“If the world was ending, you’d come over right?”

That meant me. 

Empty streets and highways as I drove, terrified of what I might face. The images from Italy and New York seared in my brain, haunting the empty hospital hallways. We all just waited. A collective coiled with fear. 

Was today the day? The first cases trickled in. 

This was real. Should we isolate from our families? Did we have adequate PPE? Who was higher risk? Did we treat every admission as Covid positive? What felt like hundreds of emails a day, each contradicting the last. Pages and pages of pathways and protocols. 

Fear. 

They told us to use one N95 for a whole 12-hour shift. Place it in a paper bag during meals. Many places had it much worse. Homemade bandanas served as masks. Health-care workers dying. Governments telling us everything possible was being done. 

Fear. 

Health-care heroes. Banging on pots and pans at sunset. Free meals and homemade signs. It all felt so wrong. We were no heroes. We never had to face the worst. We didn’t want to be heroes. We were scared. 

For me panic attacks started. We had no child care. I worked straight weekends and then took care of the kids five days a week. They even closed the playgrounds. Online learning slowly adapted. We were asked to do the impossible. I felt like such a failure. They were wild. I was desperate and terrified. They needed reassurance and safety. I was scared I would be the source of their demise. But I was the one who was high-risk. Moderately severe asthma. 

Rounds of prednisone required after every respiratory infection. Would I die? How could I keep myself safe for them? I had to go to work. 

Slowly more patients were admitted. Some died. One man lived. We celebrated his birthday with his family over Zoom. We made him a birthday hat from PPE. He made it to rehab. But he never left hospital. The damage to his lungs was too much. He was dead within the year. 

The dreaded overwhelm of patients didn’t happen. Not with those first two waves. Gradually we learned how to keep them alive a little better. Proning teams. ECMO. The unit was divided in half: Covid positive, Covid suspect, and Covid negative, Covid recovered. I got myself assigned to the “safe” side. There was a secret list. Managers’ discretion. I was ashamed. Guilty. Felt that everyone knew I wasn’t pulling my weight. A draft dodger. But my kids. I had to stay alive for my kids. 

My husband lost his job. Joined the ranks of the unemployed. I had to work. But I was afraid. And I was ashamed. And I knew I was letting my team down. So much pressure all the time. So much fear. So much failure. I was wrong at work and wrong at home. If only I could try harder, maybe I could get it right. 

Our first couple staff members tested positive. They got through it OK. A vaccine was close. I prayed to God everyday as I walked through those hospital doors. Please let me be brave enough and strong enough to face whatever today may bring. 

We made it to summer and it brought some relief. More room to move, more room to breathe. The kids were finally able to be kids again. But still the constant fear and uncertainty. 

Patients dying with no family at their side. Entire families wiped out – spread over different hospitals without even notifying next of kin until after the transfer out. Zoom calls and FaceTime. Holding up the iPad to sedated and ventilated patients. Trying to give their families a view of the harsh reality. Trying to help them come to terms with what was happening. How? How can you recognize your loved one through a screen. How can you communicate your love and offer them your strength through a virtual platform? What can I say through my layers of PPE? How can I help them prepare for grief? What do I say to a young wife with little ones at home as her husband lays dying? They approved her to visit at the end. But it was too late. He died. He was 42. 

First in line for those first doses of the miraculous vaccine. Relief. We made it this far. Health-care heroes. Please stop calling us that. The tide turned. The vaccine brought out the conspiracy theorists. We struggled to convince our loved ones to get the shot. The media was flooded with uncertainty. Families divided by deeply held beliefs. 

The gripping fear was less and less. Canada was not getting hit the way other countries were. Our health-care system was holding on. We had enough resources to go around. But, oh, we were tired. No relief at home or at work. No social supports. We were lucky to be at work where at least we could talk to each other. Infection control teams measuring social distancing with meter sticks at the lunch table. Everyone everywhere was complaining. Blaming. Instigating. 

And us, we went to work. 

Then the third wave hit. This time, the system overwhelm was real. Four patients in a two-bed room. Families forced to say good bye crowded around a bed with only a room divider to separate them from the other three patients in the room. Double monitors installed. Running out of electrical outlets. A dead body hidden behind a screen all day because there was no room to transport them out. A novice nurse whose first experience of death was chaos and fear as her patient’s airway obstructed unexpectedly. How do you reassure the patient in the next bed? How do you erase the sounds of death from their ears? 

We were so tired by then. Schools closed. Schools opened. Relief payments. Relief fraud. Health-care heroes. But don’t pay them more. Dose after dose of the vaccine, wave after wave of public resistance. Anger. So much anger. Bitter. So bitter. Tired. But still, so much to do. So many patients to help. A health-care system collapsing slowly from within. Patients sicker than ever before because Covid isolation delayed their care. So tired. Great waves of staff attrition. Anywhere had to be better than here. 

Critical care nurse was a title to be proud of. A skill set to brandish. ICU was a badge of honour. I was stepping down. Admitting my defeat. Taking the easy way out. Not strong enough after all. So many deaths chasing me out. So many times I felt like I was torturing patients instead of helping them. The smells. The wounds. The wasting bodies. The false hope. The final moments. Watching a heartbeat flatline. Watching a person become a corpse. 

Four years ago the world changed forever. I have never felt such fear. So many lives lost. So many actions based on hygiene theatre versus scientific fact. So much to divide us. Such a distance between reason and reaction. 

While you were making sour dough and dancing on TikTok, we went to work. Now the roads are full again. We are back to “normal.” But I know I will never be the same. 

Note: The comments expressed here do not necessarily represent the views and goals of ONA.