My Experience as a Healthcare Worker with COVID-19.
On catching omicron, and what I learned from being a patient.
I felt certain that I would catch COVID sometime soon. As an ER worker taking on more shifts heading into the upswing of this omicron surge, I wasn’t alone in this feeling – during a shift recently I remember chatting with a colleague in between patients, and she chuckled to herself, saying “we’re just all going to get it this time around. I can feel it.” We all felt the eerie sensation of the virus nipping at our heels, and the quiet certainty that it would catch up to us sooner rather than later.
Last week, I switched to the role of COVID patient for the first time in the pandemic. The timing could have been better: from a personal front, I was in the middle of final exams and heading into the holiday season. From a professional front, I was being taken out of work at a time where hospitals could really use every last bit of help.
The omicron variant has been described as a different beast, and is often discussed as though it’s an entirely new disease. With all the uncertainty surrounding it, the only reassurance I had going into this diagnosis was that I had taken the booster in September, and could reasonably expect this course of illness to be mild and quick. However, the term “mild disease” functions in comparison to hospitalization and death. Having “mild disease” as opposed to dying of COVID can actually constitute inconvenient and debilitating symptoms.
Here’s a breakdown of what I experienced by day, my perspective on my emergency room visit, and my takeaways from the whole thing:
Day before onset – I worked an evening shift in the ED and was maybe more fatigued than normal when I got home that night. No other symptoms, and no specifically known exposures – although several of my colleagues were out with COVID at this point.
Day 1 – I woke up feeling feverish, sweaty, and nauseous. Throughout the day I developed a cough, congestion, palpitations, and a lower tolerance for physical activity. Walking half a mile to the PCR testing center and standing in line for 30 minutes had me sweating and dizzy. After this, I took an at-home rapid test which returned positive, and I began to quarantine. The one notable thing I would say about day 1 is that I deteriorated quickly, feeling slightly ill at the beginning of the day but much worse by the end of it.
Day 2 – Same symptoms as day 1, except my dizziness had resolved but the fatigue had increased to the point where it was a considerable task to get up and walk around my apartment. My PCR test returned positive.
Day 3 – Many of my earlier symptoms had resolved, but I developed new shortness of breath and constant chest tightness, which led me to seek out medical care. From my experience with COVID patients I knew that I would probably need a chest x-ray and EKG to check for heart and lung abnormalities. You can normally get these done at an urgent care, but given the slim likelihood of finding one with any availability, I escalated straight to emergency care. I did a telemedicine visit on Zoom and was referred into the same ER I work in.
Overall, my ER visit was a convoluted process with very little transparency or efficiency. Since I was COVID-positive and referred in by a physician who agreed that I only needed a chest x-ray and EKG, my length of stay could have been quite short and streamlined. In an ideal world, I would have been sent in, examined, had the imaging done, and discharged immediately after a possible total of 30-40 minutes. My results might have been given to me via the MyChart app and explained over the phone. That way, I wouldn’t expose more people than necessary and the bed could go to someone who needed it more than I did.
In reality my ED stay was 5 hours long, and the majority of this time was spent waiting for someone to come talk to me about my results. I shared a room with another COVID+ patient. We were in the last room at the end of a hallway, and were out of the line of sight of all staff members unless someone was intentionally walking into our room – which contributed to a general lack of monitoring and communication. I only spoke to a doctor twice during this entire time, but could tell just how clogged and packed the ED was, having worked dozens of shifts in the COVID bay myself. Along with this familiarity with the setting came a sense of guilt that I was straining the healthcare system and taking up a bed for imaging that did not necessarily require an ER visit. However, with the lack of accessible urgent cares, I had nowhere else to go. Ultimately, I was discharged with normal results and some quick encouragement that I am likely to make a full recovery, since I completed the vaccination series.
Day 4 onwards: I’ve had some residual cough and congestion as well as lingering fatigue and brain fog, but otherwise feel well. I’m lucky to have had such a quick turnaround of symptoms, and attribute this mainly to the booster shot.
My takeaways:
Healthcare workers are burned out and are heading into a new surge while already at the end of a fuse. It may seem that the Omicron spike was explosively sudden, but ERs have been surging with patients and our capacities steadily diminishing for weeks. In the days before NYC seemed to all get sick with COVID, I remember continuously seeing the pediatric ED more full than I had ever seen it before – filled to the brim with COVID patients, psychiatric emergencies, flu, RSV, and on and on. Politicians regard healthcare workers as endlessly patient and generous to a superhuman extent, which makes for a poetic sentiment but is not the all-encompassing truth. We are human, and tired. This pandemic cannot be sustained indefinitely.
There’s a stigma surrounding COVID that needs to be dissolved. Despite spending the last 2 years surrounded by this virus and information about it, as soon as I tested positive I felt a strange reluctance to tell others of my diagnosis. I think part of this was feeling like I did something wrong, and that I failed to safeguard myself and my loved ones. We as individuals are not at fault for the Omicron variant and for the unnecessary continuation of this pandemic. Governments and corporations need to make massive shifts towards international vaccine equity, and that is when we will stop creating breeding grounds for new variants, and leaving more room for this virus to keep spreading.
There needs to be standardized protocol for COVID+ patients. NYC typically has a contact tracer call everyone who tests positive, but I didn’t receive one until 6 days after my test. This was likely due to the testing system being overwhelmed, but an automated message would have sufficed and been useful. Linked below is a thread I wrote compiling information on symptom care, quarantine length, and seeking medical care, and others have commented useful remedies and tips underneath.
I’m currently on day 7 of illness, and need to quarantine until day 10. By day 12 I’m scheduled to be back to work in the ER. While this wasn’t how I envisioned spending the holidays, I’m grateful for the recovery and a relatively mild case. As always, reach out with any questions or comments, and have a happy holidays!
Hey Ashani… hope you are better by now.. sorry to hear that you had to go through a tough time all alone away from home. Wishing you a speedy recovery & good health.
Thanks for putting up this article so beautifully & Sharing your first hand experience. Very elaborately drafted but at the same time ensuring it is understood correctly by a non-Medico too. God bless you. Keep up the great work.
Wishing you a brilliant new year 2022 ahead.
Lotz of love
Sheveta Babu(Bakshi)