"I’m not sure what going to war feels like but, in my mind, this feels like war." Given that most of our staff has not been in the military, these are strong words to hear from the bedside nurses. When it seemed like the entire world shut down, nurses stood up; especially the nurses on our 6 Med Surg team at Mercy St Louis. Hearing that this feels like war, tugs on a lot of our leadership’s heart strings. It is so true.

Our nurses raised up to the challenge of whatever was thrown at them the past two plus years during the COVID pandemic. Not one time did our team complain that we were the unit that was chosen to be “The COVID Unit” of the hospital. From just starting out as one hallway full of COVID patients to then moving on to have 57+ COVID patients; we rose to the challenge. From knowing that there was a higher chance that we could contract COVID and spread it to our loved ones; we rose to the challenge. From having our faces break out from the frequent use of N95 masks and face shields; we rose to the challenge. From having our hearts broken with tears in our eyes, day in and day out, and seeing so much death on our floor; we rose to the challenge. From having to place multiple deceased patients in shrouds with no room in the morgue; we rose to the challenge. From having multiple rapid response teams occurring at the same time for codes on our floor; we rose to the challenge. From having multiple patients who are critically ill with few ICU beds available and having to make decisions on who the “sickest” patients were; we rose to the challenge. From taking sicker patients that we normally wouldn’t have on our floor; we rose to the challenge. From having to shuffle patients around day and night to keep COVID patients on certain hallways; we rose to the challenge. When a COVID+ patient would celebrate their birthday with us, our coworkers took it upon themselves to order a cake and make birthday cards for them. Coworkers also OK’d it with the patients to call their families on an iPad so they could celebrate with us. A special time on 6 Med Surg was when a new mother who had just delivered a few days prior was admitted to our floor while her husband was critically ill in our ICU with COVID and her new baby was in the NICU with COVID at a different hospital. This new mom was facing the unimaginable but our team again rose to the challenge. With the mom’s permission, we made a photo board of family/new baby pictures for her husband’s room. Since mom was not able to visit her husband, coworkers rose to the challenge to visit him and bring it to him.

Every day our nurses arrived on the floor ready to go into battle. The teamwork and compassion they showed for one another were nothing short of amazing. They prayed for our patients and each other. They held the patients’ hands and took the place of family that could not be by their side. They lifted each other up when they felt like the stress of it all was too much. If you ever had to go to war, this is the team that you would want by your side. Now that COVID cases are settling down, I don’t want our team and their efforts to go unnoticed. We, the 6 Med Surg leaders, would like to nominate the 6 Med Surg team for their outstanding efforts against the COVID war. Without this amazing team, we would have crumbled. Our teammates are what kept us going strong throughout the past two years. Although we were at “war”, the care provided to our patients was not any less. From holding the hands of the dying to brushing patients’ hair that was matted from intubation for so long, our nurses did it all.