Pandemic sets one nurse free

Neosho – The coronavirus pandemic has restricted almost everyone’s freedoms in America but for Meghan Lindsey, it has done the opposite. This is the freest she has ever felt.

Travelling to New York City at age 33 to work as a Covid-19 nurse was the first time that Lindsey, a married mother of two, had left southwest Missouri.

“It was my first time on a plane,” she said, describing how she came to work 12-hour shifts in the intensive care unit at NYU Winthrop Hospital. “Flying into New York was the first time I’d ever seen the ocean.”

There are many stories about the lonely coronavirus deaths in the city’s hospitals and the traumatic work of the nurses who staff them. Meghan’s story is about unexpected opportunities.

It’s a story of how the pandemic gave a woman the chance to strike out into the world, confront danger and make a difference.

“I always wanted to do something for my country,” she said. “This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something meaningful.”

Meghan’s first nursing shifts in New York were a shock. There are a lot of sick people in Missouri with chronic diseases like diabetes, where the progressions are slow. Covid-19 patients are stunned by a virus that turns their lives upside down and in many cases ends them.

Because they were coronavirus patients and visitors were banned, it was Lindsey who would hold their hands as they died.

“Once you FaceTime and you meet their family and you hear them crying and sobbing, you know their cute little nicknames and you start to know them, it just gets to be really personal,” she said.

“You have a hard time separating yourself and not truly grieving for them as well.”

Despite the deaths, her time in New York City’s Covid-19 wards was affirming. The pandemic gave her something her life in Missouri had not: a feeling of everything sliding into place.

When Lindsey graduated from nursing school, it wasn’t like she imagined. It turned out to be just a job.

She mourned. “Now, for once, it’s actually something important. This is the first time since I’ve become a nurse that it’s like, ‘yes, this is why’. I can make a difference.” – Reuters