(Weird edit. This was published in January, but was some reason not on the blog and hard to find. So I moved it here.)
The past year has been crazy. I don’t quite know where to begin the story. So, I might as well begin with the present and as memories come up, I can tell those stories as well.
I work in healthcare so I get to meet lots of different people everyday (usually). I started working at the hospital pretty much right before the second COVID wave hit. I also did NOT know until after I was hired that I would be working on the first inpatient COVID unit (second to the ICU who has had COVID patients ever since the beginning of the pandemic in March). Our hospital was fortunate that during the first wave, they only saw about 80-ish cases of COVID. During the summer, they made renovations to our unit so that each room could have negative air pressure capabilities. I started working in August and by the end of September we had a few COVID cases on the floor. By the end of October, every room had one COVID patient. The patient count only grew from there. We peaked around 140 patients a few weeks ago and thankfully, our patient count has come down to the 70s this last week. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few weeks and months, but the number seem to be heading in the right direction.
With that, I’d like to share a few humorous conversations I’ve had with patients. Again, I will not give any of their information to protect their privacy. I also tell the story for the sake of humor. I love the patients dearly and my heart breaks every time I see their health decline.
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A patient rang his call bell and asked that someone come in and turn on the light and the tv. After talking to the nurse, we decided that I could go do it (not that I couldn’t, but with COVID and limited PPE, we try to make as few trips into the rooms as possible). So I put my PAPR on and got all gowned up. I walked into the room and the first thing he said to me was, “how did you get in here?” I responded, “Through the door.” To which he replied, “Well, I knew that!” Then he asked, “What’s your name?” I responded, “Heather.” And yet he asks again, “Heather what?” My reply was, “Heather Anne.”
Life Stories 