Day 2
My shift starts at 7am. I get up early, leave my rings on the night stand, when was the last time I took them off? Get dressed, pack a change of clothes since they don’t have scrubs for us yet. I get stuck on tying my hair - where does the visor strap go again? I can’t remember, this is all too new.
Peek into my kids’ rooms, they’re still asleep. Bye my loves, praying I don’t bring anything home to you today.
On site, the atmosphere is radically different from last week. Infection control protocols are finally in place, starting today. Many more staff are there, all in protective gear, almost all from other sites. The whole building, so quiet last week, is buzzing with activity.
There’s a new donning station where a staff member watches us put on the PPE before heading upstairs. A similar station for taking it off, at the other end of the hall.
I’m assigned to a floor where all the residents have Covid. Weirdly, without the red dots, I wouldn’t have known. I don’t know what I was expecting ... coughing, wheezing maybe? I don’t see so much as a runny nose. This is strangely disconcerting. Which is not to say the patients are “well”, exactly; they’re very weak and barely lucid. A few can have simple conversations. I don’t know if the disease has had any impact on their state or not.
I’m not good at this. When we enter the first patient’s room, the PAB says, “raise the bed,” and I literally don’t know how to do this. The last time I saw one of these beds, I was giving birth. I wasn’t paying attention to the buttons.
We undress the patient, wash him, transfer him to the wheelchair. He’s grunting and shaking. “He’ll calm down”, says the PAB, who fortunately knows him well. We leave the room.
The next patient, my partner sets down the breakfast tray: “ok, you can feed her.” She leaves. Feed her, right, ok I can do this. I can feed a baby, it’s similar right? The woman’s eyes are closed, is she awake? She opens her eyes briefly.
“Isn’t it remarkable, this big experiment, it’s really something.”
“What experiment is that ma’am?”
“The experiment. I’d rather not say. I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Sounds fascinating. I’d love that.”
I get her to eat a few spoons of oatmeal and a few bites of banana. Her eyes are closed again. We clear the tray.
Nearby, staff are clearing the room of a resident who died this morning. Like many on the floor, the bed will stay empty - normally, a nurse tells me, it would be filled within hours.
At noon, I’m redirected to go run the donning station downstairs, supervising my colleagues as they put on their PPE. I’m the expert now, ok cool.
It’s a quiet job, until it isn’t. An influx of workers comes back from break, and suddenly I have no more gowns. To get more, I have to go upstairs to the hot zone, then go through the whole doffing procedure to get back down. By the time I get back, there’s a huge lineup. I’m the bottleneck.
At 3pm, the shifts change and a large group of regular staff arrives. It’s their first shift under the new procedure, which leads to a lot of confusion about the rules. I can’t take my water bottle upstairs? What about my purse, there aren’t enough lockers? But by far the most common comment is, “This is great but where was all this three weeks ago? Why wait till everyone is already sick?” I have no answer.
My shift is over, but there’s no one to replace me so I stay until the afternoon rush is over. It seems this will be my job again tomorrow.
I leave the building and feel the knot in my stomach slowly unclench, a bit.
I’m tired.
Day 3
Peek into my kids’ rooms, they’re still asleep. Bye my loves, praying I don’t bring anything home to you today.
On site, the atmosphere is radically different from last week. Infection control protocols are finally in place, starting today. Many more staff are there, all in protective gear, almost all from other sites. The whole building, so quiet last week, is buzzing with activity.
There’s a new donning station where a staff member watches us put on the PPE before heading upstairs. A similar station for taking it off, at the other end of the hall.
I’m assigned to a floor where all the residents have Covid. Weirdly, without the red dots, I wouldn’t have known. I don’t know what I was expecting ... coughing, wheezing maybe? I don’t see so much as a runny nose. This is strangely disconcerting. Which is not to say the patients are “well”, exactly; they’re very weak and barely lucid. A few can have simple conversations. I don’t know if the disease has had any impact on their state or not.
I’m not good at this. When we enter the first patient’s room, the PAB says, “raise the bed,” and I literally don’t know how to do this. The last time I saw one of these beds, I was giving birth. I wasn’t paying attention to the buttons.
We undress the patient, wash him, transfer him to the wheelchair. He’s grunting and shaking. “He’ll calm down”, says the PAB, who fortunately knows him well. We leave the room.
The next patient, my partner sets down the breakfast tray: “ok, you can feed her.” She leaves. Feed her, right, ok I can do this. I can feed a baby, it’s similar right? The woman’s eyes are closed, is she awake? She opens her eyes briefly.
“Isn’t it remarkable, this big experiment, it’s really something.”
“What experiment is that ma’am?”
“The experiment. I’d rather not say. I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Sounds fascinating. I’d love that.”
I get her to eat a few spoons of oatmeal and a few bites of banana. Her eyes are closed again. We clear the tray.
Nearby, staff are clearing the room of a resident who died this morning. Like many on the floor, the bed will stay empty - normally, a nurse tells me, it would be filled within hours.
At noon, I’m redirected to go run the donning station downstairs, supervising my colleagues as they put on their PPE. I’m the expert now, ok cool.
It’s a quiet job, until it isn’t. An influx of workers comes back from break, and suddenly I have no more gowns. To get more, I have to go upstairs to the hot zone, then go through the whole doffing procedure to get back down. By the time I get back, there’s a huge lineup. I’m the bottleneck.
At 3pm, the shifts change and a large group of regular staff arrives. It’s their first shift under the new procedure, which leads to a lot of confusion about the rules. I can’t take my water bottle upstairs? What about my purse, there aren’t enough lockers? But by far the most common comment is, “This is great but where was all this three weeks ago? Why wait till everyone is already sick?” I have no answer.
My shift is over, but there’s no one to replace me so I stay until the afternoon rush is over. It seems this will be my job again tomorrow.
I leave the building and feel the knot in my stomach slowly unclench, a bit.
I’m tired.
Day 3
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