Introduction
2020, the year the world shut down. My husband and I had been living our best life. John had been a nurse since 2001, and I’d been a nurse since 2008. We’d been traveling the country as Intensive Care Unit (ICU)/Emergency Room (ER) travel Registered Nurses (RNs) since 2017. Our aspirations in undergoing this journey included seeing all fifty states and riding our motorcycles in all fifty states. We traveled in an RV and had already worked eight nursing assignments in five different states. We arrived in Southern Georgia for our ninth assignment in the fall of 2019. I was initially working in the ER, and John was assigned to the ICU. When we finished our assignment in February 2020, we decided to take a couple of weeks off, and then return for an extension at the same hospital. Upon our return from our time off, the plan was for me to work in the ICU with John. We had no idea what we had signed up for when we accepted this extension for our placement in Georgia. We were oblivious to the fact that our life was about to change, along with the lives of everyone else in the world. We couldn’t have imagined that in February, when we went home to visit family after going to Daytona Bike Week during the two weeks off, it would be the last time we’d see them until June. We had no idea that this small town in Southern Georgia was about to become a major epicenter for COVID—that we would see more death in those few months than in all our prior years of nursing combined. We were completely unaware that our hospital would become one of the first hospitals in Georgia to receive the newly created COVID vaccine later that year. We had no idea that the world was about to completely shut down because of a virus, or that we were about to become front-line heroes!
Throughout the pandemic, I stayed vigilant with my posts on Facebook, working to keep my family and friends educated on the status of the pandemic as most of them were not in healthcare. With these updates, I maintained patient/client confidentiality, but was as real and honest with my words as I could be. In addition, I am an avid scrapbook enthusiast and kept a chronological book of events, Facebook posts and information from the hospital concerning the COVID virus. I shared my anger. I shared my fears. I shared my tears. I wanted to give an authentic view of what an ICU nurse experienced throughout the worse pandemic this generation had seen.
My aim in writing this memoir has been to include my thoughts, fears, and personal tragedy during the pandemic. My pain and heartbreak are brought out on paper for all to read. My insecurities and personal battles are put into words I sometimes found difficult to say in person in the heat of a moment. There were some good times; however, there were few positive moments in comparison to the heartaches John and I experienced throughout 2020, 2021, and especially 2022. As I look back on my posts and reflect, I revisit my thought processes, and what events were resulting in these thoughts at the time. I will discuss the thoughts and fears I experienced during my first day working with COVID patients. I reflect on my very first COVID death of a prisoner —holding his hand, so he wouldn’t die alone. I will talk about my anger toward those who wouldn’t wear masks out in public. I discuss my disappointment in those who didn’t believe COVID was real, even given my detailed posts concerning the constant heartbreak of losing patients, day-in and day-out. I share the anxiety I felt going home for the first time in June 2020, having been with COVID patients in the ICU nonstop. I recount the experience of being told to remove my mask for a photo—my anxiety so high, I felt tears in my eyes. I talk about receiving the COVID vaccine, and the excitement it gave me for a hopeful future. I touch on my loneliness and sadness, as well as the moment I could officially say I began having PTSD. I reviewed how I felt toward family and friends who read my posts, but still didn’t acknowledge that the virus was that bad. I discuss my disappointment in those who refused to receive the vaccine, believing in the conspiracy theories instead. I also share my courage and strength to overcome my disappointments. In addition, I share new friendships that were made along the way. And I touch on my mental breakdown in Jan of 2022, when my “voice” was silenced by the harshest text message I had ever received in my life, along with other unkind words I received throughout the pandemic.
Furthermore, I include updates the Center for Disease Control (CDC) provided throughout the pandemic, along with the hospital updates that were published on social media. I include photos of myself and John, our faces showing fear, hope and sadness, along with photos of “living” while visiting places we had not yet been. I discuss the video one of my patients and I were featured in for the hospital, as well as a front-page article that was printed about us in the Atlanta Journal in Georgia. Also included are numerous interviews we participated in, concerning the pandemic.
John and I worked mainly in Albany, GA throughout 2020 and the beginning of 2021, losing over 104 patients in the first three months of the pandemic. Although that number might not seem large, this was the only hospital in this town with three ICUs at the beginning. They ended up adding two more ICUs, and an entire new hospital just for COVID patients. Most of the 104 patients we lost were either each other’s family members, or within the same group of church families. The community of Albany was devastated by so much loss in such a short amount of time. The town was also ranked fourth in the world per-capita for COVID behind China, Italy, and New York City in April of 2020.
