This past Friday, at our weekly update from the medical executive staff at the hospital, we began to hear about the plan to start to "re-open" the hospital. Not that it's been closed, but our census has decreased drastically as non-emergent procedures have been delayed to reserve beds, staff, medications, and PPE for the surge of COVID-19 positive patients that would require our care. We are not seeing the growth rate we had all been dreading. Maybe we will not? Much will depend on the impact of businesses beginning to open again, which starts on Monday.
In Kansas, as of 5pm on Sunday, we have had 4,896 cases and 143 deaths. There have been 55 identified clusters in the state - 18 in long term care facilities, 20 in workplaces (including a prison and meat packing facilities), 6 in churches, and 2 in health care facilities that were not long term care homes.
1,185,167 cases in the US with 68,495 deaths. The numbers are mind boggling. Impossible to comprehend really. But when I think of the individual faces, stories, and families I have interacted with, it is very real. This past week I spoke with a daughter whose mother is critically ill on a ventilator - she buried her father last week, 2 uncles have also died. A total of 16 members of her family have been ill. I met another family (mother, father, son, 2 daughters) all have been sick. Father is now critically ill on a ventilator, all the rest are recovering, except the youngest daughter was admitted to the hospital the day after I met them on a ZOOM meeting. None of these families able to come into the hospital to see their loved ones.
When I hear about the protests, the demands that we get back to "business as usual", it is hard to reconcile the ignorance. And yet, if a family has not been touched by the pandemic, maybe it feels like something that can not happen to them?
Amidst the sadness and multiple deaths, I have held on tightly to three patient stories - the elderly man whose wife died of COVID-19 that was able to be extubated and discharged, the 81 year old firecracker of a lady who tells me her mother lived to be 106, who was transferred out of ICU and may get to rehab this week, and the young man with 3 little girls who is now off dialysis and slowly weaning off the breathing machine. This week when I was showing his mom what he was looking like, I asked the nurse in the room to tell him I was showing his mom what he looked like - he looked over towards me and gave a thumbs up! You can not imagine the joy that gave his mom. Small victories.
Over my 39 years as a nurse there have been many patients who have stayed with me; for differing reasons. Many of these COVID-19 positive patients will long be in my memory as well. That is not a bad thing. It's just a human thing.