Your MOST Memorable (Good/Bad) COVID Moment | Nurses Week Contest

cmaya · Apr 14, 2021

Second hand story here. Imagine someone calling a code and the team arrives and says “you didn’t specify that he was covid positive” and they just watch through the window. No help. No relief.

Chronic Care Coordinator · Apr 15, 2021

Nobody wanted to take care of her! She kept ringing the bell and everyone was fed up. Nurses were running around like crazy with really sick patients in March-April 2020 and we didn't have enough PPEs and enough knowledge and feared the unknown. Since I was deployed and didn't have access to the inpatient computer system, I was the helper, taking vitals, feeding patients, cleaning them, holding hands and comforting them.

I had to constantly go in to the room and she was covid positive, coughing constantly, refusing to eat. I kept making her hot TEAS, getting her hot soups and praying I wouldn't get infected. One time, I had to go in to check her blood sugar and she asked me what would happen when she fell off the cliff. I sensed that she was asking about death. I told her not to fear and that the fall would be gentle. I asked her if she believed in God.She told me that she talked to Jesus all the time and saw angels!

'So then, you are never alone!" I reassured her.

" I like you!" she declared.Then she wanted me to walk her to the bathroom, set her tray, help her with washing up-------the list went on and on!

I was patient and honest with her and let her know when I couldn't come in to help. I would check on her when I had a minute and tease her gently, making her smile! She was getting progressively worse.

"I hope to see you tomorrow. Stay well. Say hi to your angels if they come visiting or checking in on you!"

"I sure will!"

We both laughed.

The next day, someone else was in that bed. She had died that night. Her angels had come and taken her home to Jesus! She had "fallen" but the pain was mine. It hurt bad---and still does!

Editorial Team / Admin · Apr 16, 2021

Share your most memorable moments (good or bad) and you could win $100 gift amazon card.

MeganMN · Apr 18, 2021

Most of our Covid patients have been positive for awhile, then go home, and are re-admitted with Covid pneumonia, ARDS, or some other respiratory decompensation. We had a sweet little lady who had been with us for quite some time for her initial infection, then re-admitted with failure at home. I remember the first stay, we sat and talked for awhile about how happy she was that there were no visitors allowed. She said, "People always say they want to stop by and they never do, this way, they are spared the lie, and I am spared the disappointment.". She was cynical but realistic and I loved her spunky attitude.

At the end of her second admission, it was obvious that she wasn't doing well. The other ICU nurse and I were in her room getting her cleaned up and ready for the day and we commented about her birthday coming up. She mentioned that because her birthday was right before Christmas, she had never had a birthday party. Her sisters all had parties, and she never got one. She was going to be 80 years old! The other ICU nurse planned and prepped for her and on her last birthday, we threw her a big party. She died a couple of days later.

WineRN · Apr 21, 2021

I work at a school. Child comes in with a fever and dry cough so I call home.

Parent answers and immediately says "It's probably COVID because his babysitter had it".

I asked when the last time they saw the babysitter and parent responds "This morning. She's with them every morning and for an hour after school. She's not *THAT* sick and we figured we are all going to get it eventually anyway so we let her watch the kids."

I asked "Just to be sure I understand...Your baby sitter reported to you they had tested positive for COVID but felt OK so you let them watch your children and then you sent them into school?"

Parent: "Yes...What's the big deal?"

We had a secondary case from this one go into a household where one of the parents is going through chemo.

vmbennett, BSN · Apr 24, 2021

MOST Memorable (or Unforgettable) COVID Moment

A patient’s chest rises and falls rhythmically as the machine pumps in oxygen and releases carbon dioxide with a hissing sound. The patient in the room is ventilated, intubated, sedated. A respiratory therapist paused at the glass doorway. Her words are a mix of melancholy and matter-of-factness. She has seen so much death, she knows the signs. We all did. A few hours later, the patient will become another data point among others killed by the corona-virus in the USA. But in this moment, he’s not a statistic. He’s a flesh-and-blood person in a losing fight for survival. He has a face, a name, a 40-year history full of childhood memories, achievements, loves, failures, family. Family members cannot understand why their loved ones are dying. As America’s medical workers struggle with the pandemic – death, suffering, fatigue, stress and fears of infection – helping families through denial, grief and anger has added to the trauma.

