Q: Can you describe your current employment?
A: I am an ICU nurse.
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Q: How was your workplace and medical specialty affected by COVID-19?
A: Our workplace was completely affected by it. We started seeing patients with pneumonia in February and March, and then it got worse and worse throughout the months. We saw a lot of COVID patients from the ICU all the way down to Med Surg.
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Q: Was there a particular patient or day or week that stays with you?
A: Just when COVID was coming out, I was becoming an RRT nurse, which is a rapid response nurse—a type of nurse that helps other nurses when they need anything. So it was brand new, and I was brand new being it, and a lot of nurses were calling me because patients had low oxygen levels and they didn't know what to do. On one shift, I helped intubate somebody, and that patient had a cardiac arrest. And then that patient passed away. And it happened so fast that it scared me. It made it clear that this was a new virus and something that we didn't know how to deal with.
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Q: Was there anything else during the initial months that scared or frightened or angered you?
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A: I guess not knowing what the virus was, and the administration of the hospital really not knowing what it was either. At one point, one of the infectious disease nurses asked us not to wear the N95s because it was scaring patients, but we kept on wearing them because we knew it was the only thing that could protect us.
Q: How were you or your family personally impacted by COVID-19?
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A: The earliest thing I can remember was that when it first started, I stayed at a hotel for about a week because I was so scared to be home and infect them. But I just couldn't take being away from them. And then a couple of months later, we learned it was safe to go home and we just had to be very careful. I came home and started taking off my scrubs in the garage and running to the shower so I wouldn't touch them or infect them.
Q: How did you handle everything you had to deal with? Was there any routine or regime that you created to de-stress or detach yourself from what you were seeing?
A: A little bit. I listened to a lot of music. I tried to run, escape for a little while, talk to my husband and play with my kids as much as I could to kind of distract myself from everything.
Q: How have things progressed in the last few months? Are you receiving fewer patients with COVID-19?
A: Thankfully, yes. I think because of the vaccine and the hospital, we're at where we are at. That population was hit very hard early on. And I think many of them got vaccinated. So our hospital is not seeing as many COVID patients, especially in the ICU. They went all the way down to one and now we have maybe ten, which is hopeful.
Q: What are your hopes for a post-pandemic world?
A: I think this is going to be like the flu. I think it’s going to come around seasonally, so I hope that we can get a better handle on it and the treatment gets better so that people who do contract it are not dying from it—they're just sick, and then they get better. Hopefully that's what happens.
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Q: Is there anything you want future generations or future nurses or doctors to know about handling another pandemic?
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A: I think you have to listen to science. Opinions should not be fact, and you should just listen to what the scientists have to say and trust them. This is what they do. This is what they studied for; this is what their whole career is for. We should just listen to what they say and be grateful for people like them.
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Q: Are you planning to continue with your field?
A: Yes, hopefully I will be an ICU nurse for a long time. But I will say that this has impacted me, so I might not stay as long as I would have.