Bullets 2 Bedpans
EP:14 The Unseen Reality: Inside NYC's COVID Crisis with LtCol Angella Mudd
What does it mean to be on the frontline during a global health crisis? Lt. Colonel Angella Mudd joins us for another episode of B2B to talk about her deployment to New York at the peak of the COVID-19 crisis. Angella highlights her leadership role, the bizarre living conditions, and the intense pressures faced at the hospital during the first wave of the pandemic.
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Special Thanks to
Artwork: Joe Weber @joeweber_tattoos
Intro/Outro/Disclaimer Credits:
Pam Barragan Host of 2200TAPS Podcast
"Racer" by Infraction https://bit.ly/41HlWTk
Music promoted by Inaudio: ...
What does it mean to be on the frontline during a global health crisis? Lt. Colonel Angella Mudd joins us for another episode of B2B to talk about her deployment to New York at the peak of the COVID-19 crisis. Angella highlights her leadership role, the bizarre living conditions, and the intense pressures faced at the hospital during the first wave of the pandemic.
Nurses and Medics: This is your platform! We want to hear your stories of the good, the bad and the ugly. Send us an email at cominghomewell@gmail.com
Do you know a health worker that needs a laugh?
B2B N.F.L.T.G. Certificate click here
Get the ammo you need to seize your day at Soldier Girl Coffee Use Code CHW10 for a 10% off at checkout!
Special Thanks to
Artwork: Joe Weber @joeweber_tattoos
Intro/Outro/Disclaimer Credits:
Pam Barragan Host of 2200TAPS Podcast
"Racer" by Infraction https://bit.ly/41HlWTk
Music promoted by Inaudio: ...
We're talking with Tennant Colonel Angela Mudd, extraordinaire, and she's been on with us before because we've talked about workplace violence, and we're bringing her on again because she was actually one of the first. She was the first wave of medical teams that was sent out to New York City to help them when they were having the COVID crisis, when it first rolled up there. So, angie, we're bringing you back. How are you, colonel Mudd?
Speaker 3:Colonel Mudd, I don't know so quickly, but I was the first wave in the Air Force In the Air Force. Yes, and it was already some maybe there, but yeah, the first group of the Air Force medical personnel.
Speaker 2:So we're going to back it up because we were starting to talk about, like, how she came in stuff. So, just so you know her history, her and I actually met when I had, well, I got out of the military, then I went back in and joined the reserves, which was like a whole foreign thing to me. And so I meet her, who's big eyed and she's like I'm joining the military and this is what I wanted to do bucket list item kind of thing and she was doing it at age how old were you at this time? 42?, 39. Oh, okay, I was close, you were 39 when she decided this is what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2:She already been a director of nursing for years and then said, hey, let's do this kind of fun. And so she did it. Well, for the population civilian population that really don't really understand what the constructive credit means is that when you come in and you've been a nurse or certain career fields for so many years, they will give you credit towards rank. So they gave her nine years credit which made her equal to a senior captain. And why that was bad was because it put her just imagine a great big line and you're heading up for rank and she basically cut the line and went up to the front and a year later she was in the promotion you know, up for promotion, with one year of experience behind her.
Speaker 4:So the same set of expectations for somebody that's barely ten years yeah. Trying to figure out how do I even put this thing on, and so the right way, and yeah.
Speaker 2:And so now she's at this point where she's like hey, I am going up for major and me and the chief nurse looked at each other and I said this is bad. And she's like why? And I said, Well, let me explain to you what you need under your belt in order to promote. And at that time they were promoting and I'm not promoting, they were riffing people. So if you were, you had a chance in the zone and the above the zone and a lot of the above the zone was not promoting, and so they're like, not riffing them, but they're saying See you later. No, good Now.
Speaker 2:So anyways, it's a little off track of what we're talking about today, but the whole point is that I wanted to make the picture is that she did that checklist against a lot of people's thoughts that she wouldn't be able to do it, and she did it and she promoted a year later to major. And now, now you're taking somebody that has, again, no military background very little one year and people are looking at her with these gold leaves on her shoulder thinking she has been around for 10 years or so, Right? And so the challenges were steep, right, I mean enormous, steep challenges. So I set the picture up that that Angus used to climbing up some pretty steep hills.
Speaker 4:It's successful. A lot of experience as a nurse, but not a whole lot at that point as a commissioned officer.
Speaker 2:Right, right.
Speaker 3:So now I'm a commissioned officer and to have people you know go into somebody and I, you know, I understand now that going to people and going, you know, hey, I have a question about XYZ and I literally had somebody that I liked, I respected, go, you know. So here's the problem. You're now a major and I'm a captain. I have more experience and you promoted, so don't ask me for anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm your pet and I like you. I was shocked, but at least you know she said she said the ground rules, you know? Here's where I stand.
Speaker 2:So petty, so petty. I did it on my own. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that wasn't me. Oh no, I was a major then. So scroll ahead right and and just you know, getting it done, I am out now in the military like years later. I retired out and well, actually I was retiring right, I was right at the time. Covid hits Right. So I, yeah, I'm in the middle of retirement and I'm like I'm calling my weenies at headquarters that I have some inside going. Are they going to stop loss anybody?
Speaker 2:I'm a little worried right now Trying to shit in my bridges right now.
Speaker 4:You're not going to pull any stunts right.
