The Nurse Nomad

Status post day 3 of my work week. I’m off for five days. I was actually supposed to be in Egypt on a medical mission right now! Our group was going to volunteer at a new hospital in an impoverished community a few hours outside of Cairo. I had prepared a power point on teamwork and nursing ethics, which I was supposed to present in front of Egyptian nurses. I was even going to incorporate a quick, team building exercise! I was super looking forward to that. We were going to spend a few days in Turkey after Egypt, too! I had plans to meet up with a friend I met on social media in Istanbul. I was so excited to see theses parts of the world that I haven’t been to before! Instead, we’re in the middle of a pandemic. And, work has been really busy. First of all, our patients have just been really sick the past few months. Secondly, remember how I mentioned getting covid patients on my unit and how my manager basically said that our unit was “an exception,” and I laughed because I knew it ...

I wonder how many other people out there are listening to the sound of the streets. The roads are soo silent now, every miniscule sound stands out. Which isn’t much, really- sanitation trucks, birds (!!!!), and..sirens. I often think about how many of them are in response to “normal bullshit” and standard medical emergencies versus covid related. It’s surreal and scary and creepy.  But with all this negative talk, I am trying my hardest to be as healthy as I can- physically, emotionally, mentally..  I realize that things are going to get even worse out there in the hospitals, especially down on the front lines. It’s so important that I- and all of us- are as strong as we possibly can be. And it’s definitely not as easy as it looks.  So, how do I do that? Eh, I do what I can. I am still human, soooo, yeah! Of course  I am consuming more red wine than I usually do at this point.. if you can cope without booze right now, then jeez, I admire you! I am working...

I don’t mean to scare you...b ut every day, the numbers are rising dramatically. ICU beds are filling up. Today I needed to transfer my non-COVID patient to the ICU today (she had a lower GI bleed). The doctors spent over 45 minutes trying to find an ICU bed for her- all the ICU beds were full of COVID patients. Our plan, eventually, was to wait for a patient to transfer out of the step-down unit, then, an ICU patient would transfer to the step-down, and then , we would transfer our patient to the ICU. Factor in cleaning the rooms in between transfers, and you’re looking at my elderly GI patient transferring around midnight or so- about seven hours later than planned.  My point isn’t about the steps taken to transfer patients, or even the amount of time it takes (although it’s loooong)... it’s that these ICU beds are filling up. Really, really fast. I have heard that most NYC Emergency Rooms are intubating patients at least once an hour, maybe quicker. At the time that I’m writ...

I was wondering how long it would take before our unit would become the next COVID unit. So far, we have a bunch- maybe five or six, in our entire hospital, which has over 1000 beds. Today, we found out that one of sister units would turn into the next COVID unit. So, it was a crazy day, rapidly transferring patients from one unit to another.. this is what us, and most, if not all, hospitals across the country have been doing the last few weeks. Everyone. Is. Exhausted. And, it has only begun (I promise I’ll try to limit the amount of times I see thins like this, as well as “just the tip of the iceberg, but, to be honest, it’s kinda hard, because, like, its true). I mean, have you ever thought about what it takes to transfer an entire unit of patients? That means them, their belongings, notifying their loved ones (especially since visitors are currently prohibited from visiting the hospital), cleaning the rooms they leave, cleaning the rooms they are going to, calling for transport. It...

Coronavirus is just about in full swing here in NYC. As a nurse with disaster relief / medical mission experience, and generally just a curious person that tends to look at things from different angles, I have a lot to say about this. A LOT. So, where do I start? The lack of supplies, personal protective equipment, hospital beds, or even bodies that are needed to save as many people as possible? The lack of negative pressure rooms? The fact that my hospital, and every hospital in NYC, has been rapidly turning over units into more and more COVID rooms? What about the lack of leadership and conditions we are working in in these “world class” hospitals? With that being said, do you even want to get me started on the poor guidelines by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or, I mean, hey, the US government themselves?! The fact that us healthcare workers are basically being treated like cattle, running in for battle unarmed, the way a soldier would run into battle with a ...