I have worked my last shift here in New York City. The past month has definitely been one of the most challenging and stressful months of my life and I am ready to come home. I can say with confidence that I have no regrets and I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity I had to serve and help here for the past four weeks. I have had such a tremendous amount of love and support from friends, family, colleagues and people that I haven't even met. I promise you that I have felt all the love and support that everyone gave me and it has really carried me through some rough days and weeks.
I feel so fortunate that things went the way they did for me. When I first made the decision to come help, I thought I would be most useful in the Emergency Department. I have experience as an ER nurse and as a paramedic firefighter I am used to fast pace critical care. When I got to New York the hospital said they were in desperate need of ICU nurses and asked if I was willing to work as an ICU nurse. Nervously, I said yes. This opportunity is what I am most grateful for. This gave me the opportunity to treat the sickest Covid patients every day and honestly, I almost feel like I was groomed through all my experiences as a paramedic, Cath lab nurse and ER nurse to handle this situation and actually excel in it. From day 1 I have felt like an asset and have felt like I was contributing and making a difference. I do not know if I would have been able to make the same impact in the ER as I feel like I did as an ICU nurse.
I would like to give a summary of my experience starting with week one and following the progression of the crisis and changes that I witnessed each week as we figured things out and started to make a difference.
That first week was straight out of a horror movie. As I walked onto the unit for my first shift, I felt like I was in a war-zone. Every room had two vented patients and nurses and other staff members were just running around room to room. You could hear so many different voices yelling out and screaming for supplies that they needed or extra hands to help a crashing patient. There were so many alarms from vents, monitors and IV pumps you could not tell which were what and where they were coming from. The noise, panic and chaos was so palpable. I have never seen chaos like this before and hope I never do again.
Each patient was on anywhere from 6-10 IV drips that were keeping them sedated and keeping their blood pressure high enough to support organ function. The second one of these drips would run out and for the few seconds it took to replace the bag with a new one the patients would start to deteriorate. So much medication was needed just to keep the patients stable. The main job during my first week was trying running room to room making sure my drips were full and that the patients were still tolerating the rate that they were set at. I would spend so much time changing my drip rates until I was able to keep a patient stable. At the end of each shift I was so drained mentally and emotionally from the stress of keeping everyone alive. I would also have to suction out the ET tubes of each patient at least once an hour, if not the patients o2 sats would start to drop. My unit only had 2 respiratory therapists for the 30 intubated patients that we had.
That first week I was usually assigned 3 or 4 patients to take care of each shift. I had at least one of my patient die each shift for that first week. This was so emotionally devastating. There were a couple of times I honestly asked myself if it was something that I was doing wrong. I got back to my apartment one morning and almost broke down. I was thinking of everything I was doing and wondering if there was a common denominator or something I was or was not doing that was contributing to all this death. I mentioned this to one of my charge nurses and she teared up and told me “I promise, we have all been there. It’s not you. It’s COVID”. I was very grateful for those simple words.
Weeks 2 and 3 I saw things start to stabilize and the chaos became more manageable. The patients were all still very sick and we were still using the same IV drips and treatments, but we usually had 2 patients each because of the nursing help that had been sent from all around the country. I really started to get in a good routine and feel like the healthcare system was starting to recover. We still saw a lot of deaths and it was still stressful as we fought to keep our patients stable.
Week 4 I saw hope and success. This was a rewarding week. I would start on a different COVID ICU floor and get my patients and during the shift I would transfer my patients up to my regular floor and stay there with them. This was our way of shutting down all the make-shift ICU’s and creating just 1 big COVID only ICU. By the end of the week we had shut down all other ICU’s. So, there was a regular ICU and COVID ICU. The hospital could start to open back up and start treating other illnesses and patients without a huge worry of infecting them with COVID. The patients during this last week also seemed to need less medication to keep them stable. Suctioning was not needed as often and in general the patients started having better outcomes. By my last shift I started to feel I was no longer needed. It really made me feel like my four-week assignment was the exact amount of time I needed to be here.
I met and worked with some great people over the past four weeks. Both from original staff and from travelers from all over the country. It was awesome to be part of this response of healthcare workers. We all brought different experiences and knowledge to the table. I learned so many different things from different people. This opportunity and experience will benefit me for the rest of my life.
After my last shift I I ran a couple blocks from the hospital to Yankee Stadium.
