Memento Mori

I am one of a million faces taking care of patients. A face that won’t be remembered, especially now that I am behind an N95, another mask, goggles, and a face shield. I have a gown that goes to my knees and booties that come up just under that. I am in surgical scrubs. I am not in anything that isn’t disposable.

I am one of many covered faces that will be the only faces my COVID patients will see for weeks, sometimes months. The patients are in loud, filtered rooms; rooms their loved ones see from a small screen that is the only link to the outside world. These patients are lonely and scared.

We, nurses, are equally overwhelmed. As a new nurse at the start of the pandemic, I remember sitting with my mentor, and he explained to me all the viruses he had seen. When he talked about this virus, I knew he was scared. I could tell that while I had grown accustomed to my first few months of nursing, nothing would be the same. Even if this ended, what would the new normal be?

The Storm

I had started my nursing career taking up to six patients at a time. In the beginning days of the pandemic, I remember having around four patients. It was relaxing, and utterly strange. I remember the moments we got the first tests, and how they were allocated. Our first patient ended up on a ventilator. The trickle was slow at first. It was a calm before the storm, and we sat by not knowing what to expect. We were not prepared for what was going to happen next.

Suddenly the skies darken all around us, just as quickly as a thunderstorm in Texas, and the patients came flooding in. The rules changed daily. The administration didn’t know how to help us, and we heard the horror stories coming from the other states. We were doing things that we never dreamed of. With supplies running low, and our PPE disappearing, the patients spilled in.

We were gearing up against an enemy we couldn’t see. An enemy that was silently infecting anyone in its radius. We put on all the protection we could and stormed into those rooms; afraid of what would happen to us but with little room to think about it as lives were begging to be saved. We were an army that had no general, no plan, and no time. As the numbers grew so did the resolve to do anything possible to help these patients. We were fighting a losing war.

The War

My grandpa told me stories about when he fought in World War II. He told me how before the war, his family loved to have sugar in their coffee and butter on their bread. During the war, those luxuries were allocated to others, and so the family had to learn to live without those. And even after the war was over, his family continued without sugar or butter. It was a little reminder of the change in the times. The sacrifices. The tenacity to overcome and adapt.

Like the great war, the pandemic too will show us a new normal. Our sacrifices will not be in vain. Even if we are losing, for now, we will turn the tide.

This wasn’t just a war on the virus, but the consequences of our actions mixed with the virus. Those who had chronic conditions were primed to be fighting an uphill battle. Providers also faced incredible challenges. One doctor looked at me and said, “I can’t stand COVID patients, they just don’t get better.” We made vows to save as many as possible, but all we could do was hold their hands as they asked us questions we didn’t have the answers to. Answers we still need and search for.

I looked for something, anything to give me purpose between the wheezing and proning, literally the last-ditch effort to get virus-infected lungs to breathe. I longed to have an answer more than, “we don’t know yet”. We were getting ready only to realize we couldn’t prepare for this pandemic or the consequences. We were making decisions we had no right to make. We were young people trying to answer the question, “What do I do?”

I am one of a million faces that held these patient’s hands. One of a million faces that ran tests, gave meds, and prayed to a higher power, wishing the death toll would cease. I’m one of a million faces that many won’t even remember or recognize without a mask, that goes to work because people need her too.