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I just finished my 3rd critical care rotation since March and hit my 100th day working inpatient since COVID hit Georgia. 78 of them were in ICU settings. Sadly, my last 2 nights on call were my busiest nights for ICU admissions, not the direction I thought we’d trend.
I just finished my 3rd critical care rotation since March and hit my 100th day working inpatient since COVID hit Georgia. 78 of them were in ICU settings. Sadly, my last 2 nights on call were my busiest nights for ICU admissions, not the direction I thought we’d trend.
Memories of the past 4 months will stay with me forever.
I told my 1st ICU patient in March, “good news, your breathing trouble is from a treatable blood clot in your lungs, so it’s probably not Coronavirus!” And then the test returned positive and none of us could believe it.
I told my 1st ICU patient in March, “good news, your breathing trouble is from a treatable blood clot in your lungs, so it’s probably not Coronavirus!” And then the test returned positive and none of us could believe it.
Just a month later, we saw the patterns of hypercoagulability and made a hyperviscosity treatment protocol. Medicine evolved years in just weeks.
I remember holding up a walkie-talkie to a patient who was just extubated so that they could talk to their spouse in the next room who was about to be intubated. Then I called their child, younger than myself, to let them know one parent was doing better but the other wasn’t.
I played videos sent from families to my phone to paralyzed & proned patients, hoping maybe hearing a loved ones voice would bring the PEEP and FiO2 down. Because nothing else was working.
I made too many phone calls to people I would never get to meet to let them know their loved ones had passed. That their loved ones hearts stopped and there was nothing we could do.
I considered it a sad win when families elected hospice for their critically ill loved ones and got to see their relatives last moment through a window spent in comfort rather than agony.
Even when I wasn’t with COVID+ patients, I saw the effect this pandemic had. The late STEMIs in the CCU because they wanted to avoid the hospital. The DKAs because they couldn’t get to the pharmacy to get insulin. The pre-transplant patients who waited weeks alone by themselves.
I heard the rightful frustration in the voices of families. I heard family members whose loved ones were critically ill ask me if I was doing okay and urged me to take care of myself too.
I worked with brand new doctors who started their careers on call in an ICU in the midst of the worst pandemic in a century and absolutely shined.
I heard a governor and president downplay a pandemic and insist that things were fine while I was surrounded by death and severe disability.
I celebrated my 30th birthday in the ICU. I canceled my wedding and got married over Zoom on an off day, because in a world of uncertainty, there were some things I was certain of.
I spent sleepless 30-hour shifts in the ICU, stabilizing admission after admission and trying to keep the sickest patients I’ve had as stable as possible.
I’m grateful to all my colleagues and mentors who’ve been super supportive.
But I am downright exhausted and tired from trying to treat this pandemic, and it’s only been made worse by the absolutely terrible leadership at the federal and state level.
But I am downright exhausted and tired from trying to treat this pandemic, and it’s only been made worse by the absolutely terrible leadership at the federal and state level.
Today, I started virtual tele-health clinic. A refreshing change of pace. But it still hurt to hear many of my patients say that I was the only person they spoke to this week because they’re still afraid to go out.
We need to do better. Wear masks. Trust scientists. Vote.
We need to do better. Wear masks. Trust scientists. Vote.
