As The Dust Settles

The dust from the second COVID surge is settling. Between the sound of bullets reverberating through the air, the war-weary soldiers take time to rest. And that's similar to where I stand as I sit here at work blogging about life on the COVID front lines. As I tell this story, I am going to do so in reverse. And the reason is that I am starting my story while the dust is settling, as opposed to back when the COVID war was raging in full force. 

As the dust settles, we only have a few COVID positives in the hospital. We only have one Ventilator going, and that ventilator is a COVID positive. And we have. a few random COVID-positive patients come into our ER on a daily basis. Yet this is a major improvement from the surge itself. 

Several months ago an RT friend of mine from Indiana texted me. She said the second surge had hit her hospital and it was worse than the first. At that time, it had yet to hit ours. So, I did not see why the second surge would be any worse than the first. But, a few weeks later, the second surge hit us. This surge was called the Delta Surge, mainly because it was said to be the result of the Delta Variant. The Delta Variant is supposed to be a variant of the original COVID virus. Over time, the virus mutated, and this new Variant is said to be more virulent than the first. 

By the start of the second surge, most of the high-risk patients had been vaccinated. By September 2021, almost 90% of people over the age of 65 were vaccinated. So, the second surge was mainly affecting younger people. It was also affecting people who were fully vaccinated. Initially, this was why I thought my friend said the second surge was worst than the first. 

But, then the surge hit us. And it hit hard. And, this time, rather than just dealing with COVID patients, we also had our regular patients. We had 4 COVID vents plus 5-6 COVID patients on high flow nasal cannulas. But, we also had an array of COPD, pneumonia, and CHF patients. And this, I decided, is what she was referring to. The first surge we just had COVID patients. This second surge we had to deal with both COVID and our regular patients. And that made us twice as busy as we were during that first surge. 

Also, during that first surge, we were fully staffed. During the second surge, a staffing shortage was happening. So, to encourage us to work extra shifts, the powers that be were offering us our regular pay plus 30%, or 50%, and even in some cases 100%. For October, the shortage was so intense that they simply decided to offer 100% pay. That, to put it in friendlier terms, is double pay. So I, as with my coworkers, picked up lots of extra hours. And, after a month of this, I was extremely burned out. I was much more burned out than during that first surge. 

And now we still have the incentive to work extra. They are still offering 100%. But, now I am only picking up a few extra hours. I had to stop due to severe burnout. And also it has slowed way down here at work. As noted above, we have a few COVID patients, and we have a few regulars. But, now there is time to sit here and share my story.