A typical shift for me, a healthcare worker on the frontlines, looks like this…
(This is my account, written in the second person. This is not meant to be an exact account of every worker, as all of us on the frontlines work in different areas, come from different backgrounds, and have on our shifts, different experiences. I assure you, however, that we are bound together by our passion to serve and that we are all affected by many of the same feelings expressed here. We are ALL Tired.)
You arrive to the hospital 30 minutes before your shift. You need 15 minutes to sit in your car and mentally prepare. Listening to soothing music, meditating or reading funny memes, you try your best to decompress before popping your trunk- That’s where all your work things live now… in your contaminated trunk. You grab your bag, lunch box, and designated ‘work water bottle’ and then tie a cloth mask to your face- a beautifully crafted gift by an former coworker.
Walking through the empty parking lots, you pass tents and trailers that will serve as overflow space, if you run out of beds inside. The same front doors that you’ve been walking through for 17 years, are now locked. And the entrance that is normally bustling with people, is blocked off and deserted. Security officers check your badge before you’re allowed to enter.
There are no tanks or landmines, rifles or camouflage, and you’ve never been in the military, but you feel like you’re entering a war zone. Around you, everyone is masked and many wear devices that make identifying the faces and voices of people you’ve worked with for years, a challenge. You’ve worked these same halls your entire professional career and now it feels like you’re on the set of a scary movie. New walls have been put up, units moved, you are in the same familiar work place and yet it’s so different. It feels like you’re standing in an different dimension, watching the world end. But you’re not…you’re saving it. Taking a deep breath, you press the button for the 2nd floor- Labor and Delivery.
In the locker room, you change into hospital scrubs and replace your pretty, soft, cloth mask with a surgical one that you’ve worn now for days. Your head is covered and a face-shield is attached to your waist for easy access, as you shuffle out to the floor. An announcement is made to clear the nurses’ station. There can’t be too many people in one place, so only the oncoming shift is allowed to stay. Standing 6 feet apart, you get report and learn of the latest findings and practices; because quite frankly, they change daily. Based on your assignment, you determine what other gear you’re going to don for the night. As the shift disperses to relieve the aching faces that worked the twelve hours before you, you each say a quiet prayer to yourselves that your next twelve allow you all to make it home safe in the morning.
Only those who know OB or who have been touched by loss know that Labor and Delivery isn’t always “the happy place,” that people like to call it. And working as a perinatal bereavement coordinator couldn’t bring you any closer to the raw and devastating losses that are sometimes felt there… and yet you are crying new tears of grief these days.
Some of the reasons are quite frankly, because of prudence and good practice on the part of your institution. You are incredibly thankful to work for an institution that has proper PPE for its staff and uses science to dictate proper procedure. And you can’t imagine the terror of working without it. Despite the limited knowledge available about the virus and despite the global shortage of supplies, your institution and your state are working hard to combat both challenges; and you believe they are doing an excellent job! Fortunate as you are though, it doesn’t make it easy.
It’s not easy when…
Your sweet little twenty-some year old patient, afraid as she was to deliver alone says, “I’m glad you’re here with me… I think you took care of me before… but I’m not sure because I can’t see your face.” What a scene this must be for patients here to welcome their new little bundles.
A single mom elects to deliver with no support because in doing so, she would have denied the baby’s father a right to come. One visitor-no swapping out. These are basic infection control principles… that sadly affect some more than others. And you are the “lucky ones”- other units have no visitors.
A father paces the room and finally cries when he sees his baby because Dads are not allowed in the Operating Room anymore…and her C-section meant his inability to see his child enter the world.
A covid-positive patient is forced to labor and deliver alone, medical staff only. We must keep the other parent/caregiver uninfected to be able to care for the baby.
A mother holds her stillborn or a husband, his dying wife’s hand and they know there will be no family called in to say good-bye and no funeral. There will be no gathering of friends and family for support. And they will go home to an empty house to grieve, because god help them if they lose another.
You are pulled to an area of the hospital you’ve never worked before and you feel like a fish-out-of-water, but you can’t even complain because you see that your colleagues are drowning. You do everything you can to help them- running labs, wiping hoods, holding hands… They most assuredly have it worse and you are tired and sad for them.
Your throat hurts from talking so loud for 12 hours, because no one can hear you under all that gear. It takes 3x as long to interpret using a video/phone translator and the hearing impaired are at a clear disadvantage without having lips to read.
You sweat for hours under the layers of PPE. And your face and ears ache. Yet you know that not everyone is as fortunate. Former colleagues across the country are posting about having none and while you are so thankful to have protection against this deadly virus, you also hate the gear, and you feel guilty for doing so.
Dehydrated and hungry, it’s hard to grab a quick drink or a bite to eat, when running into the break room means “waiting your turn” (because yes, healthcare workers too, socially distance, even when they’re at work). And properly removing your gear so as not to contaminate yourself, requires two people and precision. The only plus to not drinking, is that you don’t have to pee.
