Home Health in the Time of COVID-19

The workplace is closed. The door is locked. If you require supplies, you make a request by e-mail 24 hours in advance. Text when you get there and the supplies will be placed outdoors the door. Maybe by elves. I'm in my auto. The air conditioner is blowing. I've been waiting for 20 minutes for my bag of hand sanitizer, chucks, gloves, masks, gowns, booties, and different dressings and accouterments of wound care. My subsequent case is across town and I'm not acquiring paid to sit about. Across the parking lot is Regional Medical Center's Emergency Room. They've closed the waiting space and place up tents in the parking lot with chairs placed properly away from every single other. I watch as individuals drive up to be tested for COVID-19 or to unload a person needing emergency care. A tech in complete PPE walks out and waves a thermometer across the forehead. OK, subsequent station. Such is medicine in the age of COVID-19. My initial "official" case of COVID-19 is a man in his early 60s. He shuffles to the door with a walker. His skin is hanging off of him in folds. He appears like one particular of these dogs with droopy flaps about his face. He got sick in February, a building worker with a cold just before we truly got the news of a brewing pandemic. Three months he lived on a ventilator. He points proudly to his tracheostomy scar. "It couldn't kill me," he says. I say "official" due to the fact you in no way truly know who may perhaps be contagious due to the fact so lots of individuals show no symptoms. I'm standing outdoors the door of his property at two p.m. on a hot California day wearing a yellow gown, a mask, face shield, blue gloves, and blue knee higher paper boots that are producing my feet itch like crazy. Sweat is dripping down my forehead onto my glasses and I can barely see a factor. Sweat is also dripping down my back and arms. I believe my gloves are complete of sweat. I need to have drank far more water. He lets me into the property. There is no air conditioning. The windows are all open. The living space and dining space have been stripped bare for remodeling. There are boards piled up, factors in boxes, a new floor. It's going to be good. He's staying with his daughter even though he recovers and he's anxious to get back property but nevertheless as well debilitated to take far more than a couple of measures. The property overall health begin of care evaluation is 29 pages extended -- 29 sweaty, hot pages. We are sitting on these inexpensive folding camp chairs. The only other furnishings is a tiny fish tank on the mantle that demands water. The pump is sucking air and producing a sound like a jet engine. I rock the fish tank gently back and forth and get adequate water to the pump that it begins functioning quietly once again. He appears at me. The fish appear at me. I sweat. I hope he's not noticing the increasing splatter marks on his new hardwood floors. What need to take 40 minutes requires 90 minutes. Each step of the way I'm double checking what the patient has touched. Did I give him this pen or that pen? I clean the BP cuff twice. Next time I'll just leave it there. He's not even shedding virus any far more. He's recovered. Not specifically spry, but he surely has the air of a man who escaped the tiger's den. He does not even require oxygen. He's a fortunate dude. I inform him to obtain a lottery ticket. One for me as well. He laughs. I ask him who is in the property and I document every single individual I come in speak to with and what PPE I was wearing. It's a new policy at our organization. We document each and every individual and what we have been wearing. Let's face it, sooner or later, one particular of us is going to come up constructive and it will be the unpleasant job of a person in the workplace to contact all of our current contacts. I can hardly picture how that conversation goes. "You know the nurse that came to visit you? We are calling all of the people that she visited because she has COVID-19 and we want to ask you to get tested yourself and self isolate for 14 days. Also everyone in the household and everyone they've come in contact with. Have a nice day." I pray to God I'm not that one particular. So I verify every little thing twice, 3 occasions. My subsequent patient is even sicker... and older. I can not be the dark angel of death. I sanitize my hands once again. I stagger out the front door and take off all the gear. Sweat is actually pouring off of me and off the inside of the slick yellow gown. My footwear are soaked. I take a moment to red-bag my PPE and wipe down the outdoors of my ditty-bag. I have an hour of paperwork to do on this guy. I have to contact his physician and get a verbal order for begin of care. I have to drink a lot of water... I imply ideal now due to the fact my vision is acquiring grey about the edges. The blessed AC is blowing cold in the auto. Thank God for tiny favors. This is the new standard. Everyone has to make modifications. I never comprehend the resistance to wearing a mask that some individuals have. For some purpose, a person in the highest workplace has decided that wearing a mask tends to make you liberal. The virus tends to make no such distinction. I never comprehend how wearing a mask to guard the individuals about you has any political significance at all. But there you have it -- the new standard. Stay protected out there. Spencer Miller, RN, is an emergency division nurse. This story was initially published by Minority Nurse, a trusted supply for nursing news and info and a portal for the most up-to-date jobs, scholarships, and books from Springer Publishing Company.

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