Health Care Workers Post Covid

In this episode it talks about behind the scenes look of what health care workers go through post covid. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Untold Silence, where we give a voice to what we don't talk about or say. My name is Chelsea, and today I'm talking about a personal experience that has been close to my heart. Heart wrenching, but beauty within it. You hear you hear about healthcare work healthcare heroes. You don't hear about what happens after their applause fades. Since COVID, walking into work can feel like a walking into a battlefield you never signed up for. People are angrier, expectations are higher, and somehow the let with less staff and more burnouts, we are meant to be superhuman. We take self-defense classes now, not for fun, but out of necessity because we have been attacked by patients and families, the very people we try to help. But the part that haunts many of us isn't just the yelling or the threats. It's the deaths to be carried home in silence. Before COVID, bad days were still bad. But after COVID, something in the air changed. Patients and families arrive already at 10. A delay in meds becomes so become so you just don't care if my mom dies. A full waiting room means someone screams in your face. You hear you're useless, you're incompetent. Sometimes even I'll make sure you lose your job. From the people who six years ago might have sighed and just waited. And we were standing there with a badge, a stethoscope, and a nervous system already frayed. You start scanning every moment. Every new patient and family member, not just for symptoms, but for danger. Is this the one who's going to throw something? Grab me, corner me? So we take self-defense classes. We learn how to break a chokehold. In between learning how to titrate a drip. Meanwhile, the charting doesn't stop, the call lights don't stop, the grief doesn't stop. And the system looks at us and says, smile, be compassionate. Don't make mistakes. This is the noise we love in. But underneath that noise, there's a quiet there's quiet moments that never leave. There's one death. I can't file away. We'll call her Miss J. She was on hospice with terminal cancer. I've seen a lot of pain. I thought I knew what excruciation excruciating meant that I met her. Even with all the pain we had, nothing touched it. This wasn't uncomfortable. This was pain that made you want to crawl out of your own body. She was so desperate she said she wanted to die lying in her own feces as her nurse that day. Sorry, it still haunts me. Every part of me screamed no. You deserve better than that. You deserve dignity, even here, especially here. So I went so we went to clean her up, and prior to that day I had asked, you know, what what her faith was, what she liked to listen to. She told me casting crowns. I'll get to that in a moment. So we went to clean her. Just another task on a paper. But in my heart it felt like something sacred. There were a few of us in the room doing the routine things, gloves, wipes, turning her, working together and the quiet choreography healthcare workers know so well. And I started saying the Lord's Prayer out loud, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Most of you know how it goes. Miss J joined in. Her voice was weak, but she said it with me, with all of us. And in the background, casting crowns was played per her request. The other healthcare workers helping in the room joined in with the prayer too. Imagine it. A room usually smelled of antiseptic and sickness suddenly filled with a simple, trembling prayer. No stained glass, no choir. Just tired staff, a suffering woman and words we'd all heard since childhood. For a moment I felt like the whole room was holding its breath and handing it to God. And then we turned her. And everything changed. Her breath shifted to that agonal rhythm. I've heard so many times before. That strange, terrible sound that says the body is halfway here and halfway gone. Her pupils dilated. Seconds. That's all it took. You were still in the middle of the act of care, of trying to restore a small piece of dignity, and right there, with us cleaning her and the Lord's prayer still hanging in the air, she died. No code blue, no rush of people into the room, just the sudden heavy stillness. I've been there for so many deaths. I've held hands, I've hugged families. I've walked out of rooms, taken a breath, and gone straight into the next assignment. But this one, this day is carved into my mind. Maybe it's because I watched a woman in unbearable pain muster enough strength to pray with us. Maybe it's because I was washing her body when her soul stepped out. Maybe it's because with all our meds, all of our protocols, all of our science, we could not stop her suffering. There's a question that still taps on the inside of my skull. How is it possible to have so