I had an experience of being mis-diagnosed and ended up in a COVID-ICU Unit. But, my story pales by comparison to the stories worth remembering that I heard from the Covid ICU nurses.
During this Covid Pandemic, I had been careful to follow the CDC guidelines and quarantined at home. Taking the vaccines had relieved me of some of the anxiety of getting Covid. I have a compromised immune system, so I am at great risk for Covid. My doctors warned me to stay as far away from hospitals as possible!
But on April 15, 2021, a series of circumstances brought me to the Methodist Metropolitan Covid ICU Unit in San Antonio, Tx. On that morning I blacked out and hit my forehead on the bathroom counter, knocking myself out. My husband came home for lunch and found me unresponsive. He immediately took me to the nearest free standing ER, blocks from our home. While I was there, they ran a Covid test and did a medical assessment. When I woke up, I found myself on a gurney in a strange place. I was told I had Covid & a stroke and they were transporting me to Metropolitan Methodist Hospital. I thought to myself … “I’m just dreaming this!” & blacked out again.
Arriving at Methodist ER, the admitting physician gave instructions to take me straight up to the Covid ICU. Apparently having Covid & a Stroke is a very bad combination! The next time I woke up, I was shocked to learn I was in a Covid ICU Unit. I just laughed. Now I was SURE I was dreaming! When the ICU nurses came into my room in huge protective suits, I thought how funny this “dream” story was going to sound when I told my husband!
Further testing at Methodist determined I did NOT HAVE COVID and assessed I had NOT HAD A STROKE either. It was a misdiagnosis. Later I learned I had a concussion from the fall caused that morning from blacking out from a drug reaction.
I was the only patient, at that time in the Methodist Hospital Metro Covid ICU Unit, who could talk. The rest of the patients were intubated. I asked the nurses “How long have you been working in this Unit? What was your worst day? How do you deal with the stress?” I found out quickly that I was being taken care of by true HEROES! They told me how scared they were when the Covid Pandemic started the year before. This ICU was designed to be a medical ICU, but when they received their first patient with Covid, they quickly converted to a Covid Unit. These nurses told me they couldn’t leave their Covid patients because they were needed so badly. I heard how much they loved nursing and taking care of their patients and each other.
In the short time I was a patient in this Covid ICU, I heard many stories from these nurses. I was afforded an extraordinary opportunity to witness their courage and excellent care. We all shared a good laugh about “my dream” experience. But, their stories go mainly untold. If you could have heard what I heard from them, you would know what brave, dedicated nurses do when the worse possible nightmare happens to their patients. It wasn’t the doctors who called the families and asked if they wanted to say their goodbyes over an I-Pad or cell phone to a loved one who was alone and dying… it was these nurses.
They are well aware that even some of these patients who lived long enough to leave the Unit would never be totally well again. With some of these patients, there were complications that would end their lives all too soon. One nurse told me a story about a husband who came up to the Unit to take his wife home to die. I asked, “What did you say to him about the risks he was taking by removing such an ill patient from the Covid ICU?” The answer was simple and complex, all at the same time… “What would the patient want?” These questions and answers reflect the complexities and human dilemmas these nurses faced every day in Covid Units all over our country. This husband told the nurses he knew his wife would rather die in his arms than die in the hospital, alone. So, the nurses unhooked the patient from the ventilator. And, as they had predicted, she did die in his arms….. in the parking lot of the hospital as he was carrying her to his car.
Sometimes I have found that circumstances have landed me in places I never imaged I would go … like a Covid ICU Unit. But that gave me the uncanny opportunity to meet these courageous front line Nurses. Their stories reflect the truly scary, lonely and difficult uniqueness of the Covid Pandemic.
By May of 2021, one month after I was released from the hospital, I started baking cookies for my HERO NURSES. On the first day that I delivered my treats, their patient numbers were way down from their capacity levels when the Pandemic brought us all to our knees the year before. The Unit Secretary and a Covid ICU nurse came down to meet me in the lobby. They told me on the same day that I was admitted, they had lost their youngest patient, an 18-year-old boy. She said I was their “Breathe of Fresh Air” in contrast to such a horrific loss of another precious human life. The Covid nurse told me, at the height of the Pandemic, he had lost 7 patients during an 8 hour shift.
By the summer of 2021, I was tucking in inspirational cards into the packages of cookies and sending break room signs of hope, encouragement and humor to lift the spirits of Covid ICU Nurses in three (3) hospitals.
Unfortunately, by the fall of 2021, all thirteen (13) Covid Hospital ICU Units in San Antonio were overwhelmed again, but this time with un-vaccinated patients who were hostile and family members who believed the nurses were just lying to them. At the Methodist Covid ICU unit I had been in, most of the patients died. One nurse told me that in 2020 they were treated like “HEROS”, but in 2021 they were being treated like “ZEROS”. I enlisted the help of my church, University Methodist, my family and friends, and a group of middle to low functioning special needs students from Clark High School to bake, package and deliver cookies to Covid ICU nurses in all thirteen (13) San Antonio area hospitals. We baked over 25,000 Cookies for Covid Nurses until the end of May, 2022, when the hospitals final closed their Covid ICU units.
By the end of May, the Clark students all graduated from high school as well and felt confidant they would find jobs with their newly acquired skill of baking cookies!
On the day of our last bake with the Clark students at University Methodist Church, we baked our usual 16 trays of cookies. I knew I could find some non profit who could use them.
After the Clark students loaded the cookies into my car, I received a call from University Hospital telling me they were loading up a large truck with medical supplies and personnel to travel to Uvalde, Texas to assist the hospital staff treating10 surviving children from the Uvalde Robb Elementary School mass shooting, that left 19 children and 2 teachers dead. They asked if I had any cookies. I told them I did, and I was on my way!
By mid-May, 2022, ONE MILLION Americans had lost their lives from Covid. Nurses, doctors, frontline workers & first responders from all over our country joined Covid families and their friends in their suffering of unbearable sorrow from the monumental loss of so many of our fellow Americans who died in this epidemic. If you meet one of these health professionals or first responders, ask them to tell you their story They are truly American heroes!