Never written a blog before so bear with me. Hard to "open up."
Writing this mostly as a way to process everything I've been seeing but also I've come to realize there a lot of folks out there who don't know what is really going on inside hospitals--not just for health care workers, but also maybe for their loved ones who may be sick at this time--so I figured it could provide a first-hand account.
So first post, just a little about me: At work, I'm an Otolaryngology (Ear, Nose, and Throat or ENT) resident at Mount Sinai Hospital. Currently, I am working at the "epicenter of the epicenter" at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, NYC. While I normally work there for a couple months of the year, this hospital will be my homebase for the foreseeable future. It's one of the earliest and hardest hit hospitals in the city--and NYC is one of the hardest hit places in the country/world, so you do the math. I'm seeing some of the worst of it...although honestly, it's all bad.
For those who don't know what and ENT does, it's a speciality that primarily deals with all medical problems from the neck on up (as the name implies). We focus on issues from the benign, like ear wax or nasal congestion, to the more serious like skull base tumors and large head and neck cancers. We are surgeons who can perform micro-surgeries in the ear to restore hearing, provide emergency surgical airways for those who cannot breath, or reconstruct head and neck cancer defects by taking parts of one's body (arm, leg, back) and putting them in their face.
At least that is what we normally do. Now everything is different. Our specialty, my training, like many, has basically been put on hold. Instead, I am doing something entirely different and outside my field--working in a COVID ICU that a group of ENT residents is staffing on a daily basis. I have gone from a profession where death was a very limited occurrence to being surrounded by it, or rather punched in the face by it, daily. In the last two years I was on one code and saw that patient die. In contrast, on my first day working for the ICU, I had one patient die before lunch and another dead body that was "boarded" in our unit until they could be taken to the morgue. I've seen a number of others pass since. I wasn't prepared for that. There are some professions where death is more common; ENT is normally not like that and I never expected to encounter this much death in my career.
I'm scared, like most out there. I'm scared of getting the disease, sure, but I'm terrified of bring this home to my family. That's probably the hardest part. I am also perpetually physically and emotionally exhausted. I feel like I don't know what I am doing anymore. I feel like I'm doing more harm that good. I feel like almost everything I am doing is futile. I just want to get back to normal.
At home, I'm a husband to my wife of 7 years (although we have been together for about 16 years and known each other since we were 3), and a daddy to the most incredible 19-month-old girl. My world really revolves around them and the thought that I could hurt them in any way scares me on a daily basis. Most of my precautions, and my decontamination when I get home, are to try to keep them safe.
And then there are my parents and sister. They are locked indoors in Long Island. Safe, but going nuts with cabin fever. Like most families, I have been kept apart from them for over a month--probably the longest I have ever been away from them. I work with my dad (we both teach in his Anatomy Course at Sinai), so I am used to seeing him weekly at minimum. My sister lives across the Park, and I see my mom every few weeks as well. My sister is young, but my parents aren't the healthiest and they are in their late 60's--I have nightmares about this disease hitting them.
Anyway, this was just a start. I could keep going on and on I guess, and that's what this blog is for. I've had a rough week that I will write in about in the coming days. Lot's to vent about. Hope you find this is somewhat illuminating.
Stay home, stay safe. Thank you to all those that are keeping the world going.