I hadn’t cried in a long time, I think since my mother died, and this whole time has been so bad, so much fear, so much uncertainty, fear of getting home and wondering: Have I passed it on to my daughters? I have always been strong in the face of fear, and I have been through a lot of times in life when I was afraid, but this made me realise that the most important things are your health and your Every discharge from icu we family. Without those, you are nothing. When I was in the icu, many colleagues have treated like Christmas, didn’t agree with us using tablets for video with music and applause. calls and phone calls from families. They said it affected the patients too much. Personally, I have seen people respond really well to it, and seeing them lift even a finger or seeing a change in their heartbeat is really important to me. Every day I have worked in icu I have tried to put patients in contact with their families. My colleague and I firmly believe that this works and really helps the patients. Every time a patient is moved out of intensive care, we have celebrated as if it’s Christmas, with music and applause. Many patients with poor prognosis recovered, who previously looked as though they weren’t going to make it. There are a lot of bright spots - like the time when a patient came back the month after they had been discharged, just to thank us. Or there was my colleague Victor, an auxiliary nurse who got really sick, and who sent me a message just to say: Thank you! And how, because I am one of the few who has family, my colleagues would change shifts with me so I could have more days off. I think I had Covid without symptoms. I am not sure when it was, but there was a time when I felt quite bad, very tired, but it passed. And there were weeks on end where I just worked the whole time, and at two jobs. As well as my home. I would think: Is this normal? Sometimes I needed to relax, I just wanted to help out at home, and I would say to my husband: let me at least wash up. My husband’s name is Alberto and my daughters are Covadonga, 7 years old, and Carlota, 5 years old, and then there’s Bruno, our dog. The name Covadonga is Asturian and it comes from the name of a battle. The person who has felt it the most is my older daughter. She is very sensitive and was always saying to me:
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MADRID — SPAIN
Bearing witness to a pandemic BUPA | SANITAS
mama, please don’t get infected, please don’t do anything at home, why didn’t you choose a different profession? Mama, please help as much as you can, but don’t catch the bug. I think if I died and came back, I would still choose to be a nurse 100 times over, and I say that to my daughters, my friends and anyone who asks. The song, Resistiré (I will make it through) became our anthem. I have many regrets. The main one is the deaths. Each death feels like a failure. At the same time, I think about how much we fought and I believe we are all winners in this tough situation. I had a carpal tunnel operation on my hands recently, but I am better now. On 10 September I will probably go back to work, because I still have stitches. I spoke to my supervisor and they told me things are quite bad again. Now, instead of Covid patients occupying one floor like before, they have two. I hope that if things get bad again I can go back and help. �
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