“So here’s how it works, this has a conference speaker that you can turn up
really loud over the negative pressure noise…”. I still remember how I felt that
day receiving instructions about the zoom cart that would allow family members
to communicate with covid patients. I had this sense of gratitude for an easier
way to connect them, but also, a deep sense of sadness. I knew this would never
be an acceptable way to say goodbye as someone died.
“Is covid really THAT bad?I mean, it’s just basically like the flu”. The ensuing discussion, I also
remember. My attempts to explain to a group of people that covid and the flu are
not the same. My futile sharing of facts and statistics because they didn’t
really want the conversation or the information, they just wanted to justify to
me why they weren’t wearing a mask.
Now I’m in the hallway by his room. One of
the first covid patients I had. His wife and very young children, begging us
over the phone to save him. They wanted to see him. I offered the cart, but he
did not want them to see him so sick. This is not how a dad in his 20s wanted to
be remembered.
“It’s our right to worship, the government can’t tell us what to
do! All of this about a ‘flu’ is really to keep us out of the sanctuary, this is
about our freedom!” I think about scripture that tells us about our own freedoms
(See Galatians 5 ). My eyes return to the screen as the on air personality
continues his angry vitriol. I feel my own heart racing as he questions why
anyone would allow covid to make them fearful? I wonder what he would say to my
patient’s young wife and kids?
“She’s awake and oriented,” I said, as I looked
at the entire ICU team, “why do you think she isn’t going to make it?”
Sometimes, being a social worker means I have to ask straight forward medical
questions. They pull up her X-rays and show me her lungs. One of my team members
explains to me what her lungs should look like and how we have no cure for what
is happening. Her blood is also too thick. I remind them all that she was
perfectly healthy before she got covid. They all agree, but that doesn’t change
her prognosis now. “She is asking for you to set up a zoom with her family
before she loses the ability to nod yes/no to them”. I walk into her room and
start that zoom. Her family shows pictures and engages in reviewing a life well
lived. She was an incredible person that her family will miss terribly.
“My
governor says those things aren’t necessary,” a friend remarks to me as she
walks by me, pointing at my mask. It had been a really hard week at work, one in
which we heard over and over to wear a mask and stay six feet apart. However, I
know this will fall on deaf ears, so I simply say, “I’m choosing to wear one
anyway”. She proudly tells me that she isn’t and she walks away from me. I
wonder why she chose to declare that to me?
“Allison, do you think, maybe, you
could take the computer in there and just let me play a song for her? It was her
favorite and I just want her to know I’m thinking about her and remembering
her.” Our patient is about to die and in a strange turn on a busy day, I have
extra time. I take the cart in and tell her to take her time, play all the songs
she wants. The bed rotates back and forth to try and allow gravity to assist
with healing. Every two minutes the patient’s face rolls back towards us and her
friend plays songs and talks about everyone they have ever known. I assure that
friend that we don’t let people die alone. The next day, I stood there as our
patient’s heartbeat dropped to zero. I told her I was sorry that this happened
to her and replayed the previous days conversations when this patient could also
talk with me, I will remember her mouthing “I love you” around the ventilator
tube to her people on zoom.
“We want to sing! No one will tell me not to worship
Jesus whenever I want to,” a statement I’ve heard repeatedly over the last few
months. “I’m not suggesting you stop worshipping Jesus” I reply, “I’m simply
saying that singing is the most dangerous activity according to several
epidemiologist, so perhaps now is not the time to be singing in a group”. I
open my Facebook feed to see a church sing-a-long advertised on several pages.
My heart races again, engaging in reckless behavior in the name of Jesus seems
contrary to His gospel message. I’ve long since given up, no one is listening,
not even people I love.
“She’s had a stroke,” those words send chills down my
spine. “She’s a teenager” I hear my own voice crack. “Covid has made her blood
clot like an adults. It’s like her body missed the memo that teens don’t react
like this. We think we can get her through, but she is going to have a really
long road to recovery.”
“Mom,” Natalie’s words jar me from my evening stare at
the wall. “I can’t wait till this is over, I can’t wait to eat at restaurants
and get in the car with my friend’s families, and go to the mall...I can’t wait,
when do you think it will be over?” I answer as honestly as I can, I hope by the
end of the summer we can do those things. As I close my eyes that night, I worry
about Natalie and Micah’s mental health. Will they be ok? Will they get too
depressed or anxious in all this? God, where’s the balance between their
physical and mental health? I don’t hear a reply, but I pray that we are walking
that line well.
I put on my N95 mask and goggles. I’m getting used to the
bruise on my nose and am learning to adjust it differently each week. I wonder
how the nurses do this for 12 hours? I watch them coding the patient through the
window. They talk to each other through the mask and goggles and over the loud
negative pressure machine. I hope against all odds that this heartbeat will
return.
“We assure you Mrs. Hall, we will follow all covid precautions.
