Scott described what it’s like to work the COVID-19 floor day in, day out:
“At every patient’s door, you take your gloves off and sanitize your hands. Then you take off your face shield and sanitize your hands. Then you pull the mask off without touching the mask. You sanitize your hands again. You put new gloves on and then take off your gown. You sanitize your hands. Then you put your other mask on (the one for outside the room) then wash your hands with soap and water.
I’ve never in my life experienced something like this. It’s crazy. It’s hard and it’s tiring. It’s exhausting.
Everybody is tired. You have marks on your face from the mask. You take your PPE off and two minutes later you have to put it all on again. It takes so long to make rounds. That is what people don’t understand. The care they are getting… when you have so many people and you have nurses taking care of more patients than they should have to…
There’s times… we’ve had a few patients pass and it’s exhausting. It’s hard. You have these people — you know they are passing and you have to tell their family over the phone. You form a bond with patients. They are like your family. It’s just more emotional. It’s really hard.
The drive home is horrible. You go through your whole day. Was my mask on right? Did I do everything I needed to do? You go through everything, every detail. You do rounds on four patients and you have to think — did I turn them? Did I make sure he had water? There are times when I would be at the end of the shift, thinking, where is my face shield? Did I touch that? You go back through every step. That drive home is horrible.
Once you get home, you walk in the door. There are so many steps. You take off your clothes. You take off your shoes. Before I can greet my kids or say hi to my partner, you have to run upstairs and take a shower. My kids think, ‘Mom didn’t even want to give me a hug.’
You had a rough day. You have those bad days and you try not to take that home but it’s really hard.
Even more so now.”
Source: On the front lines of COVID, nurses confront life and death | Texas | elpasoinc.com
You must be logged in to post a comment.