2020 started out average enough. Big plans lay ahead. There were reports of a new caronavirus in China. No worries we’ve been dealing with carona viruses for years. We had our second ever cruise planned on the current “largest cruise ship in the world” coming up in February. That meant a trip to Miami….a place I’ve never been before. This would be the year my granddaughter would start pre K. I had also purchased a family pass for my son’s entire family to Dollywood for the year. I’m not wealthy so that was a huge sacrifice. It was their Christmas. This was 2020! Woo-hoo! I was ready for a fabulous exciting year of fun stuff. I should have stayed in bed
The Sunday night before we left for our cruise 🛳 I began with a sore throat and fever. This was the first week of February. I was at my Doctor’s office first thing the next morning. Influenza B. He loaded me up with steroids, antibiotics, antivirals and I went home and ate chicken noodles soup and drowned myself in liquid. Come Thursday we set off driving to Miami. It was a miserable trip, though I was feeling some better I still didn’t feel like driving 14 hours. I did it though. We found out first night air bnb which was not at all what I expected and our host was way rude but it was one night. The next day I checked out a little bit of Miami. Still not feeling my best but certainly beyond the worst. It’s a huge culture shock to say the least. Broke my brand new Note 10 screen and spent hours finding a repair person only to have him botch the repair (I found out after I returned home). We then found air bnb #2.. much better. Ate an early supper and made sure we had all of our necessities packed. Excitement was building. It was hard to go to sleep. I was so excited! Just a few more hours.
Woke up early showered, dressed and waited and waited and waited. Finally it was time to go find the Port! This is it… yes I am Ready! Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! We found it and I miss a turn and end up driving all over the Port. Lol. Some nice guy at a gated area helped get me back on track and back on me way. We dropped our luggage off pulled up to our parking deck got out and off we go. The Port entrance is so cool. I literally felt like I was one of the richest people in the world. I’m boarding the largest cruise ship in the world! Well, after a brief health screen and waiting my turn for boarding.
We boarded the ship and it was a floating city. Shops and restaurants and entertainment on every deck. This was a dream come true. Then I realized it. I left my phone charger in the car. Along with my insulated 40 oz cup that I took everywhere. No way I was going to hassle and hustle my way of that ship at this point. No way. So we went to lunch and then to our room and then to the muster drill and then to the deck to wave goodbye to Miami! The cruise was all I dreamed of. Until the first night when we dressed up in our finest regalia and made our way to the dining room. There we were eating and suddenly a series of screams and an announcement overhead and a board of crew members running to the area where the screens emanated from. Without looking as an ICU nurse I knew exactly what was taking place. A heart attack among the passengers and a desperate fight to save a life. After thirty minutes or so there was a procession of crew members with sheets flanking either side of a gurney and it was so obvious the battle was lost. That was the only night I could eat in the dining room. I just couldn’t feel the same desire to dress up and return, knowing what I knew.
I definitely explored every inch of this mighty ship over the next few days. Disembarking at every stop. Shopping, snorkeling, adventuring and doing all the wonderful things I had dreamed of. If only the year had remained so wonderful.
After my week voyage I returned home exhausted only to fund that while we were having a grand old time our well had a collapse and every line in the house was funk of thick mud, barely moving as we turned on faucets and flushed toilets. We spent three days flushing our lines and draining appliances of mud. So, okay it was a rough return but it was just a little glitch. I went back to work and my normal life in MICU. within a couple of weeks though things changed drastically.
The end of February we began to see our first Covid 19 cases. By this time the media had reported enough that we knew we were dealing with a not so ordinary caronavirus. We were up to it we thought. We all just regarded it at that time as a hyped up “flu-like” virus that was being blown way out of proportion. We could not have been more wrong. The second weekend in March I kept my granddaughter for the weekend and took her home for her 4 th birthday party. As we left our sons home that evening I felt a chill that I couldn’t get past and my throat was feeling itchy. We got home I got under the covers and my head began to throb. I checked my temp and boom; 102.3°. I was sick. What was worse is that I had been assigned a covid patient the week before and had just kept my sweet grandbaby. That was a long, long, night. I called in and the next morning the hospital called and gave me a time to come for testing. I was so scared that I had unwittingly passed this new virus to my “little” and worse yet to my 75 year old husband and the entire family from both sides at her party. When I arrived we started with the basics. The interview, then a flu swab, then a chest x ray because, well, the covid test would take days to result. Within an hour I was crying tears of huge relief. INFLUENZA A! That’s right within one month I had both of the major flu viruses and yes I had been vaccinated. However, I had never been so happy to hear that I had the flu again.
Honestly though. I never expected the entire world being impacted so dreadfully by this unseen attacker. As the weeks moved by we sleekly saw less and less of our routine DKA, MI, and GI bleeds. Suddenly we were over run by covid pneumonia, cytokine storm, and hypercoaguabil states. We were short PPE and we were losing nurses left and right to life altering decisions. Some decided to stay home, others changed careers, a few opted for the travel nursing careers with huge pay. After all, they were dealing with this virus anyway, they might as well earn big money for this dangerous job.
We would have a brief lull and then a holiday and then an all-out surge of this virus again. Months and months of heart break and death. The worst was holding hands with the dying and an iPad in the other for the families to say their goodbyes. There were many dates after my shift ended I just sat in my jeep crying and asking God why? During all of this our nation began ripping itself apart with peaceful protests by day that resulted in violent riots by night. It seemed that this year would destroy us one way or the other.
We then had an election that was a joke. The whole process and the weeks following made our nation the “laughing stock” of the world!
I was never so glad to see a year end.
2021 was here and new hope bloomed. I had received my 1st vaccine and Joe was scheduled his a he was married to a potential high risk employee. Things were finally looking up.
Then a call. My friend Sue in Alabama had a positive test for caronavirus. A northern friend traveling through stopped in for a visit and lunch not realizing that just two days before while stopping at another friend’s home on their trip they had contracted the virus and carried it to my friend. Initially she said it felt like a flu. Not so bad really. I believed her and hoped for the best. Within a week her symptoms had worsened and she was admitted for pneumonia. Just a few days later I called her and she was screaming in agonizing pain. I asked. What. What, what hurts? What’s going on? Then she said it! Bilateral arterial occlusions in her legs. I was stunned! I had no words. I knew what this meant. She began to sob and said “Lisa, I can’t let them cut off my legs!” “They’re turning black but I can’t imagine letting them cut them off.”
She didn’t have to let that happen. Within hours she was moved to ICU. Then, it happened. She suffered an embolic stroke. In the wee hours of the morning of January 28 my sweet Sue passed. I NOW REALIZED FIRST HAND THE SORROW OF COVID 19.
I’m absolutely different now. The events of this last year have absolutely Changed me. I’m not the same person in many ways. I’m angry, tired, frustrated, and unhappy in my job. Thirty years of nursing more or less Changed in one year by an “unseen enemy”. A friend gone and so many patients laid to rest. It’s not the same world for me at all. It just isn’t the same.
