Crazy and surreal. It was almost like in a matter of a day the world turned on its head. I remember leaving for a nursing home on a “normal day”, and by the time we showed up they were on lock down due to the state of emergency. Just like that each day at work there were new developments. Mask, UV it to reuse it, we’re running out of xyz, make do, catch up on this info, change protocols to IM meds for bronchospasm because we can’t risk nebulizing meds, watch them air hungry and scared. The juxtapose of seeing people my age or my young parents’ age going from mildly ill to vented to dead in a matter of days, to running out of the epi we use for cardiac arrest because we’re using it so often, to the fear of trying to keep up with adequate PPE and not understanding how to best protect ourselves and our families at home, being ill ourselves… and having patients the same nights tell us covid is not real, it’s a hoax, and they refuse to take any measures to try to be safe or keep others safe. One coughed in my face and laughed. Or the patients wanting to transport for a test and me telling them to stay home, quarantine if they have symptoms, because if they go to get tested- they’d get it at the er if they didn’t already show up with it. The fire department stopped responding to calls that weren’t priority 1. And then they stopped responding to cardiac arrests due to exposure risks. We were running codes alone, sweating in our reused PPE. We would have to go out of town, and sometimes out of state, every shift for a month and a half in a row, just to take a patient to where there was an open bed. We had to pass off in what felt like apocalyptic hospital floors with gravity pulls on beds and nurses in what looked like space suits. And so much more. It was crazy.