All right. It’s time. Can’t hold back any longer. What an experience is COVID-19 NYC. I remember six weeks ago someone asking me what I thought coronavirus was going to be like, and I said probably just another flu. Then, things got worse. When things started heating up in New York, as a surgeon the only thing that happened to me was that my ability to do planned operations was shut down. So, I basically stayed home with my Mom, wife and kids and tried to stay safe. There were a lot of stressful conversations about how isolated we had to be at that point, but we got through it and even valued all the time that we had together.
I remember having these feeling of fear and wondering what would happen if I died–particularly what would happen to my family. Then, I read an article talking about how doctors and nurses would be the heroes that would put their lives at risk, and it kind of woke me up. Oh yeah, that’s what we are supposed to do. Then, the dean of our med school said in a town hall that this kind of event, this pandemic, is exactly why many of us actually went to medical school. Oh yeah, that’s right, remember us all writing on our applications that we wanted to HELP PEOPLE!!? We weren’t actually made just for the routine usual comfortable life–we were made for this! So, thanks to these proddings I eventually came around and found the motivation to ready myself.
About that time we were asked to take a bunch of online and even a couple of in person courses to get ready for taking care of COVID-19 patients, and then we got assigned to a team and deployed. My team was deployed to the Mt. Sinai Queens ER and wards. The staff there were awesome, and it was a great experience to be on the team taking care of patients. I felt like an intern again, buddying up with the ward clerk and chatting with the nurses to be able to take care of 35 patients on a ward all with COVID-19. What a pleasure. At first, I had been worried that I would be emotionally overwhelmed by the hopelessness and the presence of death and evil. A lot of people prayed for me and quite the opposite happened. I was energized and excited to be helping and to engage in close patient care again.
After three shifts in Queens a new need arose, one that would again make use of my surgical skills. Time had passed since the first COVID-19 patients became infected and presented to the hospitals. Now those patients had been on ventilators for an extended period of time, and so the ICU docs started requesting that tracheostomies be put in (that’s a breathing tube surgically placed in the neck so that the tube in the mouth can be removed–makes the patients more comfortable and helps them to get off the ventilator in many cases). Myself and several other doctors with similar skills learned a system for doing these procedures with special consideration for the COVID-19 environment. We took extra precautions for personal protection and worked out a routine for safe placement of tracheostomies at the bedside. Subsequently, our team has done over 20 of these procedures, and thankfully, they have all gone well. Obviously, there will be many more to come in the weeks ahead.
It has been an awesome team effort. One morning we had four tracheostomies to do in one ICU. One of the ICU doctors came in on her one day off to help us to make sure everything went well–and she was vital. An anesthesiologist also helped us with all four procedures. When we were all done, the other surgeon asked her if she worked there because we didn’t recognize her. She said no she came from San Antonio, Texas to volunteer. Amazing. What a Godsend.
On the morning of Good Friday, I opened my Bible. The scripture of the day was I Corinthians chapter 16. There are some chapters of the Bible that just don’t get remembered or quoted or preached on, and this is one of them. I’ve never heard a sermon on this chapter because it’s a bunch of greetings and farewells from St. Paul. But being the rule follower that I am I went ahead and read it anyway. And then there was the pair of verses that hit me (8,9): “But I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, because a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me.”
Wow. A great door for effective work has opened to me. I could relate and how thankful I was that that door had opened. But the obstacles and opposing forces were also great. Yet for Paul that was not a reason to find work in an easier place, it was actually a reason for him to stay on. Wow again. So cool. Engage the enemy. Fight. There is a fight worth fighting, so I am staying.
God traveling this journey along with me and giving me that verse at that time. So cool.
May the plagues passover us. Happy Easter All. He is arisen. He is arisen indeed Hallelujah!