Speaker 2:And they told me they're like hey, there is a, there is a course of action on the table to stop loss, medical, but it's like the sixth or seventh coa, like it's down the line. But you know, when they are doing all the strategic planning, they have to put all these course of actions up. So she goes, it's there, but it's, it's really not a priority. I'm like, okay, well, don't make it a priority for like six more months, so I can just get out. So in the midst of all that then cause I'm hearing it, you know like and they told me they're like yeah, they're going to be ramping up, they're going to be sending them out. And then I knew, I knew, without a doubt, I'm like, and she's going to be the first one out there, I just knew it Right. And so, sure enough, somehow we start talking. You probably called me or I called you, or whatever. And she's like yeah, I'm going. And I'm like, not shocked, not shocked, so the manifestation queen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she probably went and called the boss and said hey, I'm here, Come get me. Come get me and coach Right.
Speaker 4:So probably not how you wanted to see the big apple, though.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, you know what I could check that that piece of shit off.
Speaker 2:But you saw it empty. That's kind of the cool thing I saw it empty.
Speaker 3:I did, and I saw the worst of the worst, but I was so disappointed. It was me to walk down Manhattan in the middle of the street with no traffic. I was surprised at how small Times Square was and just the shitty people that were there.
Speaker 2:Well, so let's kind of talk about what happened. So you, you know I don't want to take your story because it's your story. So when you got the call, like how was this all going down, so kind of take us through what was happening.
Speaker 3:So you know, we knew that people were going to be mobilized. You know we'd already had seen the emails who's available, who's not available. And of course I'm like first on the list and because you know I've worked so closely with people at Africa like you, better put me in there. Put me in coach. I wasn't surprised. You know I was planning for work and all of a sudden they called me. It was in. I think it was in March. No, yeah, mark something like that.
Speaker 2:It was probably the end of it.
Speaker 3:Right after the end pop that they had just had.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I was like I'm going to pull this all in and the toilet paper fiasco. But you know, they called and said we need you in New Jersey tomorrow morning. And I'm like, well, I just got off work and I don't think I can get there tomorrow morning, but I can be there Sunday. And I called a friend of mine because he's in the Navy and he was actually the manager of the emergency room that I worked at, and I called him and I said hey, I said I was supposed to work for you tomorrow, but I just got a call about deploying and I said are you going to deploy? And he goes no, I don't think so. I gave my spot away to somebody who hasn't and I'm like, okay, well then Sunday morning I met the airport and I'm like did you come to say goodbye to me? I'm like, wow, that's really nice. He goes no, I'm going with you. They called me too Surprise. You know we ended up two days later in at McGuire where they did all of our in processing.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. So they had to kind of just check off who's there, you know, and say, right, here we are, and then from there they're giving you an assignment from McGuire, like where you're going to be.
Speaker 3:Much telling us. You know as much as they can. They weren't. You know they weren't really good with a lot of the information, but pretty much you know there was, it was it was kind of like a state from New York or a state from Los Angeles. You know, we were getting there by buses and we were going to go to the Javits and then they were going to divide us up and put us in hotels. It was really bizarre. You know. Of course we in process, everything at McGuire and McGuire knew me because I was the IMA at the 87th, therefore, literally that long.
Speaker 2:For three seconds. Yeah, it was a short amount of time. So, for our audience, when you hear like IMA, that's individual military augmenti, right, is it military or radicals? Military augmenti. And so essentially what they do is they? If they train with an active duty unit and if the active duty unit gets tasked to deploy, in theory trust me, it's theory the IMA is supposed to be the backfill to whatever position she's attached to, whether it's a commander position or you know whatever deputy position, whatever that is. They come in to the garrison side and they fill that position while that active duty base forward deploys.
Speaker 4:For enlisted people. It's holding down the fort, yeah there we go Lamin's terms. Thanks.
Speaker 2:I'm sick, I got you. She's like, let me simplify, we don't use so many words.
Speaker 4:Break it down Martin style guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the IMA person that I was attached to. Her family lived in Virginia and she was the chief nurse at the 87th, so she's active duty. You know they cover the Med Group for McGuire, which is a ginormous base.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so for her, her plan was she's going home in April, so she wanted me trained in February and she wanted me there the month of April. So when she found out I was tasked, she lost her mind, lost her ever loving mind, and it was strange the interaction that we had.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like what do you expect, though? I mean, a national crisis just happened, and like you're not going to get your Sorry, this isn't convenient for you.
Speaker 3:Right and a lot of people, especially and you know this active duty, don't? A lot of them don't know how to deal with these individual medical that's true, and it's not a dig on the active duty.
Speaker 2:It really I had to learn too. I mean, when I was a nurse manager at Lake and Heath well before I was the nurse manager before me she had an IMA and she kind of taught me. And so did the deputy squad commander, like what you do with them, because I'm like, well, what is that? I mean, do they work the floor? Do they do? No, they literally have to learn your job. And if you do it right and you sit down with what your skill set is supposed to be and you're doing it and you're giving them projects that are yours and you have that good rapport, they're invaluable. But if you don't know what to do with them, like they just take up space, you know, and drink all your coffee.
Speaker 3:I felt like, literally, they stuck me in a room and I said I need to learn your job. She goes, sit here, when we have meetings we'll come and get you. And I said what time? Literally, what time do we leave? She goes, well, when we leave, we'll let you know. So one day you know me, I'm like working, because I don't stop working and I'm working. And then I realized wait, it's 6.30.
Speaker 2:Nobody gave me coffee Right.
Speaker 3:I went out there and I'm like where's everybody?
Speaker 2:They went. They're home eating dinner Like sorry.
