Covid19 as a student nurse

The Nurse Break recently held a very popular Nursing During COVID / Pandemic 2021 Writing Competition. We were inundated with submissions and thank everyone. By Diane Heart, Student Nurse in WA. To get notified of future competitions and content, sign up here.

To read articles about nurses’ raw experiences during COVID19 go here. To write for The Nurse Break go here

COVID19 as a student nurse

What brings you here today? Are you a returning traveller? Do you have any symptoms?

How often do I say this every day to people presenting at our small Covid-19 clinic here 2.5 hours south of Perth in regional Western Australia? You think you would get tired of it, saying the same thing over and over again, but I don’t. I don’t because every person who comes to the clinic presents not only because of legal requirements but also because they are scared. They are scared for themselves and their loved ones, who may get sick if they go undiagnosed with Covid-19.

The fear people bring to the clinic is electric and sometimes I feel overwhelmed with the stories that come through the door, which makes my glasses steam up.

My glasses sit just above my mask. Although I pinch the mask tightly against my nose, I still seem to steam up when my emotional responsibility boils to the surface.

I remind myself consistently that part of my role is to provide mental health support in the form of reassurance. Some people cry at the thought of being invaded by a covid swab. Some get angry because they need to have one in the first place. Others are anxious at the thought of having covid and to who they may have given it to already. It’s fair to say my role working at the covid clinic is exhausting, and every day brings new challenges.

I am always amazed, though, how well kids adapt, but then I remind myself they haven’t had to adapt because they know no different. This is the norm.

It’s hard to think of before. Before Covid-19, I’m not sure it’s even that important anymore because the world we knew is gone, and I am pretty sure gone for good.

The change is diabolical and interesting how we have all handled the transition so differently. I think this is because there is still so much we don’t know. I believe it is essential to find humour in uncertainty. Why stress about what we don’t understand? Why not use uncertainty as a strength to make the darkest of times seem just a little lighter and I like to do this by sharing stories?

I have two favourite Covid stories. One is about a motorbike man, and the other is Banana man.

Motorbike man came into the clinic with a new bike jacket that he had just shipped from the USA. He wanted us to test it for Covid-19 since it had arrived from a country at the peak of the pandemic. Obviously, we told him to put it in isolation, and he should be fine.

Banana man immensely enjoyed his time waiting for his covid test and took the time to admire the flora and flora surrounding the clinic while he waited. By the time he got to the front desk, I had asked him, what brings you here today? he had already scripted his ask for some banana tree cuttings. Which, of course, we gave him.

At the end of the day, I doff my PPE for the last time and venture home to my life. When I leave the clinic, I think about the people presenting today and become really concerned about their long- and short-term mental health. I worry about them. How are they really going?

I worry about my friends and family in other countries, such as my family in the UK and good friends in New York and Canada. I feel deeply for my friends in eastern states that seem to be constantly in lockdown. 

I tend to push my bike home sometimes rather than ride simple, so I can process my thought before I get home. I am also emotionally and mentally fatigued, which doesn’t help a productive thought process, so all I can do is let my mind run. Sometimes I stop and write it down, which allows me to control my own mental space.

I live not far from the hospital with my beautiful wife, a dog called Lewis, two chickens called Shelly and Glossy, and a goldfish called Chip. I can’t help but think when I get home what I’m bringing with me.

We have a simple and happy life. I feel fortunate for living in one of the few places in the world that genuinely has not experienced the full grunt of Covid. But I know that will not last forever; how can it? And when it comes, I will feel even more concerned for our life as we know it and what I am bringing home from work on my clothes and skin.

I think the new normal for us is still to come. My work world is very different from my home world, and I sometimes feel I live in-between. I feel like I am living a lie of a covid-19 nurse because I am not actually a nurse. I am a patient care assistant, and although a student nurse, I’m still not quite a nurse.

So, the lie for me is the rapid upskilling and expectation to be professional in this space. But I don’t fit here yet. I’m not even qualified. I then go home to my life, which seems false. How can we be so happy in a world that is so unstable? It doesn’t seem real. So, I feel I’m in-between two a world. One of expectation and the other a false reality. It’s odd.

I think to myself sometimes what does now look like as a nation. I think the five stages of acceptance, denial, anger, depression, and bargaining have all been felt. We picture that we are now a nation at the acceptance stage and in-between two worlds of what was, what is and what will be.

What’s important now is that we all work together to get through this turbulent time. In time, in years to come, we will look back on this period of history and see it for what it is. Which is a very bad day in the history of civilisation which like all others we overcome together.