The Viral Diaries

I think the worst thing is the loneliness, being disconnected from people. I haven't visited my dad in weeks, nor my sister who has cancer. Worse, though, are the people who don't want me around; friends have cancelled plans "just to be safe", the person who no longer wants G to tutor their son. G actually lost his pizza job, I think partially because business is bad, but also because the owner was "freaked out" when he heard his wife worked in a NY ER. I feel like I'm a carrier of plague.

Meanwhile, the ER carries on. I guess about a 20% of my staff is out with "febrile illness." They aren't testing people, for the most part, because testing supplies are low or because it doesn't matter. To them. I mean, most of them want to know if they're positive. I wanted to know if I was positive because I figured it would let me know if I had some immunity to it and it'd buy me a little peace of mind. Some of my staff have tested positive, though. So far, knock wood, no one is seriously ill. The assistant nurse manager of the tele floor died, one of several people exposed up there. He had bad asthma but still he was young and healthy. It's surreal. His face is everywhere. CNN interviewed his sister, he's on Buzzfeed. Well, all the news is about Covid anyway.

I'm not scared until I'm scared, if you know what I mean. If people ask me, I say I'm fine, but when I'm lying in bed it hits me-what would I do without my family, what would they do without me? It's hard to even know what's the right thing to do to stay safe. A few weeks ago we had a handful of Covid patients, each in an isolation room. We'd gown up before we went in and there was a clip board on each door with a tracking sheet. If the patient was covid +, they would call you and see if you were inadvertently exposed, then keep you home for 14 days. We had a nurse who came back from the Philippines during the early days and, because her flight stopped in South Korea for a few hours, she had to stay home for 14 days despite having no symptoms. She came back to work and now she's out with Covid. There's no more tracking sheets, no more isolation. We have red tape on the floor marking off where the covid area begins. When that started you only needed to wear PPE if you went across the tape and we were telling people not to wear PPE outside of it to save on PPE. Now, we still have the Covid side (about 2/3's of the ER, it's gotten bigger) but people are wearing PPE in all parts of the ED and are encouraged to do so. Certainly you can't work in the ED if you're not wearing an N95 and that was something we were originally fighting for. We have enough gowns, but we're all wearing the same mask all day, maybe multiple days. I have a good mask right now that I got from my director and I'm holding on to it-it's comfortable, close fitting and thick. It seems very protective.

Covid nose aka mask indentation

Friends are checking on me and supporting me (from afar!), which is very, very nice and I'm trying to keep in touch with me friends from RWJ to see if they're ok.

And the food! People are sending us food, snacks, water...everyday there's something to eat in the break rooms. People show their love with food.

Plastic sheeting separates our 
resus bays, 
clean from dirty

My office is also full of donations: face shields, N95 masks, gowns, homemade masks, gloves. NY'ers want to help. And every night at 7pm, they hang out from their windows and cheer. Every borough. I went out last night to finally hear it in person and it was more emotional than I thought it would be. People cheering for us. I went across the street the other day for coffee and a young man thanked me for my service. Like I'm in the armed forces fighting a war, which I guess we are. I don't feel like a hero, I feel like I'm doing what I've been trained to do since I started nursing. This is our 9/11, our WWII, our Spanish Flu, our Crimea. You train and train, set up decon tents and do drills for MCIs and now, here it is. What we prepare for.

We made a window!

My husband has been incredibly supportive: he packs my lunches, he rubs my back at night. I mean, he's done that for a while but now with more hugs and fierce "I love you's". He also bought a weekly pill organizer and he sends me off with various supplements to support my immune system: Vitamins C&D, pycnogenol, Lactoferrin, and Zinc. We also bought more life insurance, for both of us, and we talked about how we need wills. That should have been something we did ages ago, but now it seems particularly pertinent. We've had serious discussions with our adult daughter who lives in Brooklyn, who is so scared she quit smoking, so that's something. Seriously, we asked her to watch our youngest is anything happens, and we discussed finances, how to keep safe and healthy, and to call us if anything happens-you get sick, you need money, food, escape from the city. Anything.

I'm getting ready to go back in, working 3p-3a for more managerial coverage and support for the staff. Yesterday I spent almost all shift working on the floor and helping out as best I could, in resus, in codes, moving people who needed to be moved, I don't know what else, there's always something else. Calling for more PPE, calling people who are out sick to see how they're doing, calling the floors to beg them to take report. Doling out donated food, keeping track of who donated so that in some future, not busy day we can thank them. It is starting to feel like "when it's over" is some imaginary time in the indeterminate future. I know that sounds overly dramatic but it's like this is all we've been doing and all we're going to do. We can't look behind and we can't look forward, we can only think about what needs to get done, right now. And every conversation ends with, "Be safe. Keep yourself safe. Be careful out there."

I'm tired. And fat.
I'm going to be so fat when this is over.