“Our Eyes Hurt From the Things We Can’t Unsee”: Nurse Sheds Raw Insight into COVID Critical Care

My eyes ached. You know that gritty, raw feeling, like you’ve been crying razor blades or something? That’s what it felt like. I made an extra effort to focus on the freeway lines that zoomed by as I drove towards my safe place. Home. That’s where I could forget my day, where I could escape, leaving the sadness and stress sitting in the seat of my car, ready to be picked up again in the morning.

I had told my coworker that afternoon that it felt like 10 pm. My eyes had been hurting then, at what surprisingly was only four o’clock. I had assumed it was because of the tears. Now that I think about it, though, it was probably just the weariness of what I had seen. Not just that day, but every day for months. It was like being witness to a horrible car crash, and being unable to extract the victims. Except the wreck never ended. You relived it every day. I realized my eyes hurt from watching that repeated carnage. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to unsee it.

There is a weight sitting heavy on the heart of healthcare right now. From a critical care point of view, it feels like the dreaded elephant on your chest. It’s this heaviness brought on by unspent grief, coupled with a frantic frustration over the things we cannot change. You see, COVID-19 has brought us something we’re not used to or comfortable with. Defeat. It’s beating us, pretty much every time.

The world, and certainly the United States, has experienced the unparalleled effects of this novel virus. We’ve all experienced the shutdown, the isolation, and the economic loss. What a large percentage of people, outside of the healthcare system, are not seeing is the wicked behavior of this disease. They don’t see the cruel nature by which it attacks, making certain that stories of survival are few and far between for those poor people who happen to fall into respiratory distress under its grip. Y’all, it just won’t let the people go.

Here it is in a nutshell. Because we’ve shut the hospital doors and won’t allow you in. Here is a window into COVID Critical Care.

Death. Over and over. It does not matter what we do, or what we don’t do. It doesn’t matter if we follow every recommendation, give every medicine, and check every single box. Nine times out of ten, if you end up on a ventilator with COVID-19, you are not coming off until your heart stops. That is why my eyes hurt.

You can see your patient turn the corner, start looking better, wean down the oxygen from 100%, finally. You can say to the spouse something you try not to say lately, like, “I’m hopeful. Things are looking better. I’m very optimistic about this.”