Brie Gowen

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A Window Into COVID Critical Care

August 15, 2020 by brieann.rn@gmail.com

My eyes ached. You know that gritty, raw feeling, like you’ve been crying razor blades or something? That’s what it felt like. I made an extra effort to focus on the freeway lines that zoomed by as I drove towards my safe place. Home. That’s where I could forget my day, where I could escape, leaving the sadness and stress sitting in the seat of my car, ready to be picked up again in the morning.

I had told my coworker that afternoon that it felt like 10 pm. My eyes had been hurting then, at what surprisingly was only four o’clock. I had assumed it was because of the tears. Now that I think about it, though, it was probably just the weariness of what I had seen. Not just that day, but every day for months. It was like being witness to a horrible car crash, and being unable to extract the victims. Except the wreck never ended. You relived it every day. I realized my eyes hurt from watching that repeated carnage. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to unsee it.

There is a weight sitting heavy on the heart of healthcare right now. From a critical care point of view, it feels like the dreaded elephant on your chest. It’s this heaviness brought on by unspent grief, coupled with a frantic frustration over the things we cannot change. You see, COVID-19 has brought us something we’re not used to or comfortable with. Defeat. It’s beating us, pretty much every time.

The world, and certainly the United States, has experienced the unparalleled effects of this novel virus. We’ve all experienced the shutdown, the isolation, and the economic loss. What a large percentage of people, outside of the healthcare system, are not seeing is the wicked behavior of this disease. They don’t see the cruel nature by which it attacks, making certain that stories of survival are few and far between for those poor people who happen to fall into respiratory distress under its grip. Y’all, it just won’t let the people go.

Here it is in a nutshell. Because we’ve shut the hospital doors and won’t allow you in. Here is a window into COVID Critical Care.

Death. Over and over. It does not matter what we do, or what we don’t do. It doesn’t matter if we follow every recommendation, give every medicine, and check every single box. Nine times out of ten, if you end up on a ventilator with COVID-19, you are not coming off until your heart stops. That is why my eyes hurt.

You can see your patient turn the corner, start looking better, wean down the oxygen from 100%, finally. You can say to the spouse something you try not to say lately, like, “I’m hopeful. Things are looking better. I’m very optimistic about this.”

You can say those things one week, a few weeks into the particular ordeal, and you can want to believe it in your heart so desperately, but then you can have your hand on that same spouse the following week, praying for comfort while they cry, holding them while they weep in grief because your hope just didn’t pan out. That is why our eyes ache. You cannot unsee some things. Some pain etches itself into your retinas.

Listen, we knew what we were getting into with nursing and medicine. We knew that death and dying occur. We’ve dealt with this our entire careers, some of us for twenty or thirty years. What we were not prepared for was constant death. See, in nursing you win some and you lose some. But you win some! Do you see where I’m going? We’re used to having some good news to throw into the mix, but this pandemic hasn’t been playing by the usual rules. It has its own book, and sadly that manual is still being written. As it stands now, and since this began, the odds are not in our favor. The real Hunger Games are worse than you ever saw on TV.

We are fighting, y’all. We are doing all the things we do so well. There are many times over the years that I’ve been part in successfully reviving and continuing the life of someone who probably should have been allowed to pass on to the hereafter. In those moments I have said, “we are too good at what we do.” Well, this year has upended that statement. This year, we can’t seem to be good enough. We can fight, and we can do all the great things we normally do, but nothing can seem to alter the poor outcomes of critically ill COVID-19 patients. It. Is. Killing. Us. All of us. It is breaking our hearts, but it hasn’t stopped, so we just keep fighting.

You can watch a patient you’ve personally fought for, die every shift, every day, and it’s draining. Sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s less. I don’t know the numbers, but I know how it feels. It sucks. Where’s some good news?!

I can count the success stories, on one hand, and I’m so very grateful for them. But they’re not enough. The bad is still outweighing the good in intensive care. Even when you do have someone get wheeled out the door, they’re not the same. The effects of this continue, and we don’t even know to what extent yet. I’m not a negative or fearful person, but gosh, that’s scary. The significant and lasting damage to lung tissue is real, and it’s crazy. We won’t even talk about the other physical and emotional tolls.

Our eyes hurt from the things we cannot unsee, from the tears we sometimes cannot stop. Our hearts hurt for the grieving families, for the pain of our patients and their loved ones. Our brains ache from trying to understand the vast variations of presentation and progression of this virus, and our minds are blown by the damage it can do. This virus is cruel, it’s uncertain, and it’s unlike anything we have seen. We have worked beyond what we believed we were capable of doing. We have carried ourselves to physical points we have never experienced before, but also emotional roller coaster rides we never anticipated. So, while the Nation at large is angry to watch football and not be made to wear masks, we’re just over here trying to survive. We’re just over here trying to make our patients survive, even as we know that statistically they will not.

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Filed Under: Nursing Tagged With: COVID-19, critical care, death and dying, grief, healing, healthcare, icu nurse, nurse, nurse fatigue, nursing, patient care, registered nurse

Comments

  1. Mary Warr says

    August 15, 2020 at 11:10 am

    I love you Brie. You are so good at putting into words what we are all feeling.

    • brieann.rn@gmail.com says

      August 15, 2020 at 11:11 am

      Thank you, dear friend ☺️

  2. Tony Rices says

    August 15, 2020 at 11:57 am

    This is Powerful Brie. I think it would be really good if you forwarded this to some of the major media outlets. So many people believe this is some sort of political arm wrestling match, or a sneaky attack on churches, etc.. Most people just don’t slow down to see this for what it is. Thank you for all that you, and your associates are doing. Praying for your continued strength and endurance. God be with you.

    • brieann.rn@gmail.com says

      August 15, 2020 at 12:04 pm

      Thank you. It is truly heartbreaking, and seeing it utilized for political gain is a terrible insult to hurting family and frontline workers.

  3. Lisa Pierce says

    August 15, 2020 at 3:19 pm

    My heart goes out to you and all the frontline workers. I can’t imagine what a toll this has taken on you all. Being a nurse in a normal world is stressful enough.
    You’ll probably never receive the accolades you deserve here, but God has a major reward set aside just for you!
    May God bless you abundantly more than you can imagine and keep you safe.
    I’m keeping you in my prayers.

    • brieann.rn@gmail.com says

      August 15, 2020 at 3:37 pm

      Thank you so much. I appreciate it. ☺️

  4. Ruthie says

    August 15, 2020 at 8:20 pm

    Thank you again, my friend.

    • brieann.rn@gmail.com says

      August 15, 2020 at 8:24 pm

      Thank you ☺️

  5. Lori Daly says

    August 17, 2020 at 9:43 am

    I am Kayla’s friend and she shared this with us. Love to you. I pray there will be and end to this sooner than later. Hugs!!

    • brieann.rn@gmail.com says

      August 17, 2020 at 9:54 am

      Thank you ☺️

Meet Brie

Brie is a forty-something wife and mother. When she's not loving on her hubby or playing with her three daughters, she enjoys cooking, reading, and writing down her thoughts to share with others. She loves traveling the country with her family in their fifth wheel, and all the Netflix binges in between. Read More…

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