First, arrive at work before dawn. Then put on a head cover, foot covers, surgical scrubs, and a yellow plastic gown. Next, if one is available, the N95 mask. Fitting it to your face will be the most important 10 seconds of your day. It will protect you, and it will make your head throb. Then, a surgical mask over the N95. A face shield and gloves. Cocooned, you’ll taste your own recycled breath and hear your own heartbeat; you’ll sweat along every slope and crevice of your body.
Now, the hard part. Maintain your empathy, efficiency and expertise for 12 or 18 hours, while going thirsty and never sitting down, in an environment that is under-resourced and overworked, because your latest duty — in a profession with limitless duties — is confronting the most frightening pandemic in 100 years while holding people’s hands through it, through two pairs of gloves and a feeling that tomorrow could be worse.
“The job’s hard,” says Angela Gatdula, 31, a nurse in Santa Monica, Calif. Continue reading.