Everyone, but the players on the floor will have a mask on, temp checks at the
door, only two spectators per child.” Micah needs some semblance of fun. We
allow him to play. The first game the other coach holds his mask in his hand the
entire first half. I’ve become more confrontational so I yell and ask the ref to
ask the coach to put his mask on. The ref does. The stares from others make me
feel like I’m back in middle school. After the game, I walk over to the other
coach and say “please, please, please wear your mask. I think we can do this
safely if we all follow precautions.” He apologizes, but adds that he doesn’t
think players can hear him through his mask. I’m suddenly standing back at the
window of the ICU. I assure him that if the medical team can run a code with
more equipment on then he can imagine, then he can definitely call a play with a
very simple mask covering his yell.
“Ma’am, can you please work it out so my dad
can get the vaccine”? We don’t have any, and even if we did, I would have to ask
the doctor about it since dad currently has covid. He continues, “We should have
been more careful. I thought he would be ok. Why did we go over there? Please
fix him!” I let him talk to his dad through zoom, begging dad not give up and to
keep fighting. The guilt he is carrying will be lifelong. He had no idea that
covid would kill his dad. He can’t have been the one to kill his dad. I try to
reframe this for him, remind him that all of us are indeed mortal, and that his
dad loves him very much. I’m not sure any of that relieves the guilt of being
convinced that you gave covid to a loved one.
“Why would we get a vaccine?
Fauci is in bed with the Chinese, no way I’m getting it”! That was my cold stop.
That’s the day I broke. I’d been angry, sad, disillusioned, restless, and a
thousand other emotions, but reading that line, made everything inside me rage.
Rage more than I’ve raged in my entire life.
“Emotional whiplash,” Stephanie
Zerwas, a nurse being interviewed for CNN called it. This giant disconnect
between the reality of covid units across hospitals in conjunction with family
and friends statements on social media. It is the most accurate description I
have ever heard. Mayo Clinic describes whip lash as a “neck injury due to
forceful, rapid, back and forth movement of the neck, like the cracking of a
whip”. Emotionally, this feels like holding the hand and stroking the hair of a
patient as they die of covid and a few hours later receiving an invitation for
your daughter to go to an indoor party, because “covid is a hoax”. Emotional
whiplash is witnessing a family member crying for forgiveness because they
didn’t listen to warnings about covid and that same day, opening my Facebook
feed to see another family gathered around a Christmas tree because “no one will
tell me how to celebrate”. Emotional whiplash is knowing so many of your close
friends say repeatedly they only vote pro-life and demand to worship in person
while knowing that indoor worship is dangerous to life. It is seeing Pastors
pray for healing of their congregations and asking for protection while
preaching without a mask. It’s witnessing a death and the mockery of death
rolled into a few hours on the same day with a dash of nightmares thrown in for
exhaustion sake.
So, how do we treat emotional whiplash? Well, ideally, I
wouldn’t keep cracking my neck every day, but life goes on and for most people,
they say they follow covid precautions. Reality though is that most make a lot
more exceptions to precautions than actually following them. Exceptions for
family or for indoor dining or for worship. I can’t unsee the selfishness I
witness daily. As a step towards healing I’m praying to forgive everyone who has
hit me emotionally, especially those who have hit often. I’ve set up some new
rules, no Facebook on days I work. Our emotions are not meant to swing from
sorrow and death to someone denying the cause of that death every single day. I
can’t expect that of myself, that is not going to heal. The “unfollow” button
has become a good friend, mostly because if I stop seeing what some friends are
posting, I may be able to stay friends with them in real life. I’ve started
speaking the truth constantly, no emotions, no shaming, if I see someone share
an incorrect fact about covid, I ask for the source. Spoiler alert-they rarely
have one. I limit my interactions to people who are covid conscious. Despite
repeated claims that we can’t worship anymore, I’ve found other ways to worship
Jesus and connect with Him that do not involve anything that goes against safety
precautions. I journal, I pray, I read the Bible, I zoom with my Sunday school
class, I jump on other church’s zooms, I read research studies, I take long
baths, and I drink wine.
I still have emotional whiplash, but I’m working to
not allow that to become PTSD. I don’t know if that’s possible, but I’m trying.
If you want to help, the entire medical community and me, stop posting
inaccurate things about covid. Stop acting like you know what’s “really”
happening because your cousin is a nurse and told you. Stop viewing a comment
from a doctor and a construction worker with equal importance. I wouldn’t trust
the doctor over the construction worker to fix my house, I’m not trusting the
construction guy over the doctor when my family needs medical attention. Let’s
be honest with ourselves, if your loved one suddenly couldn’t breathe, you aren’t
stopping by Home Depot on the way to the ER. Listen to experts, read medical
sources, and pray. If you insist on going about your life as if covid isn’t an
issue, stop posting pictures about it. Every time you do, I worry that I’ll be
holding the IPAD for your family next and I get angry that I’m more concerned
about your safety than you are. Be supportive, go back to loving the nurses, doctors, respiratory therapist, (and even social workers if you are feeling generous) who are caring for
the sick. Most of all, stop declaring it as something that’s been overly
dramatized. It doesn’t get more dramatic than death and some of us are walking
in it’s shadow every day. So very grateful to cling to these words constantly,
“Because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high
will visit us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace” Luke 1:78-79
May all of our feet find
the path of peace, while waiting for a glorious sunrise...
