Sara, ICU Nurse, Covid 2/24/21

 To Carry This Burden

Upon Your Shoulders

and In Your Heart

Alone.

Is to Be Forever

Changed.

Today's (2/24/21) NYT Opinion Section had a 15 minute film on nurses in an Arizona hospital's ICU/COVID unit. The producer strapped body cams on the nurses in an effort to literally experience what they could only share as no one but the nurses were allowed into the unit, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/opinion/covid-icu-nurses-arizona.html

The producer should win some sort of an award as he doesn't play up the emotional aspect, or do the normal finger-pointing. He uses ICU nurse Sara to speak for all Covid unit ICU nurses. Sara does not so much speak as she just bears witness.

After watching the film I was left deeply moved. There are skills and insights that only come after innumerable repetitions - consistently sinking a 3 point shot from afar only comes from hours and hours of repeating the shot. Sara exhibits the same type of proficiency but in a much grimmer arena. You catch on very quickly, Sara can with a high degree of confidence sense who among the Covid patients entering the ICU "have a fighting chance" and who, in three weeks or so, will likely die as the virus mounts an attack that the body which cannot repel and eventually the ventilator will be shut off and Sara, in the role of surrogate loved one, will hold their hand as they pass beyond.

The cameraman catches the shamanic side of Sara's skill set as she, even while calmly commanding an arsenal of technology, seems to absorb and carry the pain of every labored breath of her patients. As the ventilator is shut off and the monitor descends into flatline mode she hears the anguished "I love you mom/dad/brother/sister!" shouted by loved ones into the conference call speaker. She presides over yet another soul slipping it's earthly tether as tearful loved ones witness via zoom. For the loved ones this is maybe a once or maybe a few more times, death-event in their life, where they will experience the primal pain of watching a loved one leave this world, but for Sara this happens several times a week...week after week, for the last year.

An athlete experiences taking his 100,000th 3pt shot differently than he did his 1,000th, and he executes his one millionth shot with yet a still higher level, with Zen-like awareness and focus that is difficult to put into words. I see in Sara the same Zen-ishness, she is not, out of self-preservation, cold and detached or rising above it all, in fact quite the opposite, she is totally immersed in it. She swims in the sounds, the odors, the barely audible sidebar conversations of the other nurses in attendance, the anguish looks of the loved ones.

While outside the hospitals magpies debate, in the ICU units there is Sara and nurses just like her, who understand the purest form of suffering, the suffering that leaves the soul both empty and full, longing yet satisfied. A soul that can gently touch the cheek of a total stranger and feel they are reuniting with a long lost friend.

I know of no way of remotely expressing the extent of my awe, my deepest respect, my thankfulness to the Shamans of the ICU. Perhaps a monument? That might bring a small smile. Money? They certainly deserve it and should be given it. Perhaps a national holiday in their honor? Again they smile, knowing full well it will be fully commercialized and the deeds forgotten in less than a generation. Maybe better, would be to arise, hat in hand when they enter a room, to be silent when they speak, to say a "thank you" when only they can hear. To hold them in your prayers --for as long as you live.

poppie