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My Hospital Experience During Covid


              My Hospital Experience During Covid

             2020-2021



Disclaimer: This is a conglomeration of my experiences working in a rural Ohio hospital during covid and delta variant, patient identifiers have been changed to protect people's privacy and some experiences condensed, but is accurate in what I experienced living in an area with a large percentage of unvaccinated people. Welcome to my bubble.

I have loved living in this part of Ohio with its beautiful rolling hills and beautiful farm fields. I enjoy the Amish and Mennonite families with who I live amongst.  I love their quiet ways and simple lifestyle and appreciate them as my neighbors and friends.  We help each other and feel comfortable asking for help if I need anything. I have watched their children grown up and they have seen mine do the same. We are mutually respectful and accepting of each other. I have seen the people in my community as kind and caring.  One of my main motivators in taking a job at the local hospital was so I could be close to my community. I enjoy being a 'helper'. I like the nurturing aspect of my job as a Patient Care Tech. I spend more face-to-face time with the patients on our small inpatient floor than most anyone else in the hospital. I answer call lights, take vitals, help with activities of daily living and provide comfort care- warm blankets, repositioning, assistance with mobility as well as take vitals, do blood sugar checks, perform EKGs, and covid testing.  It is not a glamorous job and is physically taxing. I do a lot of the grunt work for the nurses. I am on my feet for the majority of my 12-hour shifts but even in that, I am grateful for my mobility as I help those who are less mobile and forced to be inactive due to illness or surgery. I have had wonderful, warm interactions with patients that make the job rewarding, despite the less glamorous aspects of the job. I find providing care to others and helping them maintain dignity is key. I do for them what I would want to be done for myself or my loved one.  I think living by the Golden Rule is what everyone should do.  

Enter Covid and all the political mess that has been intertwined in it. I won't delve into that mess here, other than to say it has had a profound effect on whether a person chooses to get vaccinated/wear a mask or not.  Now that you know the context and my background, let me share my experiences.  

Our little community hospital went from treating 'grandma's uti' and grandpa's knee replacement surgery to the whole floor filled with covid patients during the surge last year. I had worked in larger hospitals in urban settings and had covid patients there but was hoping I could 'escape' covid patients in this new position but as we all know, covid spreads like wildfire. One of my first covid patients was someone who I discovered was struggling to breathe, despite a high setting of supplemental oxygen and I alerted the staff. They were intubated and then transferred to a larger hospital and later passed away.  As the larger hospitals filled, ours scurried to make adjustments to convert rooms into negative pressure rooms and we filled them as fast as they could accommodate a covid positive patient. Last winter was an emotionally dark time but I held onto hope as I continued to care for those in my community who were ill and listened intently to updates on when a vaccine would be available.

 Some covid patients had a relatively non-eventful path toward recovery. Others, not so much. I cared for some patients, even before delta, that was younger than the 'vulnerable' age group. Some were hospitalized for several days up to 2+ weeks, who went home on oxygen and were barely able to speak a few words without losing their breath. Or they were cognitively affected with 'covid brain fog' and had to be instructed what foot or hand to move as I helped them dress, became incontinent, wore diapers, and would require pretty intensive supervision at home. They physically were recovering but cognitively were not unlike a mobile toddler in that they were not safe to care for themselves. Some never grasped how important it was to keep the nasal cannula or oxygen mask to their nose and would randomly pull it off and their O2 levels would drop. Some of these patients were people in what could be considered the prime of their life- with young families. I felt bad that some made it so close to the arrival of the vaccines but not close enough. 

When the vaccines became available, I signed up as soon and possible and was elated to have gotten it! I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of me. The cloud of dread and anxiety that had hovered over me lifted and became lighter and lighter after I and other eligible family members became vaccinated. I continued working with covid patients but no longer felt the stress of getting myself or another person sick with this dreadful disease. The light brightened as covid patients dwindled and more people got vaccinated.  

The political machine was steadily grinding into my communities perspective on the vaccine and protective public health measures but to be honest, I thought people would have enough common sense, sense of self-protection, sense of community, sense of brotherly love, to realize those measures are meant to protect people's lives during an extraordinary time. Most parents would understand how boundaries and rules are put into place for children to protect them from harm- but ironically can not see it as a similar parallel with covid and how society has to do something similar. Imagine if everyone had the freedom to drive at whatever speed they felt like? It's not a punitive action but a protective one.  

After a relatively medically quiet summer, here comes Delta. I watched it develop like a freight train headed straight for us. I heard of horrendous conditions in India, then closer to home, in Florida and Texas. I watched it creep northward and prayed people would protect themselves! I say this somewhat selfishly because I do not like watching people slowly die of covid. It is excruciating, dreadful, agonizing, and not something I want to experience or witness.  I don't want to see the family members' denial, shock, grief, pain. I don't want to witness the distress and anxiety in the patient as they slowly suffocate. I don't want to be the one to pull the tubes out of the dead body.  

With vaccines widely available and offering protection against severe symptoms, to be a witness to the train wreck coming our way feels especially depressing, frustrating, exhausting to me. I hear the grumbling of co-workers and see the scrambling of some as they quit or look for other options. I contemplate my options too. I listen to people who are counseled on weighing risks to benefits on whether to get the vaccine or not and realize they truly have lived in an alternative world than I have. I hear patients and patients' families as they seemed shocked, surprised, or lied to when it is explained that they or their loved one has to WAIT for a room or a transfer to another hospital because there are no places able to accept them. I hear someone with covid symptoms exclaiming how awful they feel but proudly proclaiming they did not get jabbed and never will, at the same time letting a mask halfway fall off their face, oblivious to how they will infect others. I watch patients on the news and in a hospital exam room, lay weak and ill, motionless and helpless, and know it is just the start of more to come as I see the daily infection rate go up. I see on social media how I am told I am propaganda, a fear-monger and a liar for warning people about covid. I am not. It's real. It's here. It's miserable and deadly or debilitating for some. It needs to be stopped or slowed down. For the love of God, please talk to your doctor about your risk-to-benefit ratio for getting the vaccine. And encourage your friends and family to do the same. I am confident that the vast majority of you will be told to get it but don't take my advice, listen to the professionals, and for goodness sakes don't rely on Facebook for medical advice.  



  


This is what I do when I am not working at the hospital.  
If you, are anyone you know, are interested in a pet portrait or painting of your horse, please take at look at my work and website. I would love to talk about what you have in mind. I specialize in dogs, cats, horses, horse and rider, pet and owner, farm animal and wildlife paintings. I work from small custom stall signs to Life-Sized! 

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