When our staff thinks of COVID these days so many words have a new or deeper meaning. Some of the words that came to mind are teamwork, fear, emotional and physical endurance, heat, sweat, isolation, exhaustion, stress, and PPE are a part of our everyday world as we have never experienced before.
Teamwork has a new definition. We have always worked as a team but Rebekah Greenwood had to create a new nursing model to be used during this pandemic to help provide quality care for our patients. Nurses, nurses' aides, respiratory therapists, physicians, unit secretaries, x-ray, and lab have all joined together as one team. Our nursing skills and critical thinking skills have sharpened because our COVID patients decompensate so quickly and again this is like no other illness we have experienced. Our primary nurse has taken on the role of other departments in the hospital to decrease exposure, so we have learned to appreciate the role of those areas.
Fear is seen in our patients and our nurses. It has been heartbreaking to see a patient feel so isolated and stuck in a room all alone and not be able to see their families. We had a 93-year-old patient who we knew was not going to make it. We called his daughter and gave her permission to come to sit with him. She made arrangements to come first thing in the morning and the nurses wept as he took his last breath during the night. The sadness of watching a husband and wife (both patients) wave at each other through ICU glass doors as we are passing to the next room only days before that husband passed away. Did they know it would be the last time they would see each other? Fear of our family members who do not want to come around us as we have potentially been exposed to COVID. Fear that we may take the virus home to our children, spouses, or parents. Many staff members had separated from their families until we could just not survive emotionally without them in our lives. The one thing that we will all remember is the constant look of fear in the eyes of our patients. It is true fear questioning if they will live or die. The compassion I have witnessed overflows. I can assure you that not one patient on our unit faced death without someone at their side. We are the surrogate family and we take that role seriously. I cannot say enough about our nurse techs that have been right by our patients' side the entire time.
We have all worked long hours and extra days as we are nurses and want to help take care of our community. That is our calling and it is what is in our hearts. The staff volunteered for this job, no one had to make them do it. It is who they are. We are hot in our PPE, often soaked with sweat but we keep on going. Although mentally and physically exhausted we will continue on this journey, 2020 "the year of the nurse".
Stress comes in so many forms. We have the stress of long hours aggravated by exhaustion. Many employees have also gotten COVID some with a harder recovery than others. We have family members that we have not seen since March. The staff has to support each other for no one else really knows what this is like until they are directly involved and we pray that you do not have to experience it. Our reward occurs every time we roll a patient out to their car, the prize, a success. We cry with our losses and rejoice with our wins. We start each morning with a prayer for anyone that wants to join, it gives us comfort and direction.