We also worked in Tennessee, Washington State, and Las Vegas, Nevada during those years, losing numerous patients to the Coronavirus in all three states. Although the numbers of loss decreased once we left Georgia, the nature of the deaths were still crushing, as the patients died alone without their family by their sides. COVID never changed no matter what state we were working in. All patients said the same words in the end, “I can’t breathe. Please, I can’t breathe.” Those would be their last words before getting intubated. Over and over, the same situation throughout four different states.
Writing this memoir has been very mentally therapeutic for me. I’m hopeful that maybe my words will, in turn, be therapeutic for others who experienced the pandemic from the frontlines. I am also hopeful that those who were not in a situation like ours might read this memoir and understand why so many healthcare workers evolved as different individuals following the height of the pandemic. I’m not attempting to convince anyone to change their thoughts or actions concerning COVID. My intentions are to provide a look at my experience so that others can begin their own healing process. I am also hopeful that whoever reads this memoir will realize that it’s ok to feel the way you feel. It’s ok to voice your opinion with passion when you have information to back that opinion up. I also want others to understand by reading this memoir that it’s ok to make mistakes and it’s ok to apologize for those mistakes. But most of all, even throughout a pandemic and even through a mental breakdown, it’s ok to lose your “voice” but it’s not ok to give up finding that voice once again.
Dark times are ok for a short time; however, to live in the dark is not living. You need to find your light again and adjust to the world that surrounds you, COVID and all!
COVID-19 – “A disease caused by a virus named SARS-CoV2. It can be very contagious and spreads quickly.” www.cdc.gov
Section 1
2020
The Pandemic
The world had absolutely no idea what was going to happen throughout 2020. They had no idea how long the virus would be around, or how many countless people would die from the virus. So many unknowns to come throughout the year.
You will find in this section that I experienced emotions I had not felt in a long time. My posts from Facebook were authentic to what I was feeling at the time. My language in those posts were filled with a lot of emotion and anger. Sometimes the words chosen for these posts were not exactly something you would read in front of a church congregation; however, with everything we were going through, these were words that fit my situation. I will share my feelings about all the death, feelings towards those who didn’t believe in the virus, those who wouldn’t wear a mask, and finally those against the vaccine. Throughout the course of 2020, we worked mostly in Georgia, with a three-month assignment in Tennessee. COVID was from the beginning of to the end of that entire year within both states.
Chapter 1
March 2020
The Month that the World Shut Down
John and I were so excited to go to our very first Daytona Bike Week in Florida in March of 2020. We finished the first part of our assignment on February 12th, in southern Georgia. We included two weeks off in March in our extension contract to attend Daytona Bike Week and go home to Ohio for a short visit. We began our extension on February 14th at the same hospital. This time, however, I was in the ICU with John rather than the ER where I had previously worked during the first assignment. Our two-week vacation began on March 6, and we both rode our own Harley’s to Daytona, FL. This was my first ride by myself this far. Three hundred miles one-way is an extremely lengthy journey on an 883 Harley Davidson Sportster. However, the miles were not what the journey was about. The journey was about riding the motorcycle I loved with the man I loved to an event with thousands of other motorcycle riders who also loved the journey. We spent the week riding all over Daytona with friends from Ohio. We saw areas of Florida we had not seen before and experienced one of the biggest biker rallies in America.
We had planned to stay until the week was over; however, we made the choice to head to Ohio for a few extra days to see family prior to returning to work on March 19th. We left Daytona Bike week on Thursday, March 12th. I was so proud of myself by the time we arrived back in Georgia that night. I rode my Harley over 1000 miles throughout that week. My body was tired, but my sense of pride was overwhelming.
When we were on route to Ohio in our truck, on Friday, March 13th, we heard on the radio that Daytona Bike Week had been shut down due to the COVID virus breakout. We never realized, over the next two years, how seriously the virus would affect the world. We’d listened and read about places being shut down, but truly didn’t realize how our lives were about to change. We had listened to the news on the radio and read articles on Facebook discussing how this virus had made its way to America. It was now wreaking havoc on the health of so many. This information consumed our twelve-hour trip home to Ohio. However, we never realized just how much the virus was going to change our friendships and family relationships. We went to Ohio, spent time with our families, not realizing this would be our last time seeing them until June because of a virus that was about to destroy so many families across the world.
