Everybody Just Breathe

 

 

These passages are excerpts from a memoir by a nurse in the intensive care unit who, for nearly a year, cared for patients struggling with COVID. In all that time, all but one of her patients was in critical condition because of the pandemic. Her memoir, Everybody Just Breathe: A COVID Nurse Memoir of Stamina and Swear Words, was published by Beaver’s Pond Press.

---

It is October of 2021, and the Delta wave of this pandemic is officially here. … The COVID ICU is being rebuilt this week. The walls that came down in March are going back up. The red signs will return, along with the roar of the airflow — details I wanted to forget, to put away on a shelf in my mind. This wave is harder. We know what is coming now. I am preparing for another winter of rushing air and silent patients. Another Christmas in the trenches. One more round of prayers and profanity.

I am angry now.

Nurses don’t like to talk about anger. We are the care givers. We are not supposed to be mad at humanity. We are supposed to be loving, understanding, and kind. But this is my documentation, and it needs to be said. I am mad. I am mad at humanity for being selfish, for making choices based on individual wants versus the collective need. This unit is going back up because we couldn’t band together well enough to protect each other. The anger I feel because of that boils under the surface of my soul right now.

---

---

My job is terrific for making me appreciate what I have. I had days off to myself, and I was able to recharge. I could vent to my best friend or my husband after a hard shift. I could take long walks or go to the gym. I could get a massage, or get my nails done. That balance gave me the ability to pour all of me into my life.

In 2020, that all changed for me, as it did for so many others. On March 17, the kids did not go to school. From that day on, besides my work shifts, our children were with me for something like a million days in a row. Over night, we had to relearn how to be a family, and I had to relearn how to be a wife and mother. We had to learn how to be bored. … I had to learn how to effectively homeschool two small children and, somehow, also get my own schoolwork done. I had to learn to let go of plans and perfection and to just breathe. That became my mantra — just breathe.

---

I volunteered for the COVID unit in March of 2020. It is now January of 2021, and I have worked a total of two shifts outside of this unit. I have cared for exactly one patient without COVID in nearly eleven months. One. Every patient, every shift, every time, with the same disease. For eleven months. This book is my documentation of life as a COVID ICU nurse on the front lines in Minnesota. By the time COVID hit the Midwest, America was “over” the pandemic. We were not the blindsided ones in New York City, wearing trash bags as personal protective equipment and being cheered on by the world. We had time to prepare for the storm. But what we gained in preparation, we lost in support.

---

Jack is fake, but his stories are real. Jack is every patient we’ve had for eleven months. Jack is every COVID patient across the globe. Jack is everyone.

I could pick Jack out of a lineup now, because COVID patients all look the same. Jack is a twentysomething who just had a heart attack from this virus. Jack is a fortysomething whose kids are home alone because both parents are now in the hospital. Jack is a friend’s mom. Jack is pregnant with her first child, fighting for two. Jack is a little grandpa, married forty years to the little grandma two rooms down. Jack is hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of stories.

Jack is in my dreams; he is every patient I have laid hands on for nearly a year.

Jack is your neighbor, your mother, your pastor. Jack is the side of this pandemic that I am not supposed to talk about, because nobody can handle it. I can’t even handle it. Because Jack could be anyone, and that is why this is hard to write. Jack is all of us.

Jack got sick a little over a week ago. He comes in feeling lousy, achy, and oh-so-tired. He might have a fever. He might be dehydrated from diarrhea or vomiting. He has a cough and is feeling short of breath. His family is sick too, but he is the worst so far. His blood pressure is a little low, but nothing scary. His labs show that his body is inflamed, fighting a little too hard. We admit him, and the marathon begins.

---

We are slowly getting into the groove, now, as a COVID-nurse house. I have a spot in the garage where I undress after shifts. I strip, sanitize, and scoot naked into our home. If everyone is in the living room, my husband will holler to the kids so they know to stay away, and I can dash up to the bathroom to shower.

One day, they were all sitting on the couch as I came inside. As I walked into the house, I heard my husband yell, “Shields up! Mom’s home!” and the whole family pulled blankets over their heads as I streaked by. The kids were giggling, and it made the whole scenario less scary, and more ridiculous.

My youngest hates not being able to hug me as soon as I get home. The fact that he has to learn this behavior makes my heart ache. The kid-hugs after my shower are good for my soul.

---

At work, I feel more. Everything is different. There is this undercurrent of activity, everything is moving, planning, and changing. Protocols are popping up. New training is taking place. The halls are empty, but there is more chatter, more activity, more happening within the walls of the hospital. I feel COVID everywhere. In every conversation and every locked eye over our masks. Even in the silence of the empty rooms, I can feel the patients coming. There is this feeling of waiting for the impending wave of hospital admissions. We are all waiting together. We are all quietly reaching toward the wire.

At home I feel it too. Everything just feels. My kids, adjusting to their new normal, have waves of this “more” that I am feeling. Emotions are stronger; tears come easier. They ask me if I am happy. They check on me. I have waves of electric energy and an exhaustion to my core, like I’ve cried so long that I’ve worn myself to sleep, but there have been no tears.

And yet the joy is more, also. Because we are in this charged bubble, everything seems more precious and more fleeting. The joy hits like sunlight after a storm, and I can feel the warmth to my toes. All I want to do is bathe in it and memorize the moments, like I’m watching them back in a highlight reel from the future.