‘IT’S A STORM; IT’S A WAR ZONE’
One nurse’s fight on the front lines
Just before they go under, some patients infected with COVID-19 say a little prayer.
They ask God for protection as they prepare to be placed in a medically induced coma. Soon a machine will take over for their lungs, allowing their body to rest and fight the virus. So they pray.
If they have a cellphone, they’ll call their family and make sure they leave nothing unsaid — not an “I love you,” an “I’m sorry” or a simple “goodbye.”
They perform this ritual because there’s no telling if they’ll make it out alive. And they have to do it alone because of the risk they’ll infect a loved one.
“It haunts you, to see that again and again,” says Yasmine Abilmouna, an emergency room nurse at the Jewish General Hospital.
“I don’t think any amount of experience can prepare you to witness something like that . ... It’s been two weeks and I’ve seen it at least a dozen times.
“My day to day is, we’ll (intubate) them and send them to intensive care. We don’t know what happens to them next. I don’t know if they live or die. I don’t get any closure. Just more patients. It’s a storm; it’s a war zone. It’s haunting.”
Abilmouna, 25, is a foot soldier in the war against a pandemic that’s ravaging the planet.
Every morning Abilmouna, who lives alone, rolls out of bed, puts on some mascara and drives along the empty highway to the hospital, listening to the news to get a sense of how the virus is evolving.
The hospital is a fortress. Abilmouna flashes her badge to get past security. Once inside, she changes out of her civilian clothes, puts on her scrubs, gloves, M90 mask and face shield, and joins the other nurses on her unit.
There are four of them, checking in on six COVID -19 patients, monitoring them for “red flags.” The virus fills their lungs with mucus and impedes their ability to feed oxygen into their bloodstream. With enough time, it will start to suffocate their vital organs and brain.
Before that happens, Abilmouna and her team must determine whether they need to be put to sleep and on a respirator.
“We’re at the edge of our seats making sure they don’t reach that point,” she says. “One of the scariest things about the virus is that people can be walking around with their oxygen levels dropping rapidly and they don’t realize it yet.
“Sometimes their family calls in a panic. The patient came into the hospital on their own two feet and now they’re in a medically induced coma. No one knows what’s next.”
When the levels drop too low,
Abilmouna, a doctor and a respirologist meet with a patient and prepare them to slip into a deep sleep. The patient is sedated, hooked up to an intravenous drip and then the team gently slips a breathing tube down their throat.
They will repeat the process however often is needed, or until they contract the virus themselves and must self-quarantine. So far, Abilmouna has gotten through weeks in the trenches without showing so much as a cough.
Others haven’t been so lucky, despite an abundance of caution. Nurses, doctors and support staff across the network are beginning to fall prey to the coronavirus. It probably won’t kill them, but it takes valuable resources out of the fight.
With the number of infections mounting, there is no telling how deep into the crisis we are. Abilmouna is strong, she has a team to lean on and, while some of her colleagues have broken down, she says she isn’t quite there yet.
But, she wonders, how many more shifts, how many more infected patients, how much more isolation until she starts to buckle?
“Maybe that’s the hardest part: not knowing how much longer this will last,” she says. “Is it weeks? Months? Will things ever really go back to the way they were?”
On a rare day off, Abilmouna does whatever she can to recover. Usually that means sleeping in, going for a jog around the block and video-calling friends and family (possibly with a glass of wine in hand). And then there’s the school work.
In addition to her role at the ER, Abilmouna is studying to be a nurse practitioner. Her professors have been flexible, but she has deadlines to meet and exams to study for.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that she’s part of a team that knows exactly what she goes through every day. Sometimes they commiserate over a box of doughnuts, a song on the radio, a joke or any piece of the world outside COVID-19.
“This has brought us all closer together and, right now, we can use whatever human contact we get,” she says. “Those five-minute breaks, those little moments, I live for those right now.
“It’s hard — but I’m happy to be in the fight instead of at home feeling helpless.”