 Hey guys, welcome back to this video. I wanted to share a couple of stories both positive and negative from my experiences slash the experiences of the people that I've worked with Through this COVID pandemic over the last year. It's crazy to think that it's been a year since like first taking on COVID patients in my hospital and I wanted to share a couple of these stories to like just kind of document Some of the things that I and those around me have experienced Obviously, this will be like HIPAA compliant. I'll change identifiers where appropriate and whatnot but This pandemic has been crazy and I think it's changed most nurses more than we realize or maybe you do realize it For me, it it's like when I'm in it I don't realize the struggle as much or I don't realize the crazy things that I'm Experiencing until I take a step back and if I tell someone about an experience or just have a moment to like reflect on What happened during my shift? It It then like hits me. I don't know. It's hard to explain. So I have let's see, sorry I have my I have them on my phone. I have I think seven Experiences That have happened to me Slash like my co-workers That I want to share that have happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of these will be like Positive and some of these are are pretty like dark. So just be forewarned, but Let's start with something Positive and that was extubating our first COVID patient So when code first hit I'm in Arizona and like I said, I mean I see nurse We only had a couple COVID patients. We didn't get like full-blown hit really super hard initially And so I remember our first COVID patient This was a young patient someone that you wouldn't necessarily expect to get this sick from COVID and we We babied this COVID patient my baby I mean that like we just we did everything and anything to like we kept this patient in ice you for longer We were very hesitant about Extubating and whatnot. I want to say this patient was intubated for probably three to four ish weeks But I remember when this patient got extubated. It was like Everyone was celebrating. We were so excited. We were so happy for this patient and It was like it was a really big deal and the patient actually wrote us a note probably Several weeks after they got discharged like from the hospital and rehab and all that to kind of share their experience of being in the ICU as a patient being like one of the first COVID patients and It was it was very humbling to have like that first patient that we extubated Because there was several more that we didn't even get close to extubating which I'm gonna talk about that Sorry, like I said, all my things are on my phone Let's see. Okay. So that was a positive story. Let's do Something that's not so positive. So I Saw the lowest sets that I've ever seen in my Time as an iciners I've been iciners for almost five years, which I guess is like kind of long but not that long But I saw the lowest oxygen sats on a patient that I have ever ever seen where they are still alive and like a perfect PLEF So this was a legit sat, but the patient desat it down to three percent and this was during a tube exchange The patient was on a peep of 20 and a hundred percent and it was a very difficult tube exchange, so I Have never seen sats get that low and be like legit, but yes three percent That was a shift. I was being a charge nurse doing the charge nurse role and during that same shift I also helped assist in Intubating a patient who was pregnant and then a couple minutes later doing a bedside C section Obviously, I didn't do the C section The OBGYN was there, but we had a COVID patient that was just not doing super well. We ended up needing to intubate Baby didn't like the intubation and we ended up doing a bedside C section Which was the first for me. I know lots of babies have been delivered in ICU's Before we've had a couple I've never been there personally, but this is my first one that I was at I'm also pregnant right now and I was pregnant at the time when this happened and it was just it was like a crazy experience Yeah, I mean that's a very hard thing. I think for anyone experiencing someone so young That should not have necessarily been that sick from COVID be that sick and then having to deliver their baby like in the ICU So that was that was crazy Another story. Let's see We had lots of families that got sick with COVID like several of the family members all were in you know the hospital or in the ICU And in particular we had a husband and wife who Were with us for a couple weeks not doing super well and they ended up both passing away at the same time We actually rolled their beds in together so they could both pass away and their family could Be there for that. So that was another sad story Sorry, I know these are like so sad But I know you guys probably appreciate hearing this and have experienced a lot of these things yourselves Let's see another story. We had a patient who who's Sibling was in the ICU and the sibling passed away And the other patient was still intubated and we had like a note on our like little report sheet that said like The patient wasn't aware yet that their sibling had passed away Which is sad because obviously this patient was intubated and sedated and it's like Who is going to tell them that when like that patient is also so critically ill and To hear you know that your sibling has passed away just a couple doors down like very very sad Another thing was Doctors not coding patients even if families were really insistent. So our intensivists are Amazing, but we got to the point where they basically had to say We cannot keep coding or we cannot get to that point of coding your your loved one because it's just It they they are so so so sick and that's really hard when Um I don't want to say that option is taken away But that that option is taken away from families and I feel like as nurses We know that for the most part of patients are that sick that they are coding Their outcomes are are not good. Their mortality rate is not is super high the morbidity rate super high But to like hear these conversations that the doctors are having the families basically saying like look they are so sick It's not appropriate for them to be a full code Is was kind of crazy and I know like I've heard it in little bits You know like those conversations prior to the covid pandemic But when we are in like full pandemic mode, it was like every single shift these conversations were happening Okay, I wanted to share two more stories that are both kind of happy since a lot of these have been depressing um But we had a patient whose birthday was uh happened while they were intubated in the icu and obviously a covid patient and um So for the family we actually sang the patient happy birthday and like recorded us singing it and sent that to The family obviously we had kind of formed a close relationship with the family over the past several weeks So we knew like it would they would be okay with it and it was only sent to you know the family, but it was um Just something that I'll always remember that like my co-workers and I did for this patient um I know the family really appreciated it. I don't know actually how the patient ended up doing overall But like I think it meant a lot to them that uh, we did that and then another happy story that I have is um We had a patient who had been with us for a while And it was actually like their one month Aversary of being in the icu like intubated with covid And as the pandemic was kind of dwindling down our surge was dwindling down We were closing some of the icu's that we had opened up for covid and so for this particular patient They were our like last covid patient in this unit It was actually them and one other patient But the other patient was like going to be going off the unit for a scan And so like the nurses and I were kind of like well, what should like we do? It's like this patient's one month anniversary They're like the last patient in this makeshift covid icu that we've had Like what should we do? And so um, I wasn't the nurse I was actually being the secretary at the time But the bedside nurse was like well, let's play music and give this patient like the best bath they've ever had Which is like such an icu nurse thing to do But um the patient wasn't able to tell us like what they music they liked So we just guessed based on their birth date like what type of music they would like And the nurse blasted the music Like gave this patient a really good bath bed change made them all super clean because like most of us Probably know and have experienced like during the pandemic a lot of things kind of had to go to the wayside And not saying that like patients didn't get baths But it definitely wasn't the consistency and the quality that we can when we only have one or two patients when you've got Multiple patients that are super sick a bath is not necessarily always a priority So it was kind of nice to you know put the music on Clean the patient up super super well and it was like a celebration for them But also for us of like we're closing down this unit Like this pandemic has hit us so hard But it's coming to I don't want to say coming to an end because I don't know if we're going to have another surge I'm sure maybe we might but I hope we don't have a surge That big to where we're opening up all these like makeshift icus. It was crazy. So Those are a couple stories from my time working During the COVID-19 pandemic If you guys want to share some um feel free to leave them down below Obviously make sure they're like HIPAA compliant Change genders change ages change whatever um so that way the stories are are safe, but um I hope hearing some of these experiences are Like help you feel I don't know enlightened But also that like I'm in the same boat as you guys I've been in the same boat as you guys and I'm experiencing a lot of the same things that you guys are experiencing And yeah, so I hope it's helpful and I'll see you guys my next video. Bye