Speaker 3:So I found a civilian and I said so I'm looking for everybody and they're like well, who are you? I said, well, I'm the IMA to the chief nurse. He's like they left at 3.30.
Speaker 2:3.30. Oh geez, louise, how nice.
Speaker 3:So after a week of that fun I'm like fuck you all, I will never be back there, right, see you later.
Speaker 2:I'm gone, kiss my grits.
Speaker 4:So, oh, go ahead, thanks, thanks, over here playing rock paper scissors, so I'm in. I'm imagining you landing in New York, you're getting in, processed into McGuire Kind of what's going through your head at that point. Are you trying to, you know, mentally prepare for what you're going to walk into? Are you scared? Are you nervous? Are you just kind of like cool, calm and collected?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't, you know, I really so. Exorcist type movies scare me, but you know going into that or going into you know military stuff doesn't scare me. You know what could happen. Work types in the area when military dad doesn't scare me, but the garage scares me, the exorcist scares me, paranormal Exorcist scares me. So those are the types of scummy I was.
Speaker 4:We're opposites.
Speaker 3:But I really wasn't. I was thinking more about I hope we have toilet paper, I hope we have toilet paper.
Speaker 2:But you're going to tell, you're going to tell people to set up, because I know some of this. I'm not kidding you. I was cleaning out my bathroom closet and the phone rings and I see it's her and I'm like, oh, this can't be good, like it just can't be, because she's, I know where she is and I'm like, uh, oh, and so she calls and she goes. You You're going to believe half this. So just kind of tell a couple of things and you're like the setup, like hotel room, what you were dealing with, training or lack thereof, what you were dealing with, what the setup, you know, just go through those different things.
Speaker 3:So when we arrived initially, you know of course we're on the Jabba's floor and we're trying to, you know, set up there's. You know we have some sixes there, but one of six is more of a professor of school, the other six is a researcher there's, you know, some people there who kind of been in leadership positions. I'm the only one who's been there, who's been, who was there, had gone, who had experience as a chief nurse, and again, we all let me ask this question before you and for the the group of people that were there was it a majority of garden reserve?
Speaker 2:Was it active duty there also?
Speaker 3:So the our group, the Air Force Group, was all reservists.
Speaker 2:So I say this for the audience to understand and when you're dealing with garden reserve, they all get a day job and so you do not know what you're going to get. It's a mixed bag of nuts, right. Like literally. And and I have had situations like I was working with a flight nurse we're flying back to the States and the IV is going off and she comes over. She's like can you handle that? And I'm like you're a nurse, can you handle that? She's like yeah, I do plastics. Like I don't do any of this stuff. Oh my gosh. Like okay, well, you just step away. Yeah, so that's what I was kind of trying to set the scene for people to understand this Like yeah, no.
Speaker 3:So you know, there was. There was kind of somebody who kind of took. You know he's like, well, I'm a no six, I'll take the chief nurse role and I'm like, okay, go ahead. And then I get this, you know. So I leave because I'm not part of the leadership team, and then I get a knock on the door. Hey, we need you because you're the only one who's been a chief nurse and you know how to divide these nurses up. You know how to look at their skill sets and see what they need, because nobody else does. Right.
Speaker 3:Because our commander and our deputy commander were pilots.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:They weren't even, you know, weren't even medical.
Speaker 2:They're just managing operations like that, they're not managing detail. So you got a field promotion. Yeah, I was in his. Yeah, wasn't this thing?
Speaker 3:And and when they told him to work on the floor, he panicked. He couldn't do it. I mean, I don't know why they sent him.
Speaker 4:I can't. I have the dome skills.
Speaker 3:So I became, we became. You know we'll be in Tweedle deer.
Speaker 2:Well, and this isn't that Did you. Where were you guys placed? Let me ask that question when were you place for you?
Speaker 3:I can't see where we were placed initially. But when the second wave came in, they said we need, we need leadership at the new hotel, so we need you to move. Okay, fine, so they put us in the moxie, and I refer to the moxie as the date rape hotel.
Speaker 4:Ooh, are there burn marks on the side tables. Oh, white powder on the floor. It was bizarre Used condoms in the closet.
Speaker 3:It was a nice hotel. It was, you know, expensive, it wasn't cheap. There's a very popular actor who at the time when we went there we, you know, of course we looked it up he was going through sexual assault charges because of something that happened there. There were bizarre. It was so bizarre that one day we had a group of army generals who had heard about the hotel, who came to look at it because they were concerned. They were in the shape of bears that were in sexual positions. And then on the roof yes, no, serious, these windows and on the outside of the window they had topiary they're plastic but it's still giant. I mean giant topiaries and bears in sexual position. And then on the top floor or I guess it would be the penthouse, there was a little tiny, tiny ball and it was sextet, like pink panther size, wow, and they were sextet.
Speaker 2:Oh, my Interesting.
Speaker 3:Right. And then one of their walls had this beautiful, it was so pretty it was, it was like Ivy and flowers and then this pretty pink sign. It was those, you know, the gas lit letters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:It said under the influence.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, so that's super awesome. And then all the military staying in there, right?
Speaker 4:This is a classy establishment. I had to pull it up Small but smart bedrooms and vibrant social spaces with bold programming. To plug and play.
Speaker 2:Yikes, were you plugging in play in there?
Speaker 3:No, I still love sleeping at the Bazaar, like our room. You know, there everything is so small. I mean, it was really small. You know what the the worst part was is most of the room for very small. The beds were Probably as large as the room and you have enough room to just walk. Between you. The bed and the wall was just enough room for you to walk.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean it's kind of like deployment. I mean like how much to room you need to go sleep, right, you probably were all crashing most of the time.
