Hospital staff have once again been pushed to the brink by an alphabet soup of respiratory illnesses. As the bed count at Providence Saint John's Health Center continued to rise, Gena Oppenheim, an intensive care nurse in Santa Monica, Calif., was taking it all in stride.
The loss of so many Covid patients under her care, many of them young people who lingered on life support for months, has left her emotionally battered.
As family members of those patients sent her holiday greetings, she felt comforted.
It was unusual for I.C.U. nurses to stay in touch with the relatives of those who died during the Pandemic. The only link they had to their loved one was with us. We share it.
The nursing profession is in crisis due to burnout, exhaustion, and the politicization of a virus that left many frontline workers feeling unappreciated. For every bedside nurse who has left the field or transferred to a less stressed job at an insurance company or a school clinic, there are stalwarts like Nick Vargas.
If you love your job and you have good people around you, you will return to nursing. I look at it that way.
Ms. Oppenheim has a strong relationship with Providence Saint John's. There was a place where her father spent a lot of nights. He was last seen in Room 2230 by her.
In March 2020, just as the novel coronaviruses began its deadly cascade across the country, she applied to nursing school and began working with the nurses who cared for her father.
She said that she felt her father at the hospital.
Ms. Oppenheim thought of her father when she saw Hanny Virginia in Room 2230.
Ms. Oppenheim spoke to her patient as if they had known each other for a long time. The machine that was keeping her alive was explained by her. The information might help prepare Ms. Virginia for the exams she was going to take before she got sick.
The staff members whispered in her ear, "Come on, hurry up, get better, so we can give you a job here"
The nurses cared for a lot of patients in their 20s and 30s. After months in which most patients were older, Providence Saint John's was bracing for the I.C.U. nurses to come in. One nurse said it was similar to looking at yourself in the mirror.
They saw themselves in patients like the 30-year-old social worker who wanted to become a foster mother and who spent summers building ramps for disabled children in Mexico. She didn't know that her father had died of the same disease three weeks before she died.
The Kim family kept an eye on the machines and brushed their loved one's hair in the rare moments of calm despite the loss.
Forced separation made staff members the only link between patient and family.
At Ms. Kim's funeral, her sister looked up to see four of her nurses.
The sister said that they will be a part of her life. You need to talk to a nurse if you want to know a patient.
An I.C.U. nurse and their patients form an intimate relationship that lasts a long time. Sometimes nurses can sense something is wrong before the arrival of confirmatory diagnostics.
You can tell when something is off with a spouse or a family member. They are making small gestures on their face. It becomes a fifth sense.
Ms. Oppenheim was moving at a rapid pace. One moment, she was entering digits into a file, and the next she was on the floor of Jessica Flores's room changing a bag of fluid.
I will wipe your eyes. Ms. Flores, a freight office manager, was unconscious when she was comforted by Ms. Oppenheim.
Catalina Gonzalez was a patient of Bonifacio Deoso who was a night shift nurse.
Mr. Deoso said it became a little more intimate at night. You grieve with your patient when you have your patient all to yourself.
When a patient's condition improves, Ms. Oppenheim is usually the first to hear their voices.
Ms. Oppenheim leaned over and said that she didn't want him to be discouraged.
He was alert for the first time in a long time. His girlfriend held the phone to his ear as he mouthed "I love you" She held a piece of paper under his hand as he wrote.
He was given a slim chance of survival when he was first taken to the hospital. He woke up from his sleep two months later to find dreams filled with dinosaurs, car crashes and social media posts.
The man said he thought he was dead when he was sleeping.
There was a nurse at the foot of his bed.
The nurses were there all the time. When he got to the hospital's rose garden, his father took a knee in disbelief and exclaimed, "It's a miracle."
These stories helped health care workers deal with the Pandemic.
Ms. Virginia was not feeling well in Room 2230. There was a knot in her stomach and she was bleeding profusely from her nose.
Is you okay? As Ms. Oppenheim sat down in front of her computer, Jake Childs asked if she was okay.
She was unconvincingly saying yes.
Ms. Oppenheim held the arm of Ms. Virginia's mother as another nurse explained to her that her daughter was brain-dead. Ms. Sho had a hard time listening. Ms. Oppenheim said that the woman looked at her to save her.
On October 5th, 2021, he was discharged. Hanny Virginia passed away on the same day.
Nick left his shift as Ms. Virginia's family gathered around her bed to say goodbye. He burst into tears when he got into his car.
He had a sense of invincibility in his 20s. He thought that like Ms. Virginia, he might have chosen not to be vaccine free. He said that it might have been him.
There were still questions about why some patients survived and others died a year later. Their deaths did not feel right.
Some people think nursing is a combination of creativity and science. The importance of spirituality is emphasized by others.
The healing power of holding a patient's hand has increased the confidence of nurses. She said that praying with the patient relieves a lot of sadness and pain. I will always remember them because they became a part of me.
One of the I.C.U. nurses agreed with her. I look at their faces. She saw the rooms they were in. Carrying with you is a part of nursing.
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