I've been plagued (no pun intended) with people posting things to my social media pages and sending me memes about God Bless Nurses, nurses are angels, heroes, etc. People send me all kinds of thank yous and stuff about nurses on the front lines and risking their lives in the current situation.
I wish they would stop. Not only does it show that they don't understand the wide range of work that nurses do, it borders on the obsequious when they send that stuff to me personally.
I'm not on the front lines.
I don't have to worry about wearing a mask at work, because I don't work in a hospital anymore, or in direct patient care. I work in my home office, a tiny 100 square foot space where the dirtiest thing I have to deal with are muddy paw prints in the spring. So please, don't call me a hero, angel, or any other superhuman. Save that stuff for the nurses who deserve it, or want it (I doubt 99.9% of them are in it for the praise), and who are out there daily, risking their lives, health, sanity, and dignity to keep working for a system that doesn't care about them or the patients they take care of.
Not only does it tug at my sense of guilt about not being there helping out because deep down I really do feel like somehow I still have that bedside nurse in me (with my decade-long absence from ICU to boot), but it's really not deserved. I haven't started an IV in seven years and I haven't touched a ventilated patient in ten.
I chose to leave hospital nursing in 2013 because I felt the conditions were abusive, disrespectful, a waste of human talent, and I wasn't willing to subject myself to a bunch of lying, gaslighting, insecure, self-enriching, mediocrity-enhancing people with low self-esteem thinly disguised behind suits. I still experience some PTSD-like symptoms, or responses, to certain stressors as a result of it. As much as I hope I will never ever have to go back, there is still this deep down pang of duty that I feel when I hear how hard they are all being worked.
But seven years later, here we are. It's all being exposed. Daylight has finally broken through, and unfortunately, it took a pandemic to do it. And I cringe, shudder, and feel nauseated when I think about the healthcare workers who are on the front lines of this situation, now, and the toll this will take on their mental health. Our country hasn't done a good job in the past of caring for veterans who came back from active combat, physically or mentally. And I have no doubt that the mental and emotional toll this pandemic will take on healthcare workers will become a crisis in itself.
I am still an oncology nurse now. I now work in research and technology around oncology care and treatment. And I have no desire to take anything away from the nurses who are working at the bedside in this horrible situation, saving lives and comforting those they can't save, to the best of their abilities.
But cancer still goes on. It doesn't stop because there's a public health crisis. And people with cancer, even if they have been treated and have no evidence of disease, are very vulnerable to infectious diseases. The disease process of cancer, depending on what organ systems it's attacking, as well as the treatment, not to mention the associated stress, goes on. So I hope all of those people with cancer, who are out of treatment, currently or recently in treatment, know that there are people out there who have your backs. We're not all dropping everything to work on COVID-19.
Right now it's hitting home in our family, my stepbrother is just getting started on a very scary and nebulous path to get treated for a blood cancer that rarely has good outcomes. His treatment was already delayed because of waiting 8 days to get COVID 19 test results. And he's getting the runaround of the healthcare system, which I strongly suspect would happen even if we weren't dealing with this pandemic.
So remember, please, yes, this is a dangerous time, it is a dangerous disease, especially for those who have additional health issues, but there are other things that are too important to lose track of.
Cancer still sucks as much as it ever has. And it's just as important now as it ever was.
So please save the accolades for the front line workers. I'll happily stay on the back end of this and keep plugging away at cancer. I'm don't want to be anybody's hero or angel, and I'm not.
Please, if you're looking for something to praise or adulate, go above and beyond in a different way. HELP NURSES! Do everything in your power to support those front line healthcare workers and don't forget them when the dust settles and we get to go back and resume our lives. Three things you can do:
1. Write your representatives in Congress, and your Senators, and tell them how important it is for healthcare workers to be taken care of both now and after this crisis is over, and that this should never ever happen again. And tell them you will vote accordingly.
2. And then, keep your word and stick by them after this crisis is over, so we can reform healthcare and make going to the hospital a less deadly experience for everyone, whether you are a patient or you work there.
3. And dammit, wash your hands and wear a mask when you go out! (Thanks to a former ICU cowowrker who reminded me to add this in...)
Thanks.
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