I cannot make this stuff up
Today was a day for the books.
We vaccinated 360 patients with Moderna COVID vaccine. I was so exhausted. apparently the memo that our hospital is giving is that we can vaccinate patients who have had COVID, as long as they are no longer symptomatic. The procedure is that we go to their cars garbed up in PPE (double masked, gown, face shield), and I ended up vaccinating 3 patients like this. One of the patients, had several really good questions but it took 30 minutes of us interacting. Then, when she felt comfortable vaccinating, she had a coughing fit and coughed really close to my face shield. She was masked, and I was appropriately garbed, but it still gave me a lot of anxiety. I came back in and threw away all of my PPE and washed my hands twice lol. I was so shook by the experience. I’ve interacted with several COVID patients at this point. But something about the way it was unexpected, and I was very close during the coughing fit was a bit jarring. If I wasn’t literally injecting the vaccine when this happened, I would have backed away and let her finish but I wasn’t able to.
Anyways, after I got a hold of myself (30 minutes), I started vaccinating more outpatients. I ended up looking at my phone while I was charting, and I saw that I had 6 missed calls from my childhood best friend. My heart sank because I literally thought someone died. I called her back to see what was going on, and the conversation was just so bizarre. She asked me if I was busy, and I told her kind offfffff, but it sounds like an emergency so tell me whats going on. Long and short of it, she told me that one of her colleagues told her she could leave her rotation early because nobody really notices for that particular rotation. So she took it one step further and didn’t come in for two days. The attending (or chief of staff?), ended up asking her if she was on that particular rotation because it sounds like news got out. Let me tell you, this woman is not one to play hookie, she’s the most studious, diligent, hardworking person I know so this SCREAMS burnout. But it doesn’t help that she was venting to someone who is also very burnt out, in the middle of getting slammed by patients. So I am sorry to admit, I was more confused than empathetic. While she was venting to me, my boss basically checked up on me to see what the hold up was for vaccinating, and I had to abruptly hang up. I felt super embarrassed because things are not good with me and my boss right now, and I feel like I looked sketch.
So that whole thing started consuming my mind. I ultimately messaged her when I got home way later because she texted me saying “I feel dumb and stupid x.x i don’t think I would have done this if I wasn’t feeling down and depressed”. My heart sank reading that. We literally message everyday, and I had no idea she was struggling so much. I think its because of COVID and just the rigor of residency but I am also afraid that there is something deeper and she just didn’t tell me? I really want things to be better for her, and I would be so sad to know that she didn’t feel like she could tell me where she’s at for things to get so bad.
Okay, all of that happens. Some day right? But wait...its not over.
Security came up to me, and said “wow what a day, so thankful we’re done vaccinating!”, which was really awkward because I still had 2 doses left. We frantically got 2 patients at 5, and then it turns out another pharmacist also had 3 doses and didn’t tell anyone to rally for 3 more patients so we ended up wasting 3 doses today. Which kinda made me feel some type of way because why did I go through hell and back for these 2 patients even though we ended up wasting doses anyways SMH. But every dose counts, and atleast I was able to take responsibility for mine.
While I was waiting for these 2 patients to come, I started charting like my life depended on it. All of a sudden, one of the pharmacists came up to me and told me that EHR was down throughout the hospital (ofcourse it is when we have to chart 400 patients worth of vaccinations, that we had ZERO time to take care of between patients) but the laptops still had access to EHR through WIFI somehow. So he asked me if he could use my laptop after I’m done, which made me feel bad because I knew it was going to be awhile.
Thennn my technicians came up to me as they were leaving for the day. One of them said “Hey do you know what’s going on?” and I responded “uhhh EHR is down?”, and they both laughed and said “there is an active shooter in our city”. I think I was too exhausted to process this news at this time. I was literally like what else is new. That’s great. This is very weird btw because we live in a really rural area where violent crimes are SUPER rare. So I did what any insane burnt out pharmacist would do in my situation, I kept charting. Despite knowing about this shooter, multiple people were able to go home at 5.
My patients came in, and as I was vaccinating my second patient. I saw security turn off all of the lights in the hospital. Then, all of a sudden on the intercom I hear “ATTENTION ATT - LOCKDOWN, LOCKDOWN, LOCKDOWN”. So I took my patient into the pharmacy (we have a booth set up outside of the pharmacy for COVID vaccines), and then we waited for the clear in the pharmacy.
Apparently there were multiple active shooters (3 that we know of with rifles...could be more). 2 police officers got shot, and one got grazed. My close friend’s fiance is a cop. He is quarantining due to a COVID exposure, and they had to pull him back in because of this. So bizarre that tonight in our small town, there was an area surrounded by cops and apparently a helicopter (which idk where we got that from). 5.5 hours later and she just messaged me that it looks like everything is okay. I’m still holding my breath, I just want to make sure he makes it home okay. I didn’t realize how much I care about him and appreciate him until I got super emotional while praying for him. He has always been sweet and protective of me. He got me flowers after my car accident, and always gets me tools and gear because he’s just that kind of person. My friend is pregnant with his baby. I feel like this in aggregate is too much for one person to deal with. Not to mention, she works in the same toxic, COVID infested environment as me.
I ended up talking to my man about all of this briefly and I feel like he just didn’t get the immensity of crazy and stress of this day. So I kind of got snippy and ultimately he decided to let me have a little moment and eat dinner alone (partly because I kinda asked him to), but idk it sucks to come home and feel misunderstood after a long day. I do feel bad because he was still listening to me ramble about the craziness, and I know work is crazy for him too.
Gahh. I’ll try to call him and see if I can make amends.
Here’s to hoping tomorrow will be better.