Their loved one couldn't breathe, so a tube was inserted into his trachea, pumping oxygen. That requires sedation, which means he needed an intravenous line for fluids, a catheter to extract urine and dialysis to cleanse his blood. These heroic measures are explained to the family. These measures are keeping him alive. There is talk from the family of transferring the patient to another hospital so more can be done. It was explained to the family that this infection started out as COVID but has progressed to multiple organ failure. The subject of comfort care was addressed. Topics of cutting back on medications, letting the patient go comfortably, issuing a DNR. The patient, in a glass-enclosed, negative-pressure room, does not flinch, has no say. The family is unwilling, unable. All healthcare professionals realize the families are looking to blame, they were hurting, we were hurting, all of us were grieving.

A sign over the nurse station quotes: “The most powerful weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. Train your mind to see the good in this day.” During some of these days and months, there was no good.

Avill, BSN, RN · Apr 28, 2021

1. I work in home health and when we first started wearing masks at the beginning of the pandemic I knocked on my patients door and she said “I never thought I would be happy to see somebody with a mask at my house” LOL ?

2. Also unforgettable is having to quarantine a total of 150 kids in a day related to one positive student ?.

gere7404, BSN, RN · Apr 29, 2021

Had one of my first covid positive patients in an airborne isolation room on BiPAP, waiting for him to get a room upstairs to transfer to. Dude pulls off his mask, busts out of his room and bolts to a restroom screaming he has to pee like a racehorse. I go to stop him and of course, my crappy paper mask I'd been wearing all night kept slipping down under my nose so I'm contaminating it even more trying to pull it up over again. He's coughing all over the place with no barriers while I'm explaining to him why he had to stay in his room, and showing him the six unused urinals he has dangling off the side of his bed.

That's how I got covid the first time.

T-Bird78 · May 2, 2021

I’d schedule an appointment to get my first Moderna injection at one of the hospitals within our healthcare system. I got there and was informed I did NOT have an appt at that location (apparently there was a glitch in the scheduling portion and dozens of fellow employees had the same problem for several weeks). They called another hospital to see if they had any extra doses that evening if I could go straight there. They did so I went straight over. I’m sitting there for my 20-minute post-vaccination wait time and look at my watch. I’m sitting exactly one floor below where my uncle died, from COVID, exactly 24 hours prior. The irony and sense of guilt was pretty strong. Fortunately nobody paid attention to my tears.

Kitiger, RN · May 2, 2021

27 minutes ago, T-Bird78 said:

I’d schedule an appointment to get my first Moderna injection at one of the hospitals within our healthcare system. I got there and was informed I did NOT have an appt at that location (apparently there was a glitch in the scheduling portion and dozens of fellow employees had the same problem for several weeks). They called another hospital to see if they had any extra doses that evening if I could go straight there. They did so I went straight over. I’m sitting there for my 20-minute post-vaccination wait time and look at my watch. I’m sitting exactly one floor below where my uncle died, from COVID, exactly 24 hours prior. The irony and sense of guilt was pretty strong. Fortunately nobody paid attention to my tears.

That's a moment you'll never forget. ((Hugs))

toomuchbaloney · May 2, 2021

3 hours ago, T-Bird78 said:

I’d schedule an appointment to get my first Moderna injection at one of the hospitals within our healthcare system. I got there and was informed I did NOT have an appt at that location (apparently there was a glitch in the scheduling portion and dozens of fellow employees had the same problem for several weeks). They called another hospital to see if they had any extra doses that evening if I could go straight there. They did so I went straight over. I’m sitting there for my 20-minute post-vaccination wait time and look at my watch. I’m sitting exactly one floor below where my uncle died, from COVID, exactly 24 hours prior. The irony and sense of guilt was pretty strong. Fortunately nobody paid attention to my tears.

Wow. That's a powerful story.

Your MOST Memorable (Good/Bad) COVID Moment | Nurses Week Contest

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