Day 6: April 8 #NYC #CovidDeployment
Where to start? I know there are a lot of people at home counting on me to convey the truth about what is real and actually going on here in New York. Those who have worked with me know that I can handle some ****. I once put my bare fingers in the stab wound of a neck artery as the blood squirted at me and the patient gasped for air. I now say that after yesterday, my first real day in the ER of what appears have been a normally functioning community type hospital, I am absolutely mortified and scarred for life. I have NEVER, under any circumstance felt such unimaginable defeat. It’s the worst episode of greys anatomy. It’s 100% worse than that nightmare you had that you left without giving report. Doctors are resorting to checking their own vitals and drawing their own blood if need be. They are moving patients around, pulling carts to more open areas to intubate right in the hallway, 3 feet from another patient. There are people praying out loud, absolutely begging nurses and doctors running all over the place in circles around them to save them. And they’re dying. They’re dying right there in the hall. We’re running out of oxygen tanks over and over again, leaving these people with nothing. The wall oxygen is being occupied by vents. People can’t breathe and there’s nothing we can do besides prone them and try to comfort them while another one crashes and needs to be intubated. So, you have to walk away and try to help the next. People are circling the drain, and put in que to be intubated next. My emotions and thoughts- all over the place- up and down-all day long. One minute I’m hyping myself up saying, “you can do this!” “Be smart!” “Who can you help?” Then, “I can’t do this.” “This is terrifying!” “ is it worth it? What if I catch it?” “Be strong for these people!” “Say the right thing!” “It might be the last thing they hear. ” Then, I’d cry. I’ve got on so many layers over my face that nobody can see that I’m crying, so I kept working. Nobody knows where anything is. Nobody is a staff nurse, and some have been there 3 days from all over the country. And the 3 dayers are numb. Working tirelessly to perform tasks like starting IV’s, foleys, essential meds, oxygen, etc. without a break to remove the mask for 12 hours straight. Not even a sip of anything to drink.
I started with 6 patients and couldn’t even get into the computer to look at a single thing about them for the first three hours. When I got in, it had been 27 hours since a set of vitals were documented on my vents. My vented patients are on drips to gravity. “You better guess right because If you run that fentanyl too fast Erin, you’re going to be the reason she finally dies.” It’s haunting! Hundreds of alarms are sounding every second of every minute. Hourly rounding is to make sure my patients are still alive, and for what? They’re all waiting for their turn. During one of the waves that we completely ran out of oxygen, a man was strugling, praying in the hallway. He was noticed to be dead with his hands folded over his chest. He lie there, dead,for an hour before he was put into a body bag and moved wherever the rest of them are going. Labs are overdue from 2 days ago. Pharmacy is doing their best to load they Pyxis and we’re out of Zithromax, rocephin, and hydroxychloraquine every 20 mins. We keep trying to pull it because sometimes we get lucky and it’s there. Then we have to decide which one of our patients to give it to because it’s ordered for all of them. When we draw their blood, we know right away because it’s black. And these people are on carts in the hallway without masks and carts are blocking doorways, closets, utility and storage rooms. We put in a chest tube in the hallway. We put in foleys in the hallway. Privacy is not a thing here. Everybody has diarrhea. People are getting cleaned up- maybe once per shift. I did vitals on my vented patients once, maybe twice in a 12 hour period. I had some patients that I never checked a pulse ox on in 12 hours. There are a hundred or more nurses and doctors all garbed up, running in circles doing what they can, and it’s not enough.
I cried. I got mad. I felt useless. And everyone said, you’re doing the best you can. We all are! But, I thought we came here to save people. The reality is that we don’t have the resources to save people. For the first time ever, as I try to pour water to a plastic cup for a lady to take her medicine, I think “Maybe this is the end of the world! Otherwise, why would every- single- thing- we are doing be going so wrong?!” The water won’t turn on. When it does turn on, it’s dripping- drops into the cup. Then, I cry again.
When I got on the bus at the end the longest day of my entire life, the others who were on day 3 in the ER did their best to comfort me. The first step is acceptance. This is what this is. To survive here and do our best, we first have to accept that we can’t change this. I’m not used to accepting that. In the ER, we are damn good at saving people. This is torture! So many thoughts, like “maybe I’m not good enough to be here.” “Maybe nurses who are more experienced with vents and know what to do should be here instead of me.”
When I got back to the hotel, I spent some time talking to another nurse who walked out of the ICU during her shift because her patients weren’t properly sedated and waking up on the vents. Patients are sedated on vents with fentanyl alone. We both reached out to coordinators of the company who were very understanding, let us cry, and allowed us to take a mental health day today. We were up late. We shared our thoughts and feelings, and more importantly, our goals here. We were able to speak with a specialized counselor who has military background and now provides services to traumatized healthcare workers. He was amazing. He encouraged me to dig deep and discover what my goals are here. What can I do to help that will make a difference? Things that are achievable. I spent the night thinking, and was able to get some much needed rest all morning and early afternoon today.
Now, I will walk to the store and get some supplies and food for some of my fellow nurses. I’m going to try to find something hot to order all of us for dinner when they get off the bus in 2 hours.
I received 2 packages today! They TRULY humbled me. Thank you to my backbones, my support, my husband and family and friends who are amazing. The call I received from my nephew Aiden was the best part of my entire day yesterday.
Tomorrow is a new day.
Please!!! I beg you all!!! STAY HOME!!! WE DO NOT WANT THIS HERE!!!!
From a nurses blog. Don't think the above was made up.
Places I think are mostly underreporting. The count comes from hospitals, not the dead still laying around in people's houses etc.
In Ecuador I think it was, they have 300 dead. Truth is some of the cities smell so bad you can hardly breath in them. I'm not even sure they know what's going on in the rest of the world.
I am sure many places have quit counting altogether by now.
