How did I deal with COVID as a nurse student

I guess I never have been that sure about what my future job would look like in real life. Actually this pandemic has got my eyes wide open.

At the beginning of the COVID, I was just ending a nursing internship in a psychiatric hospital. My friends and I were staying in a nursing home handled by nuns, 46 miles away from my family and my boyfriend. The situation became strange. We didn’t know exactly what was going on. We didn’t know how to deal with this disease. We had to stay in our bedrooms not to communicate with the old patients that may be contaminated. We could have been contaminated too but at that time, we didn’t have a clue. (In fact, we still don’t know if we’re COVID positive until we have some symptoms or get the COVID test results.) Our temperature was taken and we had to sanitize our hands before coming in the nurse home. We came back to hometown and the news were not good.

Honestly, I didn’t realize what was truly happening. I didn’t know that it was that serious. I think that a lot of people didn’t believe it at the beginning because nothing was concrete. People had nothing to assess the seriousness of the situation. (By the way, there are still people that think that all that COVID thing is a whole conspiracy.) I started to realize about all of it when I heard about a potential lock-down on TV news.

Then everything was a challenge to me. First, I couldn’t date my boyfriend anymore. After 3 months of relationship, we had to see each other on video call (thank god for making this doable in 2020) during nearly 3 months. As I said, it was a challenge because I’d see how our relationship would deal with the distance. We dealt really good even if it was a hard period.

“Here is the take home exam link. Download it to start.”

Next to that problem, I learnt that all my classes would happen remotely. My school had to organize programming all the class groups for each lesson and each student. We didn’t have any lessons during one month because my school was totally lost about how to manage a nurse school remotely. That’s why I didn’t learn any practical course during the lock-down. We were late in our learning. We had to cancel a planned nurse internship because hospitals didn’t accept young nurse student anymore. In fact, they had too much work to care about students. (Finally, I had to catch up my internship hours during the last 3 weeks of my summer holidays.)

It was such an anxious period. I didn’t know how to study at home, I didn’t know how I’d pass my exams, if they would happen at my school or at home … I didn’t find the motivation to study because of that. I had never imagine having classes wearing pajamas in my bed. At the moment that I knew that the exams would be taken remotely, I knew I could have internet, Messenger, all my books by my side during the exams and my motivation to study decreased. I was so stressed about my internet connection and my old computer. I saved my exam every minute not to delete it by mistake or make any technical mistake. I wanted to study but I knew that I would have a look in my books to be sure of my answers. Fortunately, I passed every exam.

What do I think about learning at home ?

Having online classes made me lazier. If the first class started at 8 am, I waked up at 7:55 am, put my glasses on and turned my computer on. It is so comfortable working in bed with warm bed sheets on. But it’s hard to stay awake. I fell asleep once and one day I turned my alarm off and went back to sleep. I also lost some details the professors said because I was checking my phone while he was talking. I’d never do that if I had normal classes at school.

Then I understood that it had to be me to motivate myself to study. No one would remind me to study but me. Online classes made me more responsible, more organised because I chose to work for myself and to work better. I started to wake up earlier, get ready and attend my classes on a table with my computer. It made me conscious about my old way of working in bed and how bad it was for my motivation. Of course for my practical classes, it would be hard to learn online because I need to use my hands to know the precision, tact and delicacy of each technical care. I wouldn’t imagine putting a patient’s IV with only the memory of a video I watched. So I learnt some practical techniques on the internships.

“All the nurses have to do the COVID test now. A patient was positive and we didn’t know.”

As planned, I worked for my previous cancelled internship at the hospital and there were no positive patients in my unit. Every patient has to be tested negative before being operated. After one week of surgery internship, a patient (which I took the blood pressure one day ago) started to have temperature. We weren’t sure about what she had so we tested her blood, did her COVID test and we had the results the day after. The head nurse told us that she was COVID positive. Everybody, the students, the nurses, the doctors, the physical therapist and the cleaning lady had to be tested because they had been in contact with her. I wasn’t positive but the patient’s husband was. The lady told a nurse that her husband had some symptoms but he didn’t want to be tested. So he contaminated her while he came to visit at the hospital.

Imagine being total afraid of that disease, having some at-risk people at home. My parents are both asthmatic and when I came back home not knowing if I had the COVID I was really stressed. I didn’t want to touch anything i could contaminate. I prayed not to be positive because I started to imagine having contaminated somebody on my way home or at home when I wasn’t aware of that positive patient in my unit. When it’s something you can’t see it’s difficult to know. I mean if the COVID virus was highlighted I wouldn’t have been that paranoid. All these thoughts in my head because of an unconscious man…

“The situation has become serious. Hospitals need you. Please tell me if you want to help in nurses teams. Thank you.”

Usually, nurse school is not easy even physically than mentally. Imagine being a nurse student during the pandemic. I was stressed about everything : my exams, my internships, the COVID patients I would work with later, … “Later”… I didn’t know I would have been that fast on the workplace. There were so many sick people at my hometown hospital that the staff needed to call for students and even nurse professors’ help. I would be one of those that works for the disease while being afraid of getting sick or even worse transmitting the disease to my parents, my sisters. But I told my headmistress I wanted to help.

I think it has to be a passion to work risking getting sick or getting my family sick without even being paid. I was working from 7 am to 2 pm with an itchy over-blouse, a cap, a FFP2 face-mask, some plastic glasses over my eye glasses and 2 pairs of gloves to feed people with their breakfast, to wash them on their bed without getting rid of it. Try washing somebody’s feet squatting in a 23 °C bathroom with all that equipment and you’ll feel what it is to swim in your pants. (Even in my gloves actually) Can you feel the annoying fog in your glasses while wearing a face-mask? Then imagine me, wiping somebody’s ass, some paper in one hand and the patient’s hand in the other, without even seeing if it’s clean. Anyway, I was doing my job, taking care of people, making them feel better and this made my day every time.

So what is it like to be a nurse student in such circumstances ?

First, you are a bit anxious but you know you gotta deal with it. Online classes are there for a reason (the reason why I helped in this COVID unit). The nurses teams are not enough to provide all the necessary cares to all patients. I helped the patients and made them smile, feel better. I even made them ask me when I’d come back. Every patient I cared about was treated like someone of my family. I wanted them to know that there are still some people that care about them because they had no close relatives visits. Every “thank you” from every patient and even from the nurses teams was the money I didn’t get for helping in this COVID area. Being proud of what you do in life is pleasing too. I’d say : “Do what you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life.”