Working in healthcare right now is full of a lot of highs and lows. I feel lucky that I’m working in a facility in Manhattan that hasn’t been overwhelmed and that my healthcare organization has been able to provide us personal protective equipment thus far. But we still work with the stress of the situation we are in and for what is coming. My nursing union sent an email yesterday to tell us that projections look like we are at “the beginning of the middle” with patient numbers growing rapidly and reaching their apex in about 10 days from now. The hospitals are already overwhelmed, and we don’t know what life will be like in 10 days. We do expect to run out of the supplies that protect us. We are currently required to reuse our mask for 5 shifts. But even as the rubber bands of the mask carve sores into the tops of my ears and cause bruising on the top of my nose and cheeks, I’m grateful for my little mask, because I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to have one.
I showed up to my ER the other day to find a giant truck parked along the side of the building, about the size of the back of a long-haul semi. It’s a refrigerated space to hold dead bodies, and it sits outside of the building as a reminder of how dire things are becoming. Also, outside the ER, scribbled on our sidewalk, are messages of encouragement and love from the neighborhood. I’ve seen videos of people cheering for healthcare workers out their windows. News of the deaths of nurses and doctors in New York City have stricken us with a cruel uncertainty of our own fates. My co-workers and I talk in somber tones about the 28-year-old who had to be intubated in our ER. One of our doctors who had the Coronavirus is recovered and visited us yesterday, warming our hearts to see how healthy he looks after 2 weeks of being home and now Covid negative. We gathered around him like children at story time. Tell us what it’s like. Tell us you’re okay. “Every single breath I took was painful and burned my lungs,” he told us.
It’s dizzying highs and crushing lows. Historically, there is animosity between ER nurses and med/surg nurses. They don’t like us, because we send them our sick patients, and we get frustrated when they give us push back. Calling report to a floor nurse is usually a snarky experience with a lot of sass thrown back and forth. All that is gone. When I call to give a floor nurse report the conversation now starts with sincere “how are you guys doing?” and sharing of compassion and care for one another. My friends from nursing school keep checking in on each other since we all feel so lost to be caught in this storm during our first year of nursing.
I woke up at 3AM t a couple of nights ago with my heart pounding, and I started crying, heavy long sobs born out of anxiety. I’m frustrated that I can’t do more. I’m angry that we are running out of protective equipment. I’m scared for myself, my friends, and my family. I’m nervous about what the next couple of weeks are going to look like and what I’ll be asked to do. And it all hit me in the middle of the night, because my days are spent trying to help people stay calm so that they can breathe a little easier.
Governor Cuomo put a quote on Instagram that struck me.
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt
Healthcare workers are just as scared as everyone else, if not more so, because we first hand know what it looks like to not be able to breathe. But we have to keep going. That’s just all there is to it.
Chrissy's Blog 
Hang in there, Chrissy. Don’t feel you need to do more, you are showing up, and doing what is asked of you. That is tremendously courageous, and all we can ask of you. We are so proud of you, and you are in our prayers.
It’s hard to read. It’s good to read. Thank you for making it so vivid and real. That’s the hard part, and the good part. Thank you for putting these words around your experience and sharing them with us, you courageous woman, you.
Sue Knight Sent from my iPhone
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Chrissy take care. Prayers being sent you way!! Pat De.