Speaker 3:But if you're stuck in that room for two weeks and you can't come out because you've been put in, quarantine.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I'm sure that's like what did you have laundry and food, like what did you do for laundry and food? Because I remember you telling me some stories.
Speaker 3:We had to find laundry. They allowed some of the Chinese laundromats to stay open so you could take your laundry there. You could either do it or they do it for you. And that's weird how they chose what could close and what could stay open. So a lot of restaurants fast food restaurants stayed open so you could order something, go there. You couldn't stay there and eat. Central Park was open. It was packed, so you know you go down there, you could run around, but in the city itself there wasn't a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, they're all holed up in their house. So you were saying like when you got there I was listening and it was like People were picking like their leadership roles and stuff, but what the other nurses who were the nurses that were getting brought in to go actually assist, because we know a fence but A lot of chiefs and no Indian ain't going to make for anything happening, and you know that.
Speaker 3:Right, and you know it was amazing people who got brought in. You know a lot of clinical nurses. We have the RTS Absolutely freaking amazing.
Speaker 2:Restory therapists yeah.
Speaker 3:I think. I think there are 4 inches, the rock stars of COVID, respiratory therapists. Amazing, there's 1 in particular who actually did a lot of teaching of residents At Queens and it was because of him they implemented their rotating. I forget what it is called Pruning, the pruning that they did, teaching the red fence, because the residents kept setting the ventilators At what they would for somebody who they need to ventilate, not somebody with COVID, and those Specifications putting them in arts change significantly. And you know I remember this 1 case. There was a resident and I want to say she was from what's the country between Pakistan and India? She was from Kashmir, super smart, and she kept changing the bed settings and he finally found he's like why are you changing my bed settings? And she goes well, x, y, z, and he's like that's for a normal vented patient, someone who doesn't have COVID. And so after that she goes around and she starts teaching all these other residents what he needed them to be doing. So nice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, tech Sergeant Rudd, are you the Absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2:Tech. Sergeant Rudd, shout out.
Speaker 3:We're giving you a shout out, and I think he's either tech or master, master, sergeant Brunel. No, it's Tech, sergeant Brunel. Those 2 RTs were amazing Team players. They jumped on everything. They were helpful. They were mentors to anyone and everyone. They were just nice, kind people.
Speaker 4:We love and CO's.
Speaker 2:I love our teeth. In the hospital I'll be like okay. They say vent. I say where are they?
Speaker 3:I'm not the nurse that's going to run events and even in our ER they teach us and I'm like where's RT you?
Speaker 2:know we had to do it like. I mean, when I worked labor and delivery we had to know the baby birds and I had to run and I hated it every freaking time. I'm like are we transferring? Where are we transferring? Where's RT? Yeah, I hated that stuff, but we did it because we had to. So what so? Alright, so everybody's in there and you've got reservists, so it's all like, and mixed in with the civilians, and I know that the medical audience already knows this. But for the civilian audience, you know, a nurse Is not just a nurse, is just a nurse just a nurse. It doesn't work that way. So If somebody worked a med search floor, these were people that were getting furloughed because they didn't have the experience in ventilator, icu, critical care, er. Those were the hot specialties, right. So, like OB units were shrinking at, med search units were turning into COVID units, and there were people that were not, did not have jobs. No, dig on them, because they're probably rock stars in their own world, but they didn't have the specialty.
Speaker 3:In particular, Jukobi is a huge hospital. If you look it up it's a huge trauma, Pediatric like their. Picu was 41 beds.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:The after intensive care. I've never even seen a pediatric intensive care unit, and then to have one with 41 beds, it's big Close.
Speaker 2:Close the adult, covid. Yeah, I'm telling you a lot of people don't really realize that that the staff that was working were working beyond reasonable, obviously extreme levels, and then it was like black or white, it was all or none. So they're either busting their ass doing these crazy shifts or they're not working Right. You know people working in clinics they weren't working anymore, you know so that you really basically took I don't know, I'm going to take a total whack 25% of your nursing population and now you're overworking them, right? Or your medical community too, you know.
Speaker 3:So Queens Queens hospital lost 80% of their nurses there you go, they either had a quick or they got sick and they passed away. They lost a huge I mean Queens has a huge immigrant population of nurses. Yeah, I mean that hospital. It's in the demographics of New York and some of these areas are so tight. They lost a large swath of Filipino nurses who got sick and died, or people who had sick family members. You don't want to work there if you have someone with cancer, so they took medical leave.
Speaker 2:How long were you there for?
Speaker 3:I say for like three and a half months.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I remember that. I remember what happened when you were in the ER. I remember you calling me. You were in the ER at that point and you're like hey, you are not kind of like this is crazy.
Speaker 3:You know, of course, all the hospitals there. They work differently than they do in Texas or in the parts of the country that aren't as old as New York. Yeah, so the hospitals are. Most of them are old. They don't have. You know, you don't get your own individual private room every time you go into the emergency room. They had curtains that divided up all the stretchers. So there was all the curtains were removed and it's just like a giant ward.
Speaker 2:I remember a style yeah, I remember her telling me and I don't remember this, but you said we are I don't remember how many at whole like 70 came to mind. You're like I think it holds and I'm making up a number, I could be off, but it was like 70 people can fit there. That's like your max for patients, and she's like there's over a hundred and so yeah, so they're.
Speaker 3:They're going to have an 80 bed at ER. That was close 60 patients from. There.
