This is my story of courageous nurses fighting the coronavirus

A story of the courageous nurses on the frontline of the coronavirus fight. Here is where and how it all began.

March 17th

This was the day I realized we would have a new normal. I didn’t know how to feel that day. We were told our department would close. I wondered what my patients would do without us. Would they keep up their progress or would some slowly sink back into congestive heart failure?

Our 15-day quarantine had already started. The non-essential business has closed. People are using the drive-thru and grocery store shelves are bare.

It is strange, almost surreal.

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March 18th

I have been asked to take training for pandemics. Me and two other nurses spend 2 hours learning how to don and doff personal protection equipment. It seems like such a simple thing to do on the surface. It has been reported that between 9-14% of those infected are healthcare workers. That thought is so scary to me. One of every ten persons infected will be my co-workers.

This makes me take my responsibility very seriously. I think about this a lot, probably too much. After the training, I am going to be a site manager.

You would think taking off and putting personal protective equipment would be second nature to us, but now our lives and others’ lives are depending on it. In the cases of Ebola, the healthcare workers died because of improper technique.

As a nurse, my patient is ALWAYS number one, but today I must worry about my husband, 84-year-old parents and others in the community.

Although many will recover from the coronavirus, some will not. No one wants that on their conscience.

I am proud that my hospital system thinks enough about us to care. The role is for protection, protection for me, my co-workers, our families, and our community. As nurses, we will be called upon to do the most courageous thing we have ever done.

March 19th

I am excited to contribute to this cause and help my co-workers. There are two coronavirus patients when I arrive. One is known positive and one is a person under investigation, (PUI). I spend the shift instructing everyone that goes in and out of a room donning and doffing. The nurse is the only person to go in and out of the room.

In my mind, this doesn’t seem so bad. Both patients were easy to care for and the nurses were great.

Little did I know how I would feel about this by day 7.

March 22

So, today I arrived, again excited to be of help during this stressful time. When I get to the unit it seems chaotic. I go to relieve my fellow site manager. She tells me she has been all over the hospital doing this job.

I asked her, ” How could you see every nurse on every floor preparing to go into the room?” She said she couldn’t.

After that day things began to change. There were more patients than site managers. We were originally told there was to be 1 site manager to 1 patient. By the end of the day, I was monitoring 7 COVID 19 rooms and helping the nurses in each one.

Nurse are not the only ones on the frontline, I know that, but since I am a nurse I talk about them a lot. Please forgive me. There are also Respiratory Therapist and many others from radiology going in and out of the rooms.

Our hospital has considered a lot of ways to protect their greatest asset, their staff. They have limited aerosol treatments and when a patient is on a ventilator their secretions are contained a good bit more. I can only address my experiences here.

The courageous nurse

Although I was there to help the RN going in and out of the patient’s room I couldn’t help but worry about her and the drain on all of us.

The stress of putting on 5 pieces of personal protection equipment in the right order and taking it off in the right order every single time wears on your mind after a while. The first day, the first nurse is physically and emotionally drained after the first day. 12 hours is a long day anyway, but adding the worry of spreading a pandemic illness is even harder.

People come to a hospital for nursing care. That is what hospitals were created for. The doctors write the orders and RNs carry them out.

Nurses learning what frontline care is

I have never considered myself as a courageous nurse on the frontline. That is to say, we became nurses because we want to help people heal. However, that is not going to happen today, touch and talk are not going to be part of this journey. This will be a crisis intervention.

All of a sudden we have been thrown into a different world. A world we are unfamiliar with. Our head is covered, hands are covered, eyes are shielded, it feels wrong. One nurse said, “I feel like I’m not doing my job.”

And if health care workers get sick, there are cascading impacts that will affect everybody else. Doctors and nurses who keep working while infected can expose more people. If these workers go home to recover, then there are fewer of them to tend to the growing number of infections popping up across the country. If they are so critically ill that they need to seek help, there will be less resources available to treat the general public.

Zahra Hirji

March 24

What started as 2 pts grew to 4, then 8 and now we are up to 24. Several of them are critically ill. Many are on ventilators. It seems scarier than it was Sunday. There seemed to be chaos on the first day. Today seems very tense.

Nurses are nervous. The seriousness of taking coronavirus becomes real. Some are talking about their parents, others are concerned about their children and their spouse. They are not sure they can be the courageous nurse on the frontline. This is different.

