I never knew one week could feel so long.
A physician is encouraging healthcare workers to support each other and their families even from a distance.
In the first week of the pandemic, we had reached capacity in our hospital. All of our ventilators and beds were in use and the emergency department was overflowing. The sadness I had experienced from losing a patient less than once a month before started to happen every day. Patients were dying every single day. Ambulances were pouring into our parking lot, stacked up behind each other. They brought patients in whether we had space for them or not, and gurneys lined the halls of the emergency department. Most of the patients at this point were infected with coronavirus. It was like nothing we had ever seen before.
Many healthcare workers started following strict disinfecting rituals when they came home from shifts. Some chose to isolate from families completely, especially if anyone in their home had underlying medical conditions. I was a part of this group. I have two young children at home and my spouse has medical conditions that could lead to devastating consequences if infected with coronavirus. We decided that it would be best for me to stay in a hotel, at least until I was done working in the emergency department. It’s been one week now since I’ve held my children, hugged my spouse or been inside my own home. I never knew one week could feel so long. I stopped by the house on my day off and visited my family from outside through the window. We gave air hugs and blew kisses to each other. The next day I headed back to the emergency department.
There was one code in the morning; the patient didn’t make it. By the afternoon, the emergency department was overflowing as usual and we had a second code, this time in the waiting room. Our hospital is so overwhelmed with the number of patients that we cannot physically fit any more in the building. This patient had not even been seen yet when the heart stopped beating.
Everything was moving so fast today I didn’t even have a minute to stop and grieve until after bedtime. As I lay in bed, unable to sleep, the grief really sinks in. I lay awake mourning the loss of these patients today. I did not know them. I don’t know where they came from or how they ended up at my hospital. I don’t know what hopes or dreams they had. But to someone they were family. They were everything. This is every day now and it is the new normal. Every night I have trouble falling asleep. When I finally do fall asleep I soon wake up from vivid nightmares, horrific scenes that won’t stop playing over and over again in my mind. I wake up gasping for air, feeling trapped and paralyzed, my face soaked with tears. I’m still learning ways to deal with it, as this is very new to me. I can only imagine what the patients I work with are going through, and what their families are going through. My heart breaks for them and their families.
None of this is anything I expected out of my first year as a doctor. I always felt a calling to the profession of medicine because I wanted to heal and to help. I continue to get up every morning and head back into the hospital so that I can do just that. While we as a society are going through one of the most traumatic and difficult times imaginable, I am hopeful that we can all find ways to love and support each other, even if from a distance.
- Anne, Resident Medical Doctor, Chicago, USA