Speaker 2:Okay. And then what'd you say? Hold on, I'll let you say it in a minute. What did you tell me? You told me two things. You said there's an ice box here. It's an 18 Miller ice box. That's where I was going. Yeah, yeah, she's. There was always one in the bay, right, yeah. And then you had told me when she got, I remember you saying specifically if there we have them three deep, and if somebody is three deep in there, we can't get to them. Like we can't get to them, that's it.
Speaker 3:There were some of them. We couldn't get to them because there's two or three structures in front of them. There was one wall it's a head wall and it would have, you know, a whole set up. You have your oxygen and your suction and your air, and it was for five people and there's 11 people on that wall.
Speaker 2:You got splitters everywhere.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and and one of the artisans go. I think that person has died, but we couldn't get to them to turn the vent off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I mean. That's insanity.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they started pulling in recliners, so they also had recliners, you know, for their walkie-talkies.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And there was a patient who passed away and nobody noticed. He passed away in a recliner, and it's not that people weren't paying attention and it's not that nobody cared, it's that they couldn't do anything about it.
Speaker 2:They followed you and they died. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, like you said, people didn't know. Like prone, the proning didn't come around immediately. Right, you know, people didn't know.
Speaker 3:And you know, in all honesty and in all fairness, when we showed up there, we showed up four weeks too late.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:New York was on fire and halfway burned down when we showed up there. You know they they really do make it go. Oh gosh, thanks for the military. You all saved this. No, those nurses who stuck it, stuck it out, who were there, those are the heroes. And and I, I and I don't use that loosely because it irritates me when people go oh, you're a hero. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because I think it should only be used for specific incidents and for specific people and for specific professions. In general. Nurses are not heroes. That's the job that you chose. Do your fucking job. You're not a hero. Thank you for being a nurse. Thank you for doing dialysis that I don't want to do. Thank you for, you know, being a ICU nurse that I don't want to do, but you're not a hero.
Speaker 2:This is how your job, this is how I, this is how I felt about, this is how I felt about award packages. I only wrote two. Yours was one of them, but I had the same sentiment like, hey, you came here to what's work, Bravo, like whatever, but I understand what you're saying. I mean they. You know, you came in, you did the job to help these guys out, but the ones that were there sticking it out, the the mass number of them that passed away trying to do this job, not knowing what they were up against, they didn't have all the information at that point Right?
Speaker 4:This was still very early on, where we didn't have a firm understanding of what this thing was, how it traveled what was going to happen. Resources right, all of that. So, fuck all this. What is safe? Patient ratios out the window.
Speaker 2:It's just just patient ratios, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, anything, I have 20 patients and I said, well, 20 patients among all of you. She goes no, those 20 patients over there, those are all my.
Speaker 2:I'll cove it to yes, all COVID. Yeah, that's super awesome.
Speaker 3:I was like you can't, you can't. I mean, we all know, nobody can do 20 patients.
Speaker 2:How, I don't know, med search nurses would be like hold my beer.
Speaker 2:I Want to do that job, do their professional drug dealers there like I. I went up and had to backfill a shift up there and and Because I had mean nurses on my floor that were like you're the new person, we're not doing it, and they set me up and I was like Fuck all of you. So I went up and I walked in the door and all my glory in the you know more, the shift change, and the first words out of my mouth wasn't even hello. I'm like, just so y'all know, I'm not taking a team, didn't win friends. But there was one nurse there that got it. She goes. You come work with me and she was amazing and so she goes.
Speaker 2:I'd be like me going downstairs and try, I was working labor and delivery. I'm like, yeah, like throwing you in there and say like here's my pre term, pre-eclampsic, you know whatever. Good luck, have fun. Yeah, like I'm doing that. Like, do you know your measurements? Like, yeah, do you know how to run mag pit? You know insulin. So it was the same idea I had mad respect for for my surgeon, nurses up and down, you all my kudos. There you go. Well, let me ask when, when you guys were there? You were, you were side-by-side with the civilians, right You're, you're working with them. You had the advantage I well, I guess maybe a lot of reservists have the advantage of Already working in the civilian sector. So I would think my assumption would be that you didn't find it over like a huge transition, whereas, like active duty Nurses and medical people would have been like a drastic change for them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I think the nurses did well. There was some Some animosity, but there was. There was some friction at times between, you know, our nurses and the civilian nurses. In that, you know, it's kind of like a traveler, you know how the travel.
Speaker 3:Oh yes, they always give them the worst assignments, and yeah, and there were several times where I went up and I'm like why do you have eight patients and they'd have two or three civilians who have like two or three. So they were overloading some of the military nurses. They were taking advantage of it.
Speaker 2:Kind of in the assumption your temporary, so we can just burn you, kind of thing.
Speaker 3:The most part they were treated well. But there was those few occasions where we're just like this just doesn't make sense and you know you don't want to go one there and rub things and you know make people mad. But I will say for the most part if we took concerns to the CNO or the chief nursing officer she was, they were, they were very helpful. They were, you know, nice about it. We're like well, we don't want to make waves, we're military, we're used to suck and we'll suck it up.
Speaker 4:Right, we will embrace the suck.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, but at the same time, you know, we have to be cognizant that we have nurses that are pain clinic nurses working on the floor with ventilators. We have aesthetic nurses on the floor right ventilator. So and then you have, you know, travelers and your, your civilian nurses, who are necessarily taking the same amount of love. That that was the the not the norm Right, and we did have to address it.
