What the pandemic of COVID-19 has brought to us as nurses: fear of the unknown, fear of the known, urgency, increased tasks and decreased personnel; higher acuity levels of the remaining, non-COVID patients in this calm before the storm. With this frenzied pace, knowledge, and procedure changing by the minute, it would be easy for little things to get over-looked.
What might be over-looked is what COVID-19 has brought to our patients and their families: panic of being exposed to the virus, fear of their own symptoms...and what I believe is the most devastating of all, being separated at the time they need each other the most.
In the middle of an extraordinarily busy shift, I noticed Latrica take a call from a very nervous, frightened, and upset spouse of a patient. She listened to all of his concerns and relayed all the proper information about hospital policy and procedure. But what she heard was that this couple of probably 45 plus years truly were lost and scared without each other. What she did was absolutely brilliant. She took the time and found a way to get two non-tech savvy, older, frightened people and put them as face-to-face as they could be on what was probably their first video call ever. You could hear the relief and joy in their voices when they saw each other and tell one another it will be all right.
As Mother Teresa said, "Not all of us can do great things, but we can all do small things with great love." Latrica goes above and beyond, not only caring for all her patients beautifully but truly getting to the heart of what matters most to them. Latrica is such a special nurse and co-worker.