“I see my friends looking so scared in their eyes,” she says, “and yet acting so brave.” They know the peak is still coming.'
Editors handpick every product that we feature. We may earn money from the links on this page.Emily Rostkowski is an oncology nurse and cancer survivor herself. But now, like so many other healthcare workers, she spends her days in the center of the coronavirus storm.A patient on the third floor Covid-19 unit is tugging at her oxygen mask, trying to yank it off. She is 60, with a fever of 102.7, and her lips and mouth are dry from inhaling through the plastic.
Hospital staff transport a patient in Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, New Jersey, during the first few days of the Covid-19 pandemic.Right now, Rostkowski is a “floater,” assigned to wherever she is needed—and the needs are with the Covid-19 patients, their numbers swelling. Retired nurses and nursing students are being called in to serve. The governor of New Jersey, the largest death count since the outbreak began.
She no longer wears a disposable gown. The hospital is out of them. Staff rely on gowns laundered with. They are also low on N95 respirators and masks; staff members sterilize their used masks with UV light. When Rostkowski’s neighbors got word that her hospital was short on N95 masks, some dropped off boxes they had stashed in their garages for personal use.
Before the Covid-19 outbreak, Rostkowski found fulfillment working in oncology because she could relate to the patients from when she had been one herself. When death came, she tried to bring comfort to families saying goodbye by fetching coffee carts and complimentary food for them as they waited by their loved ones’ beds in those final moments. After the patient took a last breath, Rostkowski allowed families to sit with the body for a few hours before it was taken to the morgue.
At 6 p.m., Rostkowski returns to the bedside of the woman who doesn’t like wearing her mask. The woman is forlorn. She tells Rostkowski that she had not experienced human touch in days until another nurse, a friend of Rostkowski’s sat with her earlier and held her hand. So many other nurses, aides, or doctors dash in and out, always obscured by protective gear. Rostkowski grabs the woman’s hand through her gloves and holds it for a while too. She asks the patient to tell her about herself.
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