much knowledge, so many drugs, so many machines, and still not be able to relieve that kind of pain? That room, that prayer, that final breath, they replay. Not every night, but on the quiet ones. And the strange part is it was both one of the most traumatic moments of my career and yet one of the most sacred. We talk about a lot of evidence-based practice. We don't talk about holding a stranger's suffering in your hands while they live leave this world. After the death of Miss J, there isn't always a debrief circle with soft chairs and a therapist. Most of the time we strip off our gloves, wash our hands, document the time, and move on. We joke at the nurse's station, we talk about coffee and broken printers and who's bringing snacks for the next shift. We become experts at acting fine. Because how do we start the conversation? Hey, that lady we just cleaned who died while we were praying for her. I keep seeing her face, and then when I close my eyes. We know how to put on PPE. We were never really taught how to take care of guilt. And the world keeps calling it burnout. Like we're just a little too tired, like a long weekend would fix it. This isn't just fatigue, it's moral distress, it's grief, it's fear, it's anger we don't want to aim at anyone. Sometimes burnout isn't just lack of sleep, it's a lack it's about lack of answers. Lack of space to say, I did everything I could and still didn't feel like it was enough. And I don't know what to do with that. We've held hands through last breaths. We've cussed we've been cussed out in the hallway, and we watch bodies fail and systems fail. And sometimes, if we're honest, we feel like we're failing too, and yet we keep showing up. Not because we're saints, not because we we love to be heroes, but because somewhere deep inside we decided that another person's comfort, another person's chance to relief or dignity was worth our own emotional bruises. That's the untold silence. The part we don't say out loud. To the healthcare workers listening to this, if you got your own Miss J, a face, a room number, a day you still smell and hear, you're not weak, you're not too sensitive. You're a human being who has stood on the edge of life and death more times than anyone should have to, and your nervous system is just raising its hand saying, This is a lot. And one or two stand out in high definition. It's okay if you hear the monitor tones and you're just asleep. It's okay if you know how to talk about it. Don't know how to talk about it. But if you don't have to carry it along, maybe you can start with, let me tell you about the worst death I saw. Maybe you start with, hey, do you ever have the case where you can't shake, or do you ever feel weird after death, even when you did something right? Sometimes another nurse will just say sigh in that very specific nursing way and say, Oh yeah, I've got one of those too. And where the silence starts to crack. That's where this to patients and families listening. When you walk into the hospital or clinic, you're scared, you're hurting, you're tired of waiting. Tired of feeling like a number. I get it. Truly, we do. But the person in scrubs in front of you is not the whole broken system. They're one tired human trying to navigate the same mess from the other side of the bedrails. We can't fix every delay, we can't erase every mistake, we can't eliminate every ounce of pain. But we are trying. Sometimes at the expense of our own mental health, our own sleep, and our own ability to walk past a certain room without a chest or chest tightening. So if you can, bring your anger, but also bring your humanity. Talk to us like people. Allow for the possibility that one person you're yelling at might be the same person who just held someone like Miss J while she died. This is Untold Silence. Today I told you about woman on a hospice, terminal cancer, excruciating pain, and a room that turned into a prayer and then a final breath. I've stirred by a lot of bedsides, but this one stays with me. Not because I failed, but because I cared so much and still couldn't stop her suffering. If you're a healthcare worker, here's my invitation. Think about one patient or family you still carry. You don't have to share all the details, but maybe today tell a trusted co-worker. I've got a Miss J too. That's it. Just that. If you're not a healthcare worker, my invitation to you is simple. The next time you interact with a nurse, doctor, tech aide, someone in scrubs, pause. Breathe. Remember there's a person behind the mask who may be carrying stories like this. And if you can, offer kindness instead of blame. Because under the policies, the protocols, and the PPE, we're just humans. Trying to help other humans suffer a little less on the hardest days of their lives. This has been Unfold Silence. Thanks for listening to the things we usually keep quiet. Have a blessed day.