I am there to reassure them. I make them a promise that I will be with them all day to help every step of the way. We can do this together. That is what nurses do. We are a united front.

As the day progresses I realize how taxing it is on the mind. Not only for the nurse going in and out of a room many times a day but also for me, watching them be sure they do not forget any steps.

“These survey results indicate that concern about preparedness still remains high: 59.16 percent (1,172) of nurses say their concerns about providing care have not been alleviated by the new CDC guidelines while 24.89 percent (493) say they have been and 15.95 percent (316) are not sure. “

Nurses Survey

The only thing between them and this virus is their personal protective gear and proper use of them. The stories of nurses catching Ebola is on our minds. The statistic of healthcare workers dying from coronavirus is real. The possibility of carrying this home is also playing on our thoughts.

Today I go home tired. I take my clothes off in the garage, put them in a trash bag and carry them to the laundry room. I fill the bathtub with hot soapy water. The thoughts in my head are just swirling around. I cry.

March 25

I feel better this morning, usually, I do. After resting, a hot bath a praying I am ready to go back to work. When I arrive there are more patients. Again the staff is stressed. Tension is running high. We begin another day of one admission after another.

The hospital is recommending we reuse some of the personal protective equipment for our PUI COVID19 patients. It is a dilemma. We have to consider the fact that we could run out.

Now I have to train the staff to clean something to be reused. People that are not working on the floors tell us it’s okay. Is it okay? I think about this all day. I’m not sure I am a courageous nurse and I didn’t know I was going to be on the frontline of the coronavirus.

March 25

Today I work another 12 hours. When I get there it is tense again. There are nurses from other areas. One nurse just got back from a two-week vacation. Her daughter has tested positive for COVID19. She lives in another state. I can tell that she is stressed out.

Being a courageous nurse on the frontline of the coronavirus was not what she was expecting today. She is emotional and I can see the fear in her eyes. I talk to her about my role and that I will be helping her all day, the entire 12 hours. I am sort of her wingman. She smiles and breaths a few deep breaths.

A song is in my head today. I sing it all day. You can listen to it on the highlighted link.

My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name On Christ the solid Rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand When darkness hides His lovely face
I rest on His unchanging grace
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil On Christ the solid Rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand His oath, His covenant, His blood
Support me in the whelming flood
When all around my soul gives way
He then is all my hope and stays On Christ the solid Rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand

March 26

I am incredibly tired today and because I am tired I am weepy. The funny thing is after a few minutes I am okay because I’m working. It is worse at home. I want to be here helping. I want to be a courageous nurse working on the frontline of the coronavirus.

The hard part is all the unknowns, how long will it last. Will, we ever see the curve start to peak and them flatten out. The uncertainty is playing over and over in my mind. All of our rooms are full. The people on the ventilators are not doing well.

They are opening other floors to accommodate more patients. It is taking so long for the test to come back. Some of these people could go home.

march 27

I am off today. Everyone needs time off. The stress of the last 3 days has lifted somewhat. I cooked a large old fashion meal for my husband. We took a long walk and things seem normal.

So, what can we do to help us feel normal again, because, truth is normal is a long way off? In my post How To Handle Things Out of Your Control, I talk about some things we can do to help this feeling of the world spiraling out of control.

Some suggestions for this situation that I am also doing,

Being a Courageous Person on The Frontline of The Coronavirus

I definitely feel better after a few days off. When you are exhausted the way things appear can be skewed.

The truth is things are different. Our world has changed. I wasn’t sure I could really be a courageous nurse on the frontline of the coronavirus, but guess what? The doesn’t end at the hospital threshold. We all are being called to do this. It’s a national crisis.

We are all called to live differently. Every one of us has a new normal. The hospital is not the only place you will find positive coronavirus people.

They are in Walmart at the gas pumps and even the doctor’s office having their pain managed. We must continue to be diligent about this virus.

Nurses will still be out there

We will still out there doing our jobs. Most of us see it as our calling but remember they are people too. They are people with families at home, parents, children, and other loved ones. Healthcare workers are afraid of what could be carried home to them as well.

Pray for us. I desperately need your prayers and so do many others. We are not superheroes. Just normal people trying to provide for our families, do what we love and protect our people.

We can all thank people working in the hospital, Even the environmental service workers are afraid. Remember us and thank those courageous nurses, doctors, respiratory therapist and many other fields in healthcare that have chosen to go to the frontline.

If you ask anything in the comments I will try to answer to the best of my ability. Love Y’all, Janet