I’m on the pandemic’s frontlines: Testing notes of a swabbing nurse
The call came just before the first weekend in March — my supervisor said they were looking for Department of Health nurses to do swabs for coronavirus testing in the community in New Rochelle. Honestly, I didn’t know what to do. I’m 65, and I am not healthy — I get regular IV treatments for an underlying condition. But I’ve been an RN for more than 40 years. I made a commitment to the work, and I had to do the right thing.
I also knew my family wasn’t going to like it. So when I hung up, I said a little prayer. “What should I do here, God? Tell me.” And I heard an answer: “Evil flourishes when good people do nothing.” In that moment, I knew what to do. I canceled everything and told my family, “I have to go where I am led.”
“Evil flourishes when good people do nothing.” In that moment, I knew what to do.
We got trained in how to obtain nose and throat cultures. We have to get way back in the throat and deep enough into the nose, or we could get false positives or negatives.
We have brand-new equipment following CDC recommendations: gloves lined in plastic, protective eyewear and gowns. We go double-masked and double-gloved, carrying an alcohol-based hand wash and biohazard red garbage bags. We’re driven by designated drivers, some of whom are Westchester County workers, and escorted by state troopers.
Can you imagine what we look like when we show up at someone’s door?
Actually, when we first started, we tried to avoid making the neighbors anxious, so we only suited up after the patients had opened the door. But people would open the door and be coughing in the doorway as they let us in. We had to put the equipment on before we knocked.
We can’t help creating anxiety in the people we visit — who are already upset and worried. Even so, lots of them would say, “Thank you so much, we’re so grateful that you’re here,” and one man had an envelope ready to give us, full of money, as a donation for our work. But I’m a public employee; I asked him to donate to his church instead.
We can’t help creating anxiety in the people we visit — who are already upset and worried. Even so, lots of them would say, “Thank you so much, we’re so grateful you’re here.”
One man we swabbed had been visiting a friend who later died of the virus. He was fine, but he’d been exposed, so we also cultured his brother, who was really sick. This guy, totally asymptomatic, was just going about his life, visiting a sick friend, and his brother gets extremely ill. That’s tough.
Kids are afraid of us. Arriving in our protective gear, we look scary. We say, “Hey, don’t we look like the Star Wars stormtroopers?” That makes them smile. One asked, “Are you going to take blood?” I teased him: “Well I wanted to, but my boss told me no, so I’ll just have to get a culture of your throat.” That worked.
The youngest kids are harder — you can’t act silly enough. We saw 18-month-olds, and one baby was so little the father had to hold her head back so we could get the swab.
By now I’ve been all over: the Upper West Side, Washington Heights, Riverdale, Yonkers, Scarsdale, Bedford Hills, Croton-on-Hudson, Hastings-on-Hudson. That first weekend we went to a nursing home in Harlem. We were met by state troopers and CDC personnel, and we obtained nose and throat cultures on an entire unit. Then we went to culture an entire newsroom that had been exposed.
I see the crisis escalating. This week (of March 16) people were symptomatic — that’s new. I’m swabbing people in their 20s, 40s. Not just older people. And we’re swabbing entire families, not just one person. It will take time before we see the full impact of the pandemic.
I think the state and the CDC are doing everything possible, but the thing is, it’s been incubating all this time. I swabbed the guy whose friend had died and whose brother was very ill on March 11, but for three weeks he’d been visiting his friend and going everywhere.
PLEASE listen to the safety precautions. If you don’t and you’re incubating the virus, you’re going to spread it.
I didn’t fully realize how anxious I was until today. Seeing all these nurses volunteering, it struck me that when everyone else is running away, nurses are there. When I came home, my family asked me how I was, and I was so overwhelmed, I just started to cry.
But no one says, “Don’t go back.” I even overheard my daughter telling a friend, “I’m proud of my mom, going out and doing the right thing when a lot of people wouldn’t go.”
I’ve told everyone we swabbed — and it’s uncomfortable being swabbed — “We are going to get through this together.” And you know, people cheer up when I tell them that. Because we will get through this together.
The writer, who asked to remain anonymous, is a longtime registered nurse with the New York State Department of Health who is testing patients for the coronavirus as a volunteer in New Rochelle and throughout Westchester County and northern New York City. She fears that she might lose her medical treatments if it became known that she was exposing herself to the virus. She is a member of the New York State Public Employees Federation, a 52,000-member affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers.
