed and do not have the resources to care for our patients the way they need us to care for them.  

I know some amazing nurses, and yet no superpower on earth can make time slow or create resources out of air. While doing our best is not enough, it is all we have to give, and we have given our all every shift for the past year and a half.   We are required to stretch ourselves beyond the stretchable in the name of sacrifice.  What started in March 2020 has turned into a constant draw of energy that has brought us to our surge capacity both emotionally and psychologically.  

Interestingly one of the arguments for our continued sacrifice comes from the choice to become a nurse, as if obtaining a nursing degree automatically makes one a permanent martyr for the sake of the medical system’s greater good. I don’t know about you, but no nurse on this planet could have foreseen Covid when they chose nursing for their degree. The very fact that choosing nursing as a profession equates to sacrifice of ones mental and physical health highlights why nurses are leaving bedside critical care and choosing travel and contract nursing. AT some point, we have to take our advice and focus on our physical, emotional, psychological, and familial health.