Speaker 2:What? What was the yeah? So three and a half months, that's a long time. Burn in the hours to like a couple of things like what the hours look like and what were you watching as time went on? The mental health of of everybody, civilians and military? Were you seeing a difference?
Speaker 4:or I'd imagine Taked yeah unexpectedly.
Speaker 3:But you know, Most of our deployments are volunteer.
Speaker 2:You have the ones that aren't well, that's, that's reserved and guard active duty right now, I swear, not you. They're like fuck you, we're just going. What do you mean?
Speaker 3:there's a choice, yeah so it was Again, that was also all over the place. We had one or two that they didn't want to go. They didn't volunteer, but they were selected because maybe they are an ICU nurse or maybe they are a secat, or yeah, you know they do that trauma that they were selected. A lot were selected for their specialty, but most of them volunteer. But the problem was and, and and I've said this before, and I feel Bad. You know, there's always one bad apple. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:They screw it up for everybody else. So you know, you know so many nurses now are going for advanced degrees and they're becoming a nurse and then they immediately go get their NP Because they don't want to work bedside anymore. And I don't blame it, but you know, I'm a bedside nurse, I'm after prepared, that's the road that I chose and now I'm in leadership and that's what I enjoy doing. But we had nurses that you know came in and he said, well, I'm an NP, I'm gonna be a provider and I'm, like you're in, a clinical nurse by you chose. You chose your job and your job is a bedside nurse in the military. And so we had some nurses who not many, maybe one or two who really pushed back, who really created a lot of problems Because you had the other NPs that are like what do you mean to do? Tell me where to go, what?
Speaker 2:fully okay, I got it right, just jumping in well and again for our audience and civilians. I what they may not really understand is that if Nurse practitioners the easiest one to choose, an example but if you are a nurse practitioner, the civilian sector, and you come to the Military, you have to be picked up in a nurse practitioner slot to be able to practice as a nurse practitioner. If you get picked up as a 46 n, which is just a general nurse, and you are functioning in a military capacity, you don't get to work as a nurse practitioner, you get to work as a nurse right, much like we see the east side. I've I've met nurses. I've met ICU nurses that are Technicians in the military. For you know, maybe they came in as enlisted and then they went and got their, their nursing degree, but they didn't change their slot. They're just like I'm fine where I'm at, and so they're nurse, civilian and Technician in the military, which I personally don't know how they do that because I would just overstep my boundaries and get in trouble all the time.
Speaker 2:But that's people you understand that we have to be in. The doctors are. The same way you can be a cardiologist in your civilian world, but if you're walking in the door and you're trained as a flight surgeon. That's what you're doing. You're not doing cardiology. You've got to stay within your scope. You have to stay within that scope that the military is picking you up at.
Speaker 4:So there's my little soapbox no matter how educated you may be, you've got to stick within your lane, right? It's a sticking line.
Speaker 2:So a lot of people don't really realize that the reserves, that in guard, that duality does exist. So they were Sounds like everything was going along. I'm not going to say swimmingly, because I heard some of those stories, but they were moving and you guys were being effective. How was? Because at that time I remember seeing the news where people were hanging out of their apartment windows tearing medical. Did you experience any of that?
Speaker 3:I did a few times. It was bizarre because even if you couldn't see them, you could hear, because everything echoes there. You could hear it. It was literally pots and pans. They were either beating two pots together or they had a spoon and they're beating the pot. They were thanking people for doing what they were doing. Fewer in New York City literally the world was on fire there. It was nice to have that appreciation.
Speaker 2:I'm sure that at least some level buffered the mental health toll. Were you watching it decline over the months on the military side, civilian side both?
Speaker 3:I didn't really pay attention to the civilian side. I did a little bit in that. The communities and I will say just because I seem to have been in the hospitals that I went, it seemed to be Filipino heavy, but that community is tight. If they don't kill you, then you're in with them.
Speaker 2:Well, you're still alive, that's good.
Speaker 3:I know they were emotionally drained and it was heartbreaking to see them mourn for their colleagues. Now I'm going to cry, just mourn for their colleagues and lose as many nurses as they lost People that were educators they were bedside nurses. They talked bedside nursing. That's not what they wanted to do, Yet they weren't safe in their scope or in their realm. And to see them pull together and to see the nurses who really stuck it out, I admire them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what were the military? Nurses and this, the medical staff in general. I say nurses, I think I just mean it collectively, the healthcare workers. What were you watching on the military side?
Speaker 3:On the military side, it was different. Everyone I talked to when we went there, we'd been there a couple of weeks and finally people started going holy crap, afghanistan prepared me for this. What they were saying yeah, because while you saw dead bodies, or you saw the battles, or you heard the battles or the explosions, and if you were there then you were experienced at being bombed. Yeah, and they were prepared. They're like, okay, we can do this, but the people that hadn't, the people that they were feeding into the panic frenzy and the media, shame on them. The panic that they caused Well, people need to know the panic that they caused and, of course, I'm gonna have to be really careful. They politicized a lot of it. Yeah, the panic that the media caused is, and was, unforgivable. Now, I'll be honest, I thought that the media was blowing over. What's the word? Exaggerating? What they were saying yeah, you know they're Sensationalizing it.
Speaker 3:There are dreams of dead bodies. When I got there, I realized that the media really had no clue what was going on. It was worse than what they were saying. And thank God they had no clue what was really going on, because if they did, the panic that would have. I mean, we saw panic, but the panic, the level of panic that we would have seen, would have been insane.
