Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve had the privilege of taking care of patients in several different roles: as a frontline provider in COVID ICUs during NYC’s peak; as a neurology consultant for my emergency medicine, internal medicine, and critical care colleagues; and as an outpatient neurologist treating post-COVID brain fog and headaches.
The way COVID-19 vaccines have turned things around in New York is nothing short of miraculous, and I’m thankful for that every day. But, like so many other healthcare workers, I still struggle with the lingering effects of working through such a nightmare. Now that both my anxiety levels and COVID cases are creeping back up thanks to the highly transmissible Delta variant, I can’t help but be increasingly reminded of painful pandemic memories.
Here’s what goes on in my head on a typical day in the hospital nearly 18 months into this pandemic:
In the morning, I meet my team for rounds in the neurology stepdown unit. In March 2020, this unit converted to a COVID ICU overnight (literally). Today, when I run into one of the PAs I worked with in the converted COVID unit, I immediately have a flashback.
I’m sobbing wildly in the resident work room, unable to catch my breath to call a 34-year-old patient’s family and ask them to come in straightaway.
