So I left my last nursing clinical middle of April, completely unaware that I would wind up completing my senior year completely virtual. The news of the virus was slowly making its way around. During our classes we were not sure if we were safe or if this was still something that was more of a hoax. That was until beginning of March 2020, when covid was all that the news could talk about. That there were cases in this state and cases in that state. Governors were warning us that we needed to be careful, that they were going to start mandating masks and closing down businesses for “a few weeks”. Then it turned to indefinitely, no one was sure how long this was going to last. By March 14th 2020, I remember sitting in my bed, listening to the people on TV tell us we were shutting down, and that the schools were going all virtual. How the fu** was I supposed to stay at home all the time, and complete one of the hardest degrees you can choose completely online. I had no idea, and I had no idea how completely and utterly depressed I would become. It felt like a nightmare.
Pandemic Nursing #1
Beginning my nursing career during a pandemic was never something that crossed my mind to even be a possibility. My worries during nursing school consisted of, to be quite blunt, not killing my patients. My time was spent studying and cramming in as much information as possible. We were EXHAUSTED. To the point where we did not know how we were going to get through each semester. Each semester we received our syllabi, and internally screamed. How were we supposed to complete everything that was assigned? We were spread so thin, and the looks on each other’s faces entering a classroom or clinical looked as though we were empty. But, we made it, I made it, but not without Covid rearing its ugly head.
For me it began during my very last 12-hour clinical around early April of 2020, the whispers of “I think there is a covid patient in the hospital”, spread like wildfire. At that point it was not spoken with panic or distress. It was more of a curiosity. Is it real? What is it? I remember personally feeling a little on edge. Knowing there was a cruise full of people trapped on it in attempts of containing a virus, left me wondering was it already here in the US, and that it was.
sjones12468 