When we arrived in Ohio and went to Walmart, the shelves were empty. We laughed when we heard the hysteria on the radio and saw posts on Facebook. But to see it in person was just crazy! There were no packages of toilet paper or bottles of Lysol to be found. Panic had arisen regarding a virus that had just begun its path of destruction on humanity. We, our families, and our friends were completely ignorant of what was about to happen when we returned to Georgia. ”Ignorance”, that word will be revisited again, but with some sad context. According to webster’s dictionary:
Ignorance - “A lack of knowledge, understanding or education: the state of being ignorant.”
The virus had infected over 118,000 people in over 113 countries worldwide, with 4,200 deaths reported at this point in March of 2020. The WHO (World Health Organization) officially declared COVID a pandemic on March 11, 2020. The virus made its way to America via Washington State, according to the news, and by the end of March of 2020, forty-nine states were affected. Here’s a timeline with some specific dates of interest to give a pre-text to information to come and to give some context to how quickly the virus was spreading throughout the country.
March 1 – seventy cases in six states
March 5 – Two individuals test positive in the Atlanta, GA area, including one individual who has made his way to Albany, GA to attend two funerals at the end of February while infected with the virus. He will die in an Atlanta hospital on March 12th from COVID.
March 11 – Daytona prints an article stating health officials have identified a positive coronavirus case associated with the Daytona Bike Week. WHO declares COVID a pandemic.
March 14 – We arrive in Ohio and go to the local Walmart. Shelves are empty in the toilet paper aisle as well as the Lysol aisle. We see a car on the highway, on route to Ohio, with so much toilet paper in the back window, they have no visibility of what is behind them. Disneyland in California officially shut their doors due to coronavirus. Both Disneyland and Disneyworld had only shut down for a few days throughout its history due to President assassinations, hurricanes, earthquakes and 9/11.
March 15 – 2800+ cases in forty-nine states. John and I read an article online that says Southwest Georgia is seeing a wave of COVID patients. Disneyworld in Florida officially shut down due to Coronavirus.
March 17 - Our friend Brian, who lives in NYC tells us that it is getting crazy there. The streets are empty. I respond that I hope life can be back to normal in a couple of weeks! Boy am I wrong!
March 18 – Las Vegas is officially shut down due to the pandemic!
So many only looked at COVID as a “flu,” especially when you just looked at the numbers. Initially, John and I also felt like maybe the news media was taking precautions a bit far. We assumed that really, a flu that is causing this much hysteria must be being portrayed as this bad only because of the impending election year, right? After the election in November, will COVID be a thing of the past, or will people still be sick and dying from this virus? Until we walked inside the hospital on the morning of March 19th, John and I were skeptical about the nature of COVID. We were completely ignorant of the destruction this virus would cause in the small town of Albany, GA. The virus couldn’t possibly be as bad as the news was saying. The virus couldn’t possibly be killing people, the hospitals must be fudging their numbers, right?
I remember a day back in February, only two days into our extension, when John and I both began our shift with rapid intubation of two of our patients. These individuals were both unable to breathe on their own anymore. Was COVID here then and we didn’t realize it? Had we seen the virus rearing its ugly face a month ago and no one was aware?
Oh, were we so wrong! The numbers did not reflect what was actually happening to the patients while the virus ravaged their bodies. Remember my mention of the word “ignorance?” We so wish we could go back to this time of ignorance, before we walked into the hospital on March 19th.
When we arrived to work that Thursday morning, we saw employees outside of the emergency room/employee entrance checking everyone’s temperature prior to going to their respective units. There were many questions, and we felt a lot of anxiety as we entered the building. As we arrived in our respective ICUs, my home ICU, medical ICU (MICU), was ground zero for COVID. John’s home unit had always been the surgical ICU (SICU) while at this assignment and that unit was still a “clean” ICU. All COVID patients were to stay on the fifth floor in the MICU and on the medical floor at this point. My anxiety increased when I realized my two patients for the shift would be two women younger than me! This was shocking to me, as the news was telling us that the majority of severe COVID cases were in elderly patients.
And this, my friends, is where our true nightmare began….
3/19/2020 Facebook post
This....
This is the real world....
This COVID 19 is real....
Both of my patients in ICU today were positive for COVID 19 and intubated (tube down throat to breath for them).
Patients are dying...
This does NOT only get the elderly.
This is real and this is BAD people!
STAY HOME!!! WE GOT THIS!
