During the unparalleled public health emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic, nurses were the unobtrusive front-line workers guided by empathy and duty to nurture their community back to health. Glossy advertisements portrayed the nurses as warriors adorned in masks of PPE and supported by local businesses and state officials. But hidden behind the uplifting images, was the true sacrifice they endured in their professional and personal lives: familial, patient, and personal relationships stretched to the brink.
For many seasoned nurses, the never-ending stress and chaos of a COVID-19 emergency room dimmed the spark from their careers. Cathay Murray, who has been a nurse for 33 years and is currently working at Tufts Medical Center, described her earlier days as "invigorating" and "exciting."
"For me [becoming a nurse] was always in my genes and always what I was meant to do. I can not imagine myself doing anything else."
However, the pandemic brought sicker patients than she'd ever seen and a new level of stress. "For most of the shifts, patients would be on their bellies because that was the treatment that they thought would preserve patients' lungs," said Murray. "With that comes all the swelling and fluid. when you flip [the patient] over their face would be swollen. Their eyes are all swollen shut, skins all blistery popped and oozing… And [they were all] hooked up to lots of machines. Machines to breath, to work as their kidneys, and to filter their blood.... In a normal intensive care unit, there are one or two patients this sick. But when COVID-19 hit, every patient was that sick."
The pandemic brought a new set of challenges for nurses, as extremely sick patients continued to enter the emergency room, changing the time and ways in which they worked, and creating unsafe workplaces. Perhaps the biggest challenge was to provide patients with the quality of care they needed to combat a never-before-seen disease. Murray shared the simple pleasures of being able to develop a deeper fulfilling connection with her patients through meticulously taking care of little details like "giving them a shave" before the pandemic. "I don't think patients are even getting adequate care when the nurses' assignments are at an unsafe level," Murray said. As the crowds of the sick grew, the personal attention and care slowly faded into a bottom-line desire to just keep as many individuals alive as possible.
The toll on the mental health of nurses in pandemic was prevalent across all health care workers. "There was never a break," remembers Murray. After the second wave of the pandemic increased the long hours and extremely high-pressure environment, "I cut my hours down from 40 to 30 and it has saved my mental sanity."
Perhaps the biggest change was the loss of family connection. Even before starting a long day in the COVID-19 unit, many nurses' anxiety kicked in as they worried upon returning home that they would spread the disease to their families. "I'm a hugger," said Murray, with a warm laugh. During the pandemic, she did not share a hug with anyone.
Murray's coworker Amy Callahan notes the amplified struggles in her young family. "I stayed up many nights worrying that I would potentially expose my children to COVID. I did not hug or kiss my children because I wanted to keep them safe."
A nurse for 12 years, Callahan added, "I wasn't sure what to do. I have a five- and a two-year-old and parents who were in high-risk categories. husband had to take days off from work to watch the children while I was at work to the point where he had to take a layoff... I had coworkers, who were living in trailers and Cape houses, completely staying away from their families."
“I stayed up many nights worrying that I would potentially expose my children to COVID. I did not hug or kiss my children because I wanted to keep them safe.” - Amy Callahan
Picture provided by the Callahan family
However, in a time where nurses were away from their blood family, they sought a deeper connection with fellow coworkers. Murray remarked "the only thing that got us through the day was "family lunch" where "all the nurses would come back to home base in our unit, sit around in a circle, and talk about anything."
Despite COVID-19's isolating effects in the medical field, Murray and Callahan remain radiantly optimistic about their selected career field - a reaction that illustrates the determined spirit of health care workers. Even after the mental, physical, and familial damage and scars created from COVID-19's impact, Murray emphatically says, "I would not discourage anyone from becoming a nurse."
