Swimmer now laps bigger set of obstacles
With everything from haircuts to pub visits to elective surgeries put on hold for months now, there is one particular job that has marched on. Heather MacLean knows it well.
“Babies don’t know that it’s a pandemic,” says Maclean, who works as a labour and delivery nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. “And even if they did, they can’t do anything about it, because they have to come out.”
It is, of course, not business as usual for Maclean, an Olympic swimmer, and her colleagues, even if her hospital floor is at its normal capacity. The coronavirus has added new levels of stress and uncertainty to expectant parents, especially those who have never been through childbirth before.
“Unfortunately, in this process we really don’t know a lot about the virus itself and what the future holds,” says Maclean, who swam for Team Canada at London 2012 and retired from competitive swimming a few years back. “It’s hard when I can’t tell my patients … You know, I can tell them that we’re going to do everything we can to support them for a healthy delivery but other than that, you know, I can’t tell them a whole bunch. So it just adds another layer of stress and anxiety for sure for the patients and for us.”
Parents who have been through the process will know that nurses like MacLean are a wonder, providing expertise and comfort at the most anxious period of their lives. But the dangers of COVID-19 have also forced staff to wear layers of protective equipment, which makes that part of the job harder.
“I want to, within the first five minutes, try to gain your trust and try to walk you through what’s going to happen to reduce your stress and anxiety, and it’s harder to do when I have a full mask and shield and everything on,” she says. “What creates that sense of trust is being able to smile and have these instant conversations.”
My children are teenagers now, but I still remember those first moments at the hospital, bewildered, and the way the nurses took charge and let us know that everything was under control. “We can still have the conversations but it’s just, it’s harder to really build that trust when you’re all covered up. It’s like acting as a barrier, I guess you could say,” Maclean says.
Her experience as an Olympian helps in these stressful situations, especially when quick action has to be taken.
“We have to work really fast and work as a team and I think I thrive off that adrenalin and I think that’s from just being an elite athlete and being used to that,” Maclean says. “Right before you race that rush of adrenalin comes. A lot of people don’t like that but I thrive off that.”
The stress and anxiety that can come with being a world- class athlete, and the ability to manage it, is also something Maclean can relate to in these strange times.
“I think now, more than ever, it helps to know I can come home and try to unload for the day, to stand in the shower and take 10 minutes,” she says. “To try to kind of leave the stress of the hospital behind. And as an athlete, you try to take those moments to leave the stress of being an athlete behind for 10 minutes and just be in the moment and present with yourself and attuned to what you’re feeling.”
Dealing with those mental- health challenges didn’t always come easy. Maclean was beset by anxiety and depression in her late teens, and for a time thought it was just the stress of competing at such a high level. “I was so young when I first kind of experienced some of these feelings and at first it was just kind of, ‘ Put your head down and figure it out. Keep going.’”
But it got worse, it snowballed, she says, and she found herself unable to get in the water. She took five months off in 2010 — “Which in the swimming world is an eternity,” she says — and focused on mental health and doing things that did not involve the pool. Eventually she was ready to go back and realize her dream.
Maclean mentors young swimmers now, and said she was encouraging a group recently — by video call — to try to get something positive out of this forced downtime.
But there are lessons for non-swimmers, too. “It’s important for people to realize this is hard because some people probably are going to be experiencing feelings they’ve never felt before,” she says. “How are they going to realize that there’s something more to this than just ‘ I’m feeling a little sad today.’”
Maclean is one of many Olympians past and present taking part in the We Are All Team Canada campaign, to encourage Canadians to realize that they all have a role to play in getting through this pandemic.
“The biggest thing is that they’re not alone in this process,” she says. “We want everybody to understand that. We all have each other’s backs.”
Some, like Heather MacLean, even behind a plastic shield, are just helping each other a little more directly than others.