There's a German word for everything

I learned a new word this week:

I'm not Germanologist, but I seem to recall that in that language you can pretty much make endless compound words. I don't know if we've all been grief eating, but we definitely have been stress eating.

We are fortunate to have businesses and neighbors feeding us everyday, every shift. Pizza, lots of pizza. Trays of Italian ziti, salad, sandwiches. Buffalo Wild wings. One woman brought us bags of snacks from CVS, like she must have cleaned out their fridge of humus, yoghurts, and string cheese. Two big bags of apples and oranges appeared. Oh, and someone gave us a HUGE tray of those tiny donuts from Doughnuttery in the Turnstyle Underground Market. Mmmm.

Cheeseburger & tiny doughnuts,
don't judge. 

I'm keeping all the names, menus, and notes attached so that we can thank everybody in some future day. It's nice being appreciated. I don't know if I'm comfortable with the "Hero" label but I know that my staff are working their asses off. This shit is nuts. And literally everyday something changes...charting, work flow, patient flow, PPE requirements, who can get tested and when, how to contact Employee Health. It adds to the stress.

One good thing is that people are staying away from the ER with minor complaints. This truly helps. Accept for the occasional drunk or EDP (emotionally disturbed person), we pretty much get to concentrate our efforts on people with Covid or suspected Covid.


We've also been getting Thank You notes and cards from people near and far....

 Thank you cards put up around the unit :)

It makes a difference, for all staff. Everyone is working harder and hoping that they won't get sick and that they won't bring it home and get their family sick. Since this started, I know several people who sent their family away to live with grandparents, etc. We all have routines for shedding our work clothes at home: leaving the shoes in the garage, getting undressed just inside the front door. I change into street clothes before I leave and put my scrubs and work shoes in a plastic bag.

I haven't seen my dad in weeks, we talk over the phone which is great because he's so hard of hearing and this usually involves screaming at each other until he finally says, "I think I'm having problems with my phone, I'll talk to you later!"

This seemed like we were being overly cautious a few weeks ago now seems like the right thing. You hear news about how easily this disease spreads-in NJ four family members died after being exposed to a friend who had Covid at a family gathering. In Washington state, 2 choir members died and 45 got Covid after going to choir practice, even though they took prudent precautions. It's not bad until it's bad. My mother's cousin was buried today with only his daughter at the grave side because of Covid. How heartbreaking and it's happening all over the country.

Choir members get Covid
4 members of NJ family die of Covid

Viral Diaries part II

I am hoping we are at the peak and will start trending down. I'm no epidemiologist, but stats for NYC show the first day of less deaths than the day before. Then I guess we'll start seeing the Covid wave as it's breaks over the rest of America.

Thursday, I spoke with an elderly man who was pretty sick and had an extensive medical history. I talked to him, helped reposition him, tried to get an IV in him. A few hours later he was dead. Ok, I mean, you all know I work in an ER and have been an ER nurse for many, many years. It's weird, though, that the actual witnessing of an awake person who then "passes on" before you eyes is pretty rare. Like, people either come in dead (or mostly dead) and are pronounced in the ER or the go upstairs and die in the ICU. Healthcare professionals have gotten very, very good at keeping people alive on ventilators, keeping their heart beating, their lungs pumping. Sometimes they live, sometimes they die, but they don't do it in the ER.

I'm thinking of a woman who came into a small community ER I worked in as an agency nurse years ago. She had very bad heart failure, like 10% of her heart worked or something and she was failing but she was wide awake and coherent. The ER doctors talked to her and she was adamant that she did not want to be intubated or have CPR done when her heart stopped. Her daughter and son in law at her side agreed. But, when she started "circling the drain" as we say, and her blood pressure was 40 nothin', the residents started to look scared and even though she did not want extraordinary measures, they were ordering everything they could possible think of short of that to try and keep her alive. And I don't blame them, we are in it to keep people alive. I saw that she was going into Vtach, then V fib and the residents didn't know what to do. The family looked at me. I said, "Do you want us to press on her chest? And the daughter was like, "NO!" So I told her to say what ever she needed to say to her mom, because she was going. The woman was actually awake and coherent and seemingly unafraid up until her last minutes. When she was gone, I told her. That does not happen a lot.

So forgive us ER people if we seem upset that patients are coming in and dying within hours, at times coming in and not looking too sick, like not "dying sick". We have been around a lot of death but not a lot of dying.

This past weekend my mother's cousin died of Covid and his wife is sick too. They're both elderly. Nice people, very friendly. I hope his wife comes through it. A lady I knew from church died, I assume from Covid but I don't know I'm just assuming anyone who dies suddenly right now is from Covid. Clara was the sweetest, kindest lady. I loved listening to her sing, she had a small but mighty voice. She was pretty humble but occasionally could be coaxed to sing Amazing Grace and it gave me goose pimples every time. Good bye Miss Clara and God speed.

It's always more shocking when a young person dies. I mean, I love Miss Clara but she was old, old like God's older sister. It is not shocking that she died, it's just so sad. I think the media spends a lot of time focusing on young people who have died. That's good for visibility, I guess, if it teaches young people to not take this for granted or think that they are immune to Covid. But most people are not going to die and I plan on being one of the ones who don't die. My husband has taken to reading studies and statistics. He said that recently in Italy someone took 60 random people who hadn't been sick at all and 40 of them had antibodies to Covid. So, that's good.  He also is packing me vitamins to take every day and zinc lozenges to suck on. In the middle of all this, I started menopause, so it's been a fun week playing "fever or hot flash?"

Back to work tomorrow. I still don't feel particularly heroic or brave, I feel tired. I will go in, do the schedules, make sure have supplies, welcome the new agency nurses we found from God knows where and try and back up the staff.