Speaker 4:I was so curious about that because I remember being home on this side of the fence and seeing all the footage you know, of just tarps after tarps after tarps and parking lots and just awful scenes and thinking, oh my God, like this is. We all knew this was a big deal but to that extent, and having this little part of me hoping that they were just embellishing and making this out to be worse than it actually was. So it's interesting to hear the perspective from somebody who actually had boots on the ground and was in the hospital.
Speaker 3:Well, and I think that's what I call. So I'm like this is worse than what anybody knows and unless you were there you really can't put it into perspective. So, and when I came back to work, I felt like a jerk, because listening to them moan and groan about how hard it was and how many patients they have, I'm like you don't wanna hear it because you have no clue. But then I had to put it back into perspective. What they know is the worst thing they've ever seen.
Speaker 2:Right, they had no clue. Well, what goes back to the people that were more resilient in New York that were saying, hey, afghanistan prepared me for this, and really I mean, if you put it on a just a timeline, it's half of a deployment, right. Three and a half months set of like the six months Now, the acuity was through the roof and probably even worse than a deployment on a consistent basis. You know what I mean, that high level. But it is half and we are used to embracing the suck and we just have to do it and that's the end of it.
Speaker 4:And not just that, but they had that ongoing lingering fear of well, what happens if I get sick?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that. What do we worry about? Deployment is like I don't wanna get bombed or shot. I wanna get shot. I wanna get snipered or something you know, and there it's like I don't wanna catch the invisible cutie that's gonna put me down. So at least when you're shot you know it. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Pretty quickly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think some people probably been happier to risk getting shot over getting that. You know, Hell yeah.
Speaker 3:Stupid shit like COVID toes and you know, is it a thing, is it not a thing? But you know we began to joke that you know, be careful, don't say that. You jammed your foot and your toe hurts because you were getting put in quarantine for the most ridiculous things, and two solid weeks, I mean. We had people that started losing their minds and you'd have I was like, get away from my door, not me, but you know we'd send a chaplain to talk to them through their door.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We weren't compassionate with these people. There's no reason that you know. If you're gonna quarantine again too, I understand it. It was like the know you don't know. Yeah. But locking people in and isolating them in their room just made things work, especially on the military side, because they literally. I mean, I remember the day after somebody arrived it was in the second wave they came and said, man, I have a sore throat, it's kind of scratchy. That person got stuck in quarantine for two weeks.
Speaker 2:Immediately Negative yeah.
Speaker 3:Negative. There's three negative COVID tests.
Speaker 2:I remember my daughter when she got COVID, she day one, right that night sore, I mean bellyache and fever, and at the time you know it's different variants present different ways and so at that time I knew I was like ah, dang, I'm pretty sure, brought her in, tested her yep, you have COVID, Threw her in her room for 10 days and sadly, after the first day she was actually 100%. You know the kids were like resilient and but for 10 days and I will tell you by the time we hit days I don't even know if we made it halfway, maybe five or six I'm like hugging her at the door. My husband's like what are you doing? I'm like I don't care, she needs human touch. I'm not, I cannot do that, she needs her mom. Like screw that. And he's like hello, wake up. Like this could be worse.
Speaker 2:You know kids again, we did it. No, I'm like she's presenting fine, I'm hugging her, go away. You know I was kind of and I was kind of getting squirrely myself. You know that, my poor kids in there, so I can't imagine somebody that's in a place that nobody's really chaplain here and there and whatnot, when you came back. So three and a half months go by and you come back. You guys all came back together, right, were they? Or were they removing you out slowly?
Speaker 3:No, they, we were staggered out. I was going to the last ones to leave. You know, first one in, last one out.
Speaker 2:That's you.
Speaker 3:But I had to make sure that you know. Everybody else got home first and then the last.
Speaker 2:So when you got home, either A were you getting word on how people were handling post quote unquote New York deployment and what was going on with you.
Speaker 3:So I became the touch point for probably 90% of the people that were there Not necessarily the O6s, because they went back to their jobs and they were kind of like eh, here in O5, I don't need your help, but people were coming back and they weren't getting the leave that they needed or they were. You know, some bases are putting them in two weeks of quarantine and some bases weren't, and some bases let them go home to do their quarantine. And so, you know, one group came back and they came back negative and then somebody in their office was sick, so they're in processing, and then two days after they get back they're told that when they in process, one of the people that was in processing them was sick but was at work and had COVID, and now they were all exposed to COVID.
Speaker 2:Oh, lovely.
Speaker 3:And so, yeah, it was, it was, and they weren't getting the MEC on that they needed, and so people are calling me like I have some direct line to the Pentagon and the DOD and I'm like well, that was, that was our office, Right.
Speaker 3:And so here I am trying to find you know their, their wing commander's number, to say I'm just a chief nurse and I'm trying to help your people and they're not getting help. And and I and I will say that the response that I got was super and not not anybody reached out and goes why are you doing this? You're out of your lane, because it was all done out of you know, caring about them and caring about the troops and making sure they got what they needed. I was lucky because at the time I was still in IMA, even though I had already said I'm not doing that again, but I fell into the category.
Speaker 3:And so Afrik, we had an amazing colonel. She was so nice. I wish I remembered her name. I have to go back and look at my declaration but she, they literally did everything for us. They completed our travel vouchers for us, they made sure that we got our decorations and our ribbons, they made sure we got paid. But yet other people are like man, it's, it's three months and they're still. They haven't processed my voucher and they're saying this and that and I felt, you know, that's just wrong.
