The COVID-19 pandemic hit the world five years ago, and the world seems to be contemplating that history lately. Numerous articles reflect on that time now that we are passing that first major milestone. In many ways, we are still struggling with the fallout and will be for the foreseeable future.
In mid-2021, things started returning to “normal” in the health care setting. The absolute jubilation of having a vaccine available had faded due to the plethora of misinformation that had been spread. Still, most health care workers had received it and were shedding the more aggressive aspects of PPE. We still wore surgical masks, but the days of gowns, double gloves, a surgical hat, and N-95 or a respirator and a face shield were over. People were beginning to come back to the hospital to receive routine testing.
While working in the GI lab during this time, I took care of a middle-aged man who had put off his colonoscopy until he felt it was safe to re-enter the hospital. While we were waiting for the doctor to enter the room so I could begin sedation, I asked him what he did for a living. He was a musician. The pandemic had hit him hard, and his livelihood was affected. He couldn’t play for a live audience. Part of his job involved booking bands for local venues, but he could no longer do this because all the venues in the area had shut down.
He had very little income, lived alone, and progressively became more lonely and isolated. He said that he and his fellow musicians tried to have concerts via Zoom, but the timing was off, and the performance lacked the energy and feedback that can only be experienced with a live audience. The audience was a number on the screen with black squares, as almost everyone had their cameras off.
He fell into a deep depression, and when I spoke to him, he was just emerging from it. He was beginning to play and organize live shows again in the area. He was beginning to reconnect with the world and play music again, which gave his life meaning. Then he said something to me that sticks to me to this day.
“I considered suicide many times, but I have a few cats. The only thing that kept me going was that I was responsible for those cats, and I didn’t know what would happen to them if something happened to me. My cats kept me alive.”
I replied, “I’m glad that you’re still here.”
The pandemic was, and in many ways, continues to be, a collective trauma in that every one of us experienced some type of upheaval related to it. It has intruded upon everything from our personal lives to our professional lives and political discourse.
I saw some of my co-workers go from fear and horror at the prospect of losing over a million people in the U.S. to denying that it was a problem after most of those who died turned out to be the elderly and infirm. Even worse, I witnessed health care providers victim-blame because the patients who were younger and seriously ill had a history of high blood pressure or were smokers. I have seen my co-workers turn from their joy and relief of receiving the vaccine to distrust and fear sown by misinformation that infected the population faster than COVID did.
I had already written about the difficulty of losing my mother when visitors weren’t allowed at her facility and the pain it must have caused her to be alone and not understand why, at the end of her life when her six children should have surrounded her. I struggle not to lose faith in my community, which expects me to be available to care for them but will not vaccinate themselves or their children to prevent communicable and preventable diseases from spreading. I remember the feeling of abandonment and betrayal as friends and family members told me that despite all I had been through, it was their choice not to get the vaccine.
My hope for the next five years is that as the pandemic recedes, we will start to listen to each other, trust science and the research that moves us forward as a society, and more of us will be able to say to each other, “I’m glad that you’re still here.”
Christine King is a nurse anesthetist.
