Good Grief

I am selfish. I grieve for my travel plans that were lost and my family I cannot see. I remember when I called my mom and broke the news that my unit would be a COVID unit. All I saw first was myself. Concerns like "I cannot believe this is happening," "What about my health or my roommates?" My mom then cut me off mid sentence and said, "Kelsey, think about the people who have it."

My heart sank. She pulled me back in. She's good at that.

I start my shifts still going in and introducing myself. I hold their hands and tell them that my heart aches for them, too. I hold their hands and tell them that I wish I could take this all away. I hold their hands and squat down so that they can see my eyes peeping through the shields and masks and I tell them that we are going to get through this together. 

Sometimes it works; oftentimes, it does not.

Shift #4

Assessments are key here. I have four patients. All stable on their liters of oxygen per minute. One patient has maxed out at 15L/min of oxygen on a nonrebreather, the mask that gives a higher concentration of oxygen. His oxygen for now is 92%. If he drops below 90%, he will most likely require intubation.

The shift is still the calm chaos for the morning. I am lucky to have a window so that I can check on my patients often and see their chest rise and fall, all while preparing myself for the worst case scenario.

By 4pm I take a minute to assess my unit. We are grumpy and frustrated. Saturations are declining, fevers are spiking, phones are going off the hook for the families we want to give our time to but simply cannot. When we are not doing for our patients, we are doing for ourselves and for our teammates. If I have a calm(er) morning and I see Nurse Jane struggling or admissions coming in, I am helping out. If I have a minute, I am peeing, I am scrubbing my hands, I am chugging water (coffee), I am inhaling food.

Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. That is what I saw for shift 4. I saw a man in his 60s with no comorbidities in the prone position gasping for air. Oxygen levels are dropping. He could only be on his left side to catch a breath. This man has a family out there. This man is probably someone's whole life and they aren't aware of what is going on here.

I feel helpless. Nothing I do is saving them and I feel it all. I feel it for my patients. I feel it for their family members. I feel it for my coworkers.