What is life like on the front lines of the life-and-death battle against the coronavirus pandemic?
For one area nurse, it means long, stress-filled hours in the isolation wards; reading bedtime stories to her 5-year-old son from outside through his bedroom window; curling up to sleep in a tent on her back porch; and slipping into their condo before dawn and before her son and boyfriend wake up, to shower, to bleach every surface she contacts, and to start the routine for another day.
Katie Corrado, 36, of Towamencin, tends patients on the Covid floor at
Einstein Medical Center Montgomery in East Norriton. She’s also a prison nurse at
Montgomery County Correctional Facility. And as a member of the volunteer
Medical Reserve Corps, she’ll likely be manning a field hospital in Philadelphia and a testing site in Norristown in the coming weeks.
While she has regularly been exposed to patients with the virus since the crisis began more than a month ago, she says that she finds it "horrifying – not because I fear getting sick, but because my way of nursing has had to change, and it kills me."
"I love being with my patients, helping them, talking to them, spending time getting to know them and their families,” she says. "Now we must limit our contact with them. They can’t have family members come stay with them. And it’s gut-wrenching for me. We are the only ones in their rooms often times.”
Her True Calling
Several episodes in Corrado's life involving nurses –
an adventure saving the life of a swimmer in New Jersey, the emergency C-section birth of her son, and a personal health crisis – all convinced her that helping others heal, physically and emotionally, was her true calling.
"The doctors treated my illness; the nurses treated my heart and soul, as hokey as that sounds,” Corrado says. "I wanted to be doing that for other people so badly. Nurses were so smart, so down-to-earth and so comforting. They just knew how to talk to people, and you just wanted to be like them. You trusted them.”
It’s a sentiment she has carried with her. "Being a nurse is honestly my life's greatest gift besides my son. It is my honor, duty and privilege to be part of every patient's story, to be there for them when they need care and love the most. When I make a patient laugh, or they thank me for helping them, I feel a joy I can't even explain in words. I love every patient and feel honored to be by their side, from an older person facing Covid to someone terminally ill to a prisoner that has never had someone care about him.”
Adjusting to the Pandemic
She understands, during a viral epidemic of worldwide proportions, why she can’t deliver the personal care and spend the time she’d like with her patients. But she also has chosen to enforce personal distance at home, to protect her partner and her young son.
Her son Billy is "still always looking for his mommy. I wake up, and he's right in my face. I'll be on the couch and he's in my lap within seconds. He just doesn't understand keeping a distance from me.” And her boyfriend, Chris, 38, suffers from asthma and regularly needs an inhaler.
"I saw a Facebook post of a doctor in [
Irvine, CA], who had set up a tent to quarantine in his garage. And I thought, ‘Wow, that is so badass,’” she says. "It's gotta be tough on him, but he's keeping his family safe.” Then she thought, "I have a tent. And I've always loved camping. I'm going to do this.”
So to keep them safe and healthy, she set up camping on the small patio of her condo, and that’s where she spends her nights.
"By living in the tent, I'm still here,” she says. "I can still see my son through the door, and I even read him bedtime stories. He can still talk to me and I can make sure he's getting schoolwork done and eating his dinner, etc. I can still somewhat help Chris out with him, even from a distance.”
It’s tough as well for Chris, who has become Billy’s main caregiver and handles the household chores.
"I miss getting to see and hang out with Katie,” Chris says. "Taking care of things around the house is okay; I'm working from home anyway. It's nerve-racking knowing she's out there in the cold and rain. I offered to stay out there, but she feels safest being the one away from us inside.”
Both Billy and Chris have been supportive of her decision. "We try to make it a funny joke, and I keep waiting for the day my son tells his kindergarten class during an online class that his mommy is living outside in a tent,” says Katie. "It's sad too though; I hate having to blow my son a kiss through a window.
"We used to snuggle every night and read a story, a tradition not broken since he was a baby and I'd snuggle him in the rocking chair,” she says. "We will get back to that when we can. But for now, I have to make the hard decision to keep him safe, as much as it is breaking my heart.”
She sleeps where it’s often cold, wet, and uncomfortable. "I have an air mattress in there, but I'm 36 and have a bad back. I'm also a runner, so after working all day on my feet, running anywhere from 5-8 miles and then settling in for the night on an air mattress on concrete – ugh!”
A cheap space heater keeps her company on the colder nights. "I'm perpetually terrified it’s going to set the tent on fire, so I really try not to use it except early on in the night.”
And she expects to remain in her personal encampment at least through April 30.
"At that point, if the country feels it's safe to lift the quarantine as a nation, and it's been at least seven days since I've had an active Covid patient and I'm asymptomatic myself, I will move back in and take extra precautions with everything I do.”
Nonetheless, she adds, "Overall, I get a sense of pride as I trip over myself getting in and out of the thing, because I know I was born to be a nurse and nurses are tough. I can get through this.”
Community Support Crucial
What gets her through, she says, is her sense of purpose – and the support of her home community.
"I think I can speak for most nurses when I say – we have your back and we will take care of you if the time comes. This disease is awful. It is literally ruining lives. But we are here for you. We have so much love in our hearts for humanity, and we would truly do anything for the people we love and the patients we serve.”
And, she adds, "We are also so, so, so thankful to the community for opening their hearts to us at this time. I constantly am showered with messages of support, love and offers of help. It's incredible and so, so heartwarming. The community makes us strong.”
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