MACON, Ga. — With COVID cases on the rise due to the omicron variant, Central Georgia’s nurses are back on the frontlines again. Two of them are sharing their different perspectives on coping with COVID.
“If you don't like challenges than you shouldn't be a nurse,” said Sande Day.
Day has worked as a nurse for close to 40 years, and Mason McDaniel started his career in nursing about four years ago. Both agree COVID has become physically and mentally draining.
"Emotionally, sometimes it's hard. We kind of give all we got to give here. It was rough to see people knowing that if you didn't see them a week later it's because they had passed,” said McDaniel.
Day works in Piedmont Macon’s ICU unit and sees the patients at their worst.
“Taking care of COVID patients is very hard in ICU. It's very taxing. Most of them, once you get to ICU, most of them haven't lived,” she said.
And when family members couldn’t visit their loved ones.
“You'd have people on FaceTime like… here's grandma, say whatever it is you want to say to them because they aren't going to be here probably the next day,” said McDaniel.
With all the darkness and what appears like not much light at the end of the tunnel, not all stories have a sad ending.
“I've had patients where I'm spending the whole day getting the family ready to know that there's no way the patient is going to make it,” said Day. “Then, I leave and I come back in a day or two and they've gotten better."
“A really, really good day can outweigh a lot of bad days here. You see people come in here half-dead and a couple weeks later they are walking out of here, and it makes it worth it,” said McDaniel.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the need for registered nurses is expected to grow by 9% from 2020 to 2030.