How Has Covid Affected Your Job as a Nurse?

dareese, MSN, RN

Hopefully, with the worst of COVID behind us, nurses traumatized by the havoc and devastation of the pandemic can start to debrief and heal. For many nurses, COVID brought double hardship. Dealing with all the changes that occurred to our everyday lives and the fear or trial of getting coronavirus was enough to make anyone uptight and anxious. Pile on the duties of a nurse dealing with an unknown, deadly virus in an ever-changing and exhausting medical environment, and it is a wonder that we nurses survived the unprecedented situation.

As a nurse writer, along with working on a COVID wing during the first half of the pandemic, my peaceful place during this tumultuous time was to document my COVID experiences through journaling. After all, we were living in historical times, and capturing actual life events as they happened made sense to me and helped me keep it all in perspective. Despite my writing, I could barely keep my life together due to developing a chronic painful autoimmune disease and nursing my father through the end stages of his cancer.

But then we all had problems this past year, didn't we? Trying to figure out how to care for our children who were being schooled at home, having senior loved ones confined in nursing homes with no visitation privileges, and the inability to visit family and friends was difficult at best. In addition, for some, the loss of income and climbing the walls inside our quarantined homes was not easy.

During the debut of the pandemic, I was employed as a float school nurse at a large private boarding school for children ages 4-18. These children primarily came from challenging homes, with some being in foster care placement at the school. As a float nurse at this unique school, I rotated through the elementary and 2 secondary school health clinics and occasionally worked in the triage area. Since the children lived there year-round, the campus also included a 3-wing inpatient hospital for illness, surgery, and psychiatric issues when needed for the students. As a school nurse, I worked pretty regular 8 to 4 hours in the clinics except for my mandatory every 3-week required weekend shift at the hospital.

When the schools closed down due to the pandemic, our students remained on campus since, for many, it was their home. All school-based nurses needed to be flexible to cover new shifts and step away from the schools to staff the new COVID wing established to house those in quarantine or suffering from the coronavirus. For me, this translated into being a hospital nurse working all 3 shifts and extra weekends. At this time, I was in my 50's and had not done hospital shift work for quite some time. Struggling with physical stiffness and pain and attending to my father added to my struggle.

As the nurses who worked during the pandemic know, policies changed daily to keep up with the newest CDC guidelines, and nurse frustration was at an all-time high. The most current procedures needed to be developed, and new skills quickly learned. Communication was disappointing at best during this time, and tempers were thin. At our little hospital, we needed to swiftly adapt our psychiatric wing to a COVID unit, establishing negative pressure rooms. We also needed to add door alarms for the patient rooms as the youngest children would not stay in their rooms while in isolation. My heart went out to these little ones who did not understand why they were in quarters all by themselves, with only nurses visiting them hourly wearing space suit-like isolation gear.

Being one of the newer nurses, I was assigned primarily to the COVID wing. I loved it there as I did not feel like the "new" nurse anymore as we all were navigating the particulars of this novel virus for the first time. I helped to establish the isolation protocol and order the supplies needed for the newly designated COVID rooms. Since the unit had to be set up at a moment's notice, I struggled for the first few weeks with limited supplies. I had the cumbersome but necessary task of cleaning and disinfecting much of the equipment after each use as we had to share blood pressure cuffs, stethoscopes, and thermometers between rooms.

Working with children is different than adults as the younger ones would not wait for me to come to their rooms for my rounds for medication, treatments, and assessment. Instead, they would hit the call bell repeatedly with problems such as their computer was not working or they did not understand how to work the television. After a shift of repeatedly doffing and donning isolation gear and cleaning supplies between patients, I was exhausted. However, I empathized with these young patients and inserted my grandsons into the scenario for perspective. I knew that these children needed all of the love and attention that I could give during a stressful hospitalization, so I gave it my all.

When Summer came around, my rheumatic condition had progressed, and my father did not have much time left, and my family needed me more. I took a leave of absence from work. Although I was grateful that I had the opportunity to spend time with my father during his last few weeks, I felt like I was abandoning ship in the midst of the storm, leaving my fellow nurses to the elements.

Once I began to feel a little better and healed somewhat from my father's death, I decided to support my fellow nurses in a unique fashion. I established a BLOG called "Nurses Need Care Too" to inspire and show my appreciation for my fellow nurses. If I could not physically help out the cause, I would bolster nurses through my writing.

When I look back on where I was 1 year ago to now, my life and nursing career have changed a lot due to COVID. I would love to hear YOUR stories about how COVID has changed your job as a nurse. I am sure there are inspiring as well as tragic stories from so many of you. (If you want to learn more about the Nurses Need Care Too BLOG, go to http://nursedonnareese.com/blogs/nurses-need-care-too).

I want to thank all of the nurses on the front lines during the pandemic. You truly are HEROES!!

How Has Covid Affected Your Job as a Nurse?

About dareese, MSN, RN

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