In emergencies in the past, you’ve delivered babies with your bare hands and held a woman’s sweating face so close, that you could feel her breath on your own… You’re not a squeamish or fearful person. But now, you can’t respond without a respirator and a face shield- because if you don’t preserve your own safety, there’ll be no one left to care for the Mommas still waiting to deliver. And it goes against every nurse instinct inside you to put yourself before your patient.
You love your job. It’s the job you dreamed to have since you were a young girl… and yet now, you dread going in. The “Heroes Work Here” sign posted in front of the hospital is sweet and the free meals are amazing. The support from the community has been unprecedented! As always, you are proud to be a nurse and are honored to work alongside the other healthcare workers. But this job is both mentally and physically depleting, every time!
You see what this virus can do and you are just as afraid of accidentally transmitting it as you are of contracting it.
At the end of the shift, when you’re exhausted, you’ll change back into your street clothes (always leggings because they cling and don’t drag, a designated “work jacket” and different shoes). You’ll save your surgical mask in a paper bag while you put your cloth one back on to walk to your car. It’s a welcome change, to get that damp-with-breath paper off your face, even for a short walk. Returning your things to the trunk, you are finally free to remove your mask and welcome the cool air hitting your face. You sanitize your hands again before you do so and before you grab the wheel. Driving home from night shift is no longer your final task and you dread “more things to do”, when you just want to collapse in your bed.
Just inside your back-door, a towel and bleach wipes will be waiting for you to clean your shoes. Then you kick them off, remove your socks and walk downstairs to the laundry room-careful not to touch any of your family or pets that have come to greet you. The towel, your clothes and cloth mask go straight into the wash and you, straight to the shower. Having scrubbed every inch of your body, finally, you can kiss your family. And you fall asleep with wet hair.
Each day before a work shift, other dirty clothes are loaded into the washer to avoid wasting water on small loads the following morning. And when you leave out the house, you are jacket-less, precariously carrying food items and coffee out to the car, so as not to bring your lunch box inside. Make-up is a no-go because it dirties the mask that you are now required to re-use (not-a-one-of-you imagined that would ever happen in the US of A). Jewelry too- gets left at home now. Even your showering and shaving schedule is adjusted, based on when you work. It seems your every-move, now revolves around this virus.
In between shifts, you have your own kids that you are home-schooling, your own family you beg not to infect, your own creative meals to make with groceries you last bought weeks ago, your own challenges and worries that are just part of being human. And like everyone else, you are trying to stay sane- and those are your “days off.”
As you mindlessly scroll through social media and the news, you see herds of protestors, un-masked, demanding that the country/state re-open. Your heart aches because you know that they are desperate for work and you know how blessed you are to have a paycheck. And yet, with that paycheck comes great risk. “Healthcare workers are Heroes” suddenly feels like a stab in the back, when these reckless acts, threaten the very thing you are working so hard to prevent-transmission. Because you know how tired you all are now. You know that WITH the quarantine, you are all treading water… and if it were lifted right now, you’d drown. You’d do anything to keep people out of your ICUs and yet, you wish you could show them what it’s like-to be on a vent, to be alone, to die alone; not to scare them… but to protect them! The same way you used to scream at your kids when they ran into the street, you want to scream at the protestors, but you’re too tired.
You see the complaints of the people “stuck at home” with their kids and you know that your patients who have had recent losses are seeing the same posts… your patients with infertility are seeing the same posts… your friends who are living alone… are seeing these same posts… and you want to scold them for their insensitivity and lack of perspective… but you know their exhaustion as a parent is real… and you’re tired, too.
You hear the conspiracy theories and inaccurate statements “It’s just a flu”, “People will die anyway…”, “The government is taking away our liberty”… and you want to school them on why this is different, on public safety, on how to control the spread, on how to save as many lives as possible, on the sanctity of life over money… but you’re too tired.
You want to say forget it, “survival of the smartest,” let the protestors and the ignorant get their due infection … but you can’t… because you’re a nurse… and nurses fight for every life! And you don’t want anymore people to die… even the ones who don’t understand. And that grief and that conflict makes you tired.
So you turn off your phone and you wipe away another tear and you pray.
You pray that someone helps these people who are about to lose their homes and businesses.
You pray that your next shift isn’t the day you watch someone die alone.
You pray that your service doesn’t bring this virus home and lead to the demise of your family members.
You pray that you never see the day that the critically ill out-number the available equipment.
You pray that you continue to have the strength to fight this war…
Because you know, that for every healthcare worker who reluctantly and exhaustedly puts on and wipes off their shoes every day- no job, no house, no amount of money, or government position… for them, nothing matters more than life. And you pray to preserve as many as you can… eventhough… you are so god awful, tired.
