The Emergence of Covid-19 Feels Distant
So much has changed since the pandemic first began. My ER doesn’t have makeshift isolation carts scattered throughout the hallways anymore. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had to wear an N-95 and gown. We don’t have segregated areas of the ER for Covid patients anymore, and I no longer feel like I am trudging towards a finish line while knee deep in mud.
Some things still sting if I take the time to look back, which I don’t do much. It is infuriating to think about how we could have kept it from being community spread, but people don’t change. They don’t change to better themselves and they don’t change for the sake of humanity. I actually thought they would.
Early into the pandemic, I had a patient come in with Covid symptoms after attending an Easter celebration with 20 family members- so he either caught it there or gave it to his whole family. I had patients come into the ER with Covid symptoms right after they finished their lunch at a restaurant. Just after Christmas that first year, we were so overwhelmed that a few patients that were confirmed Covid negative had to be pulled out of their rooms and placed in hallway beds, so that we had a room to put Covid patients that EMS was bringing- five in our ambulance bay at once.
For so long, I could only think of humanity as being selfish.
For so long, all I did was go to work, and stay home on my days off. This meant that all of my interpersonal connections involved sickness of some sort. Then I would hear people talk about how it wasn’t a big deal, or that it only affected the elderly. It felt like a slap in the face. It felt invalidating to my personal experience and my professional expertise. It made me realize that nothing I say will ever matter if it conflicts with how they feel, based on their own personal experience.
I never would have guessed, when I first became an EMT, that I would ever have to reuse a single use N-95 mask. But I did, for about a year.
Never mind the patient in his 20’s that was being admitted, that looked like hot garbage. Never mind my coworker who I loved dearly that was ill enough to be admitted. She told me that her husband had to force her to go to the ER- she wanted to stay home so she wouldn’t have to die alone. I was so glad to see her when she was well enough to come back. Never mind the phlebotomist that almost had to be put on a ventilator- she told me that she couldn’t breathe and she felt like someone needed to open a window. Never mind one of my supervisors that also almost got put on a ventilator. Never mind the enormous strain on our healthcare system. Never mind the two nurses who told me they had PTSD.
Speaking of PTSD, I was able to sign up for a PTSD research study. Some of the questions included things like:
- Have I witnessed prolonged suffering?
- Have I witnessed death, intubations or end of life discussions?
- Was I asked to work in areas I don’t normally work, or perform unusual duties?
- Have I experienced hazardous working conditions?
- Were any of my coworkers seriously ill or died?
- Did I feel that my life was in danger, or was I worried about getting my loved ones sick? Was anyone in my family sick with Covid?
- Did I face moral dilemmas?
These are a few of the questions I would fill out, then rate my feelings on a scale. Looking back, I underestimated my experience and underestimated the number of positive patients I encountered. Working through the pandemic also involved extra vigilance and attention to detail, which is mentally exhausting.
Once the vaccine became available to the general public, it was like watching history unfold. It was like a weight had been lifted from all of us. We were able to put our isolation carts away. Until the unvaccinated patients came in with the Delta variant. Then we had to drag everything back out. I don’t tell people what to do with their own bodies, but seeing so many people not take the shot just made me feel like the community wanted to dump more mud on top of us while we trudged through the mud to the finish line.
I managed to snag one of the last spots for another research study- this time was for blood draws to check for Covid antibodies. After encountering probably two thousand Covid patients, while wearing a simple surgical mask (unless they were coughing a lot or on high flow O2 requiring an N-95 mask, or when I was assigned to the dedicated Covid unit) my first two blood draws showed that I only had antibodies to the vaccine, and not an actual infection. Don’t tell me masks don’t work. After I contracted Covid, my tests showed antibodies to the vaccine and to the infection.
Looking back feels surreal. It feels like waking up from a hard night’s sleep and adjusting to the dawn. I am grateful.
I do not publish behind a “paywall,” so read all you’d like.
