My head is pounding. The lack of sleep overpowering my mind. The thought of returning back to the COVID ICU for only my 3rd shift, after being deployed from the main OR, is overbearing. You cannot imagine what one shift in the ICU can do to your morale… you know during school it’s like the toughest of a tough place you can imagine to be. As a nurse, as a provider, as a patient. The learning curve is so high that it takes years to understand pressor requirements, ventilator settings, what the numbers mean and if “the bump of creatinine” means something promising or not. The different pathways one lab value can take you into an abyss of things that would essentially either prolong the course of eventual death or suffering.

There’s an anti-LGBT organization called Samaritan’s Purse that have parked outside of Sinai to accommodate the surge of patients being admitted. All public areas all around NYC have been designated to be extra hospital beds. A naval ship has docked to take non-COVID patients. THIS SHIT IS GETTING REAL. Nobody knows how to handle this virus. We think we do but we have no idea. We are officially in a recession and unemployment is supposed to reach rates up to 15%. We are all the same. We are all suffering. We will all suffer from this. I just can’t wrap my mind around. I really can’t.

The bridge of my nose is developing a deep tissue injury from the N-95 mask I’ve work all day.  Two more days and then some PTO that I will hopefully survive through.