nayhru

Phoenix ICU nurse here. I am unbelievably proud of you & all the EMS and ER staff. You guys have an incredibly difficult job of not only dealing with extremely sick people right off the bat, but you are the ones who need PPE the most and most hospitals right now just arent giving that to you.

I'm tired. Emotionally, physically, mentally. Morale has been trending down since March, but its crashing for healthcare workers as cases in AZ skyrocket. We all knew this was going to happen, yet no one listened to the experts on how AZ was pushing forward too fast. I had a lady snap at me at Costco because I asked her to put her mask back on (they had a mandatory mask policy long before everyone else did). Its just fuckin nuts.

What's sad is that most of us love our jobs. I can't believe I have the ability to be there for someone during the absolute worst time of their lives, and help keep them alive. But due to COVID, I have a bad feeling that a lot of these great people will leave. Theres only so much that people can suck out of us before we become a shell of who we were. We're tired of seeing maskless folks, we're tired of anti-mask politically-driven bullcrap protests, and we're tired of giving the public our everything only to have it spat back in our face. You said it perfectly: we're always going to provide people with excellent care, and when we're caring for you its genuine. But its burning us out.

At this point I'm just ranting. But do you know what you're telling us when you dont wear masks, or decide to go to a BBQ/party because you feel "opressed?" Its that you dont give a damn about others and what you could put someone else through.

This sounds like CAR-T therapy! Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know what it's called in adults, but we use this in some end-stage pediatric cancer patients.

Just like you said, we harvest the good white blood cells, "beef" them up using lab technology (takes about a few months), and give them back. Take my experiences with a grain of salt but these kids do SO well since their body recognizes the cells as "self." It's heartbreaking to see what chemo does but know it's necessary, but since this therapy is biological it's much more gentle on the immune system.

I am so happy you are able to take part in that study. I've seen many positive outcomes, though I do have to add that no, it is not a cure. But it really adds some quality time off chemo. I really wish you all the best. :)

Haaaaaaaah. Much like you, we’re comically low. I think there’s only 2 CRRT machines left and 1 ECMO. We’re focusing on early mobilization efforts and more trials for getting some people off ECMO, but right now those machines are being used for about 2-3 weeks at a time. It’s pretty scary to think that if one more person needs to be cannulated we’re done for.