Speaker 2:Wrong, but it ended up being like what you experienced was was the exception in my mind, like all that delay stuff was normal, yeah, and they even told us they're like please don't tell everybody how well you know you're being treated, because we knew it and we made sure you know.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. But she was amazing. There's like 15 of us that were IMAs and so she really did take care of us. We were, we were lucky and I want to sit there and say, you know, good leaders take care of their people.
Speaker 2:But we all know, you know, sometimes finance is a problem and you know there's Well, they do their best, they put their people first, but yeah, they're going to encounter some roadblocks. Did you feel like? Did you feel like your mental health was Challenge when you came back, or you were not at all?
Speaker 3:Really. Well my mental health is challenged. It's our.
Speaker 2:That that's a whole. I know why that that's a whole other podcast, but yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's another story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I kind of wonder like I was thinking back to what you were saying with the Filipino community and the civilian community in general. They lost so many people, so you guys weren't experiencing that right, your people were not dropping and and so I wonder if that but that's where some of the PTSD came in, and that stress, you know, like the hell. You know Fred was here and then tomorrow he's not. You know.
Speaker 3:You know we didn't have 1 military member get sick, Not 1 airport member got sick with COVID while we were there.
Speaker 2:It's because we're shot up with so many preservatives when we come in. We're like McDonald's hamburger you just set us out there and we're not going to mold.
Speaker 4:COVID comes in and it's like how do you live like this Damn bitch?
Speaker 2:It was like I'm out of here, this place is.
Speaker 3:We will outlive everybody. If you look at the vet training who are still alive and they're like 101.
Speaker 2:Right, and it's all the freaking vaccines and like an alcohol preserved. There needs to be a research on on vaccines, alcohol and caffeine as a preservatives.
Speaker 4:I will volunteer myself as tribute there might be. There might be something to this, researchers, you can find me right here, all right.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that I don't know. Do you have any other questions? I'm just sitting here kind of processing all of this.
Speaker 4:No more questions, but I think it would be important for us just to take a minute to say you know, we've, we've, we've laughed, we've talked through this, but what happened was absolutely awful and unprecedented challenges that are people who trained us never had to deal with and we did the best that we could with what we had on all levels. I can only imagine what that was like for you and having boots on the ground in New York at that time. A lot of Americans and people worldwide lost their lives. So just part of this wanted to take a minute to honor those who who did pass and all of those who, you know, did the very best that they could to try and preserve that, that human life. Yeah, that doesn't go without notice.
Speaker 2:I agree, I agree, definitely needed to be, to be honored Good columns.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, no, no the people that that continue to work, and not that the people who didn't are bad. They had to stop for whatever reason, and they had to do what was right for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And, and I know, every now and then you'll hear all you didn't do. Well, you know, not everybody could, because you know there's you have sick family, whatever, for whatever reason.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a lot of things that people don't look. I was in the middle of retired, like going out a door, you know, and we were, you know. We were at the end of waiting to receive, like, are we going to receive these guys if they get sick? Who's getting sick? How are we handling it? And there was a lot of back and forth on that. But you know, it's like I said, it's like a whole other podcast, but it was state funded versus federal fund. Is military going to cover him or not? And I know that was a huge mess. So we were people, were handling other things that other times. The people that were in the core, highest respect, I mean you guys being there getting it done, and you're right. For those that were not, it was hard for me and part of me was like man, I don't want to be called. But, kind of, if they did, I wouldn't say no, like you know I would, because why? Because we're trained for this shit. Right, we're all just a little one off. Yeah, we're trained for this. Yeah, we're like, let's go. I mean you. You remember I've said this on other podcasts I had somebody call me.
Speaker 2:She was a MSC, so she was like a health administrator in the military. But she was health administrator civilian world and do you remember? And when they were getting to the point now where they, these hospitals were going to, they were worried about experiencing the surges. This is post New York now, but other hospitals were getting ready to experience surges and they were predicting them and they're talking to the staff and they're like we're going to have to change our triage practice, like like mass cow. And she had called me and she was like our docs don't want to do it. And she was military. So she knew like we're all trained in mass cow, like we flip who gets what for services when it's a mass cow, right. And they were like you know, no, no, we can't do this, we can't do this and like you're going to have to to preserve the most life You're going to have to. Fortunately, I don't Well, I don't know personally how many hospitals did do that. I don't know if that ever gotten to play with them or not, but I just know that it was a huge stressor even at the thought of it. And yet that's how we're trained when we go into a mass cow or we do any exercises. That's, that's exactly how our mind flips because that's how we're trained.
Speaker 2:So, so kudos for everybody that was stepping up to the plate in any capacity, whether that you know. Being home with their loved ones, taking care of them, being right there at the bedside taking care of them there, the ones that gave up their life, yeah, we owe a lot to them. So, and as always, it's impressive. And you know you're, you definitely are. You were military before you were military. That's what I've decided. Like you are already, like she was already proven when she walked in the door. Thank you were. Like I'm pretty sure you were. I bet you even have a toga at home somewhere.
Speaker 4:Step down to the ward, hold my beer. Here I come, here I am.
Speaker 2:So all right, any last thoughts?
Speaker 3:No, no, not at all.
Speaker 4:Okay, mz Any last thoughts For all those that lost their lives from the COVID-19 pandemic. We remember you, we love you. Thank you to our nurses and health care professionals for doing what you did.
Speaker 2:I think all the sentiment was said. So all right, everybody, this is bullets to bed pans and you got detox and MZ here and we are out for this episode. Peace out, peace.