If you look in my eyes in this photo, you might notice a lot of fear—fear of the unknown. You must remember, we were at the beginning of this monster and didn’t have a clue what we were doing. The doctors were researching what China, Italy and even New York City were doing to try to treat this virus that was attacking so many. Hell, we weren’t even wearing masks outside patients’ rooms yet. It wasn’t mandatory to do so at the time. The virus had arrived in the area just a meager nine days prior. Our hospital went through six months' supply of PPE within six days, so when we arrived at the hospital after our last vacation before the world shut down, we wore the same N95 and gown for the entire shift, and when possible, for several days. We didn’t know anything about how this virus was going to attack the body. We were treating symptoms but had no idea how to predict what the virus would do next. Not to mention, when we treated one organ the way we would with a typical ICU patient, for some reason the same treatment would not always work. The patient’s body would instead respond by shutting down another organ. Our patients would go into MODS (Multi organ dysfunction syndrome). In addition, during the first wave of COVID patients, many developed severe blisters all over their body. These weren’t just little blisters either. They were huge and fluid filled. It was as if the virus was trying to push out through the skin, along with incredibly high temperatures. I had one patient that the temperature would not go below 104 degrees for my entire shift even though the patient was covered in ice and had maximum doses of Tylenol on board. In addition, many patients’ blood would clot more quickly than any of our anticoagulants could treat. This would then cause necrosis to other areas in the body, due to decease blood supply and lack of oxygen.
To decrease exposure to the virus, hospital staff would combine our care for our patients, which added to our guilt. We felt like we were ignoring our patients because we normally would be constantly in the room, reassessing, or making sure medications were not going to run dry. Many of us would often stand and look in through our patients’ room windows just to check on them, whereas our normal routine had been to go into the room every two hours to turn the patients, give their routine medications, and just generally check on them hands-on. Although with the pandemic, we, as ICU nurses, would be in the rooms more often to change the IV medications that were keeping them alive and sedated.
The first time I walked into a patient's room that first morning, I literally started crying. I don’t normally have anxiety or panic attacks; however, I’m pretty sure I had one that morning. I was scared of what was happening to them. I was scared I might not have put my mask on correctly and might have caught the virus. I was scared that I could give the virus to my husband who was a smoker. Simply put, I was just plain scared all around. But I was committed to giving my patients the best care I could and pushed my fear away! That first patient was Laconyea, which I will discuss in detail later. Laconyea’s mother was a patient in a room across the hallway who had passed from COVID two days before we arrived back to work. This virus had already started killing families. As of March 19th, there were two deaths from COVID at our hospital—one of which was Laconyea’s mother, and the other had passed on route to the hospital. Dying on route to the hospital or at home was also an issue in this community, as southern Georgia is considered part of the Bible-belt, and many stayed home while sick using home remedies and prayer. By the time they arrived at the hospital, they were so sick that treatment of any kind would be too late, especially with the COVID virus ravaging their bodies.
By noon on the nineteenth, we had two more patients pass away in the ICU. There was a total of nineteen COVID-positive patients within the hospital. That may not seem like much compared to the total number of beds; however, this virus was just beginning. That didn’t count the twenty or more patients who had tested positive and were at home, nor the many others at home that had not been tested at all. Along with more than fifty admitted patients with symptoms who were awaiting their results. Unfortunately, our ICU would see many of those admitted patients, waiting for results, over the next week being intubated in our unit from the virus and then dying.
Before the end of our first COVID shift, there was a rumor going around amongst the staff that there were cars everywhere surrounding the hospital. When we looked out the windows, we saw cars lined up with lights on and there was Christian music playing. We found out that local church members were gathered outside of the hospital to pray for all the staff and patients. They drove around the hospital honking their horns. To say my heart was full would be an understatement. To know there were others praying for us and our safety eased some of the stress. Thank you to those that were there that night, surrounding the hospital, praying in Albany, GA. We saw you!
When John and I got off work on the 19th, we had a long conversation on our drive back to our RV about what happened throughout the day. He was in SICU for his shift and didn’t see the nightmare I had witnessed throughout the day. However, he did hear the multiple code blues and rapid responses to the floor units, so he understood my fears. We made our decisions concerning our end-of-life choice and on a DNR status if either one of us would get the virus while working here. That is not a discussion you want to have when you are only fifty years old. That is typically a discussion to have later in life. But considering what we were seeing with COVID, we didn’t want to take a chance of not knowing what the other would want if ever in this situation. It broke my heart to think of losing John, or him losing me. Not to mention our children or our parents. What if our loved ones were to get COVID? Would they end up in the ICU or would they be able to recover at home? There were so many unanswered questions right then, and we, as healthcare professionals, did not have the answers. One thing I did know. I was scared. I feared dying! I did not want this virus! This was very obviously not the flu! We had been incredibly wrong thinking that this virus was anything like the flu! This was real and this was frightening!
