Molly Carroll

Maybe it’s the COVID brain fog that continues to linger in my head as my roommate and I start our umteenth quarantine movie, or maybe it’s an ache for caffeine, but my holidaze is rearing its head and setting up camp for longer than I anticipated. The past few weeks have been an incredible whirlwind packed with emotions I have not yet found the time to feel, but this holiday season is not one I want to soon forget.

My first Christmas away from home began when my roommates and I lugged a nearly seven foot tree up to our tenth floor apartment. With underlying anxiety about working the three days around Christmas as well as the New Year, we held a much needed determination to foster an environment that basically spat the spirit of Santa Claus in your face the second you walked through the door. And we did! We spent December 23rd baking Christmas cookies, drinking prosecco, and eating baked brie and charcuterie to the tune of Michael Buble’s Christmas album. 

It was the perfect distraction from the ache of missing both my family and everlasting holiday traditions going on nearly 400 miles away at home.

Until Christmas Eve, when my coworkers and I found ourselves spending all thirteen hours of our shift without a break, momentarily forgetting about the holiday and hustling through the hours without any time to even realize we were hungry. This was a very different kind of distraction. That day marked the beginning of the newest COVID surge at the hospital, with cases increasing by the day at an unprecedented rate and even more short-staffed shifts looming.

In place of a bathroom break, I took five minutes to answer a call from my mom, who was at our annual Christmas Eve party surrounded by all of our family friends. They brought a much needed smile to my face, which was soon to disappear as I stepped back into one of my patient’s rooms.

Nurses become numb to a lot. Things that appear scary to others, we may consider “normal”. We have to, otherwise the job would break us. Otherwise we couldn’t show up and do our job the way we need to. Helping another person through a challenge to their health and wellbeing does not weigh lightly on the mind until the mind is trained to expect it. After a day of caring for and supporting other people, we have to learn to turn off the empath in us so that when we clock out, our attention can be diverted to our own lives. If we didn’t, we would probably burn a hole in our hearts and likely all become clinically depressed (or something to that effect).

Because of this, I have done a great job separating work from my personal life. At least I thought so, until I turned to leave a patient’s room at the end of the day on Christmas Eve, someone dying of terminal cancer, only to find him clinging to my hand and begging me to stay because he needed someone to talk to. A raw, pleading moment that seemed to grab me by the shoulders and shake me back to reality. This patient, who is normally too weak and tired to speak, vocalizing very clearly the weight of this challenge he is facing. 

Watching his eyes desperately search mine, I finally imagined what it would feel like to be in his position for the first time that day. It had been so busy the whole shift, there was no time to feel, barely any time to talk. We had other terminally ill cancer patients on the floor, that was “normal”. But this was not “normal”, not for him. This was an exhausting, overbearing, painful and indescribable part of this man’s life. And moments before, I was saying “I’ll see you soon” to my loved ones on the phone, feeling sad and sorry for myself that I had to work the holiday rather than spend it with them.

And so, the guilt creeps in. It is at this time I am unable to separate work from my personal life, when reality hits and comparison takes over. A never ending debate resurfaces within myself between “my feelings are valid” and “there are others with more important problems than you”. 

I don’t think either side will win anytime soon.

At the end of the day, I hurried home. Tears already burning my eyes, I stepped through my front door and remembered that tomorrow would be Christmas, making the tears fall faster. (I promptly joined my roommate and best friend, also a nurse at the hospital, who was crying on our kitchen floor). Yes, I was upset I couldn’t be with my family, but I was primarily crying out of frustration with myself. I was frustrated with the days of nursing when survival mode takes over. When the priority is attempting to complete all the vital to-do’s for each one of my patients. Upset with myself that I simply did not have the time to be an emotional crutch for them, knowing that the mental challenge they face is sometimes greater than the physical one. 

Every nurse knows days like this happen.

My coworkers and I proceeded to have two more days in survival mode on December 25th and 26th, leaving me in a worse holidaze than before as I boarded my plane to see my family. A mental tug-of-war over how to feel, combined with physical exhaustion and a burning desire to focus on time with people I love without the image of my struggling patients taking the forefront of my mind.

It is moments like this, when I reach a state of mind-racing numbness, that I recognize why everyone emphasizes the importance of caring for yourself as a nurse. I could have very easily chosen to stay in that place – appearing pulled together on the outside, but internally full of exhaustion, sorrow, frustration, and regret. If I did that, though, I would have run myself into the ground.

So instead, I spent four days at home goofing off with my brothers, shopping with my mom, chatting with my dad, buying myself my favorite coffee, and reuniting with friends. Choosing to accept that the few days I had at home were an opportunity to recharge before returning to work with even more determination to show up as the best nurse for both my patients and myself.

Aaaaand then I got COVID. (It’s okay, you can laugh too).

Which, by the way, comes with an entirely different kind of daze, but that’s a story for another day.