 So, last week on the program we talked about a gut-wrenching story from South Dakota where a nurse who is caring for COVID-19 patients describes how they are in denial of the virus as they literally die from it because they believe Donald Trump's lies. They believe that this is a hoax and that what they're experiencing, the illness that they feel, it's not from the virus, it's from something else. Now, another story has emerged featuring another nurse who's working on the front lines caring for COVID-19 patients and what she says is genuinely just heartbreaking. And I wanted to share her story because I think that these types of stories from nurses are really important. So she writes, I am tired. I spent the last eight months caring for COVID patients. I've missed my family and friends. I've missed birthdays and my own wedding anniversary. I've coded nurses and doctors who worked in the same hospital as I when they contracted coronavirus. I kept going. I believed my country needed my skills to save American lives, so I dropped everything and flew to New York. I've worked in South Jersey, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Chester, Pennsylvania, and now I'm back in Texas. We were making gains. The numbers were dropping. The curve was flattening. I was able to leave the COVID ICU. I was assigned to a non-COVID floor. I was finally able to go home. My toddler has stopped crying every time I leave the room because she was scared I wasn't coming back. It's heartbreaking to watch a happy child get sad because she thinks her mama is leaving again. Children don't understand their parents being gone for months at a time. We were finally settling in and getting back out to the new normal. But then Donald Trump and his followers started this anti-mask bullshit. Now our numbers are climbing again. Actually, they are worse in my hospital than the first wave. I'm going back to the COVID unit. I'm going back to a small cold one-bedroom apartment and leaving my home. I'm going back to an uncertain future. I'm going back except now I'm losing hope. The worst part of it all is my little one. She is so happy that her mama is home. Now I have to leave again. I dread the holidays. Not one of these selfish anti-maskers is going to care that I'll spend my holidays alone so they can be assholes and not wear masks. They don't have to see my child's tears. They wouldn't care anyway. She won't get to eat my sweet potato pie on Friendship and Fellowship Day. This will be the first year that she's excited about our tree and the gifts under it. I'm going to miss it all. This is what I have to give up so these horribly selfish people can go to their grandma's house and infect her with COVID. Then they'll bring her to my hospital. They're not kind. They are entitled assholes who think someone else got grandma sick. They're the ones that will follow you to another patient's room to tell you their grandmother is more important than the patient you're going to see. They're the ones that will take out their airboat to blame China for the China virus. They're the ones that call me girl. They tell me how admirable it is that I speak good English and manage to overcome to get a college degree. They are racist Covid-igots and they refuse to acknowledge the harm they cause. I deserve a break. I deserve to watch my baby open her gifts on Christmas. I deserve to work without fear that today might be the day I contract coronavirus. I am fucking tired. Hearing the story, like the last story, it brought tears to my eyes because in the last story, the South Dakota nurse talked about how painful it is to see patients who she cares for and denial, but this story, it really gives you the perspective of a nurse. This just reinforces the reality that when this is all said and done, these nurses are going to have PTSD. They're going to have decades of trauma from this experience. They're putting everything on the line, sacrificing their own lives to care for people in a country that don't seem to take the virus seriously. I mean, most people do, but a large enough portion of American society just doesn't seem to care or take it seriously. It's a joke. That anyone who is taking it seriously is being too alarmist. And then this is the cost. It's taking a toll on the personal lives of nurses and doctors who have to give up everything to fight. And they're putting their lives at risk. This to me, it might have hit me harder than the other story with the South Dakota nurse. Because even though that's sad as well, this really just shows you that this is not an easy job. The trauma that they're experiencing is comparable to veterans of war, like what they're seeing. They're seeing their colleagues die. They're caring for patients that are saying racist things to them. It's just, it's so sad and devastating. And I've said this before, but I don't think we're truly going to grasp the scale of devastation from this virus until decades later. I mean, when there's something like 9-11, which is a singular event where 3,000 Americans die, you can easily reflect on that because it's just this one sudden shock. But the thing about these types of pandemics is the devastation occurs at a more gradual rate. It's like the frog that you throw into a boiling pot. If he feels that heat, he's going to jump out immediately. But if you throw a frog into a pot and then you gradually turn up the temperature, he's going to get accustomed to it. And that's what I think is happening with COVID-19. As the numbers tick up, as we reach more than a quarter million deaths, people tune out. The number just is too big for our minds to fathom psychologically. So I think maybe there's some form of protection that we're imposing on ourselves by putting up this wall, or maybe we're just growing numb to it. Either way, people who are fighting this virus firsthand, like this nurse, she doesn't get to be numb to it. She sees it every single day. So it's super convenient that individuals like you and I can just try to tune it out, try to stay home in quarantine and play video games and distract ourselves. But folks like this, they don't have that luxury. And their families are suffering for this because they're choosing to fight this virus and save lives. And what do they get in return? Nothing. And this hits close to home because I have friends and family members in healthcare who are working with COVID patients. And when I hear stories that they're putting their lives at risk and getting exposed to the virus, it's horrifying. We're starting to see a let at the end of the tunnel because we're having multiple vaccines show to be pretty effective, highly effective even. But how much devastation will we see before getting to that point? I mean, how many more people are going to die who are alive today who haven't yet been infected? It's just, it's horrifying to think about. So I think that these stories are important. Like I don't believe we should look away from this. I think we have to face this and we have to do something about this. Nurses and frontline workers are going to be absolutely traumatized for decades. And we have to take care of them. We can't just abandon them. We live in this cold, late-stage capitalist society where we don't look out for our own. So this hit close to home and this thread was really informative. We oftentimes, if we're not in this position, don't have to think about it. But when we hear from these folks, man, is this horrifying.