Light and Dark

Three Shifts
There is something unique about working three days in a row as a nurse. I enter this vortex and often ask questions like "did I give this medication already? or was that yesterday?" The best part about working three days in a row is I build relationships with my patients for three days.
I believe that God gave me a mental break when I worked my three shifts. My patients were stable. All six (yes, I know what you're thinking too. I had to protect and advocate for SIX patients with COVID) of my patients progressed over the span of 3 days.
I got to witness the clinical trial Remdesivir be administered and make people feel better when Plaquenil was not working. I clapped when patients were being discharged. I did a victory dance at the nurses station when my patient safely weaned off the non-rebreather mask to a nasal cannula of 6 liters to then 4 liters.

This is why I became a nurse. I get my energy by not only helping people but by making them feel good. I thought COVID had robbed me of that, but not with my patients this week.
One patient turned to me and told me when he gets out of the hospital, he wants to hug me so tight. I told him any other day, I'd allow it. During my three shifts, I saw glimpses of hope and light. There still was some darkness, but I was able to see specks of light that I did not think I'd find in the midst of this storm. 

There is still a storm.
Those were just my six patients. We still are a unit of 36 COVID patients. I sat at the nurses station and listened to the physicians have the conversation that no person wants to hear.
“Your father, your sister, your son, your husband are showing signs that they are in the final hours of their life.”
I have had comfort care patients in the past. I’ve hugged family members and let them cry on my shoulders. I’ve prayed with family members over my dying patients and blessed them into their next life. 

That is how death is supposed to be.
This is what COVID has robbed the population of. No visitors can see their loved ones in palliative care because of the potential spread of Coronavirus.
My coworkers and I are setting up FaceTimes on our personal phones so that loved ones can say goodbye. One nurse on our unit wheeled her COVID patient in stable condition to the COVID ICU so that he could say goodbye to his wife who was in critical condition.
When I do post-mortem care, I always thank and pray over the bodies for holding the souls that walked this earth.
One of the worst parts is that I am seeing so much of this that I am starting to numb myself to it.
Ethics. That is the one word that has been drilled into healthcare workers in training and work. 

Covid has robbed my ethical reasoning. My patient that I wrote about previously with esophageal cancer and COVID was in his final hours of life. The physicians had phone conversations over “Do we let him die comfortably, or do we intubate and use a ventilator?”
COVID has robbed us of equipment. When I learned that the healthcare proxy told us to take all life-saving measures, my automatic thought was “This is someone's spot for a ventilator.”
I hate that COVID is making me think this way. My morale is running low.