A New nurse has revealed the devastating toll working on a Covid ward is taking on frontline workers by sharing before and after pictures of herself.
Kathryn, who started working as a nurse in Tennessee, US, eight months ago, shared a “How it started VS How it’s going” post which has been liked over 790,000 times.
https://twitter.com/kathryniveyy/status/1330607852524867587
The post features two pictures of her – one where she looks fresh-faced and smiling just before her graduation in April, and one capturing her exhaustion after a 12-hour weekend shift.
The tweet includes a whole thread where Kathryn calls on the public to take the pandemic seriously in a country where 258,000 have already died due to Covid-19.
“Covid is a brutal disease and I wouldn’t wish the worst of it on my worst enemy. Please understand that you aren’t just protecting yourself, you are protecting the people around you,” she said.
Covid is a brutal disease and I wouldn't wish the worst of it on my worst enemy. Please understand that you aren't just protecting yourself, you are protecting the people around you.
— Kathryn Ivey (@kathryniveyy) November 23, 2020
Covid-19 has infected 12.5 million people in the US and there are fears the numbers will increase further with Thanksgiving and the colder winter weather approaching.
Kathryn tweeted: “It is devastating to watch people die when those deaths were avoidable and it’s even more devastating when you watch them die the same way, time after time after time.
It’s devastating that basic common sense and decency has been politicized,” the nurse, whose age hasn’t been disclosed, has said.
It is devastating to watch people die when those deaths were avoidable and it's even more devastating when you watch them die the same way, time after time after time. It's devastating that basic common sense and decency has been politicized.
— Kathryn Ivey (@kathryniveyy) November 23, 2020
In a separate tweet where she takes a picture of herself in blue scrubs, she makes light of the “devastating” toll the pandemic is having as she said: “Yall this is the joke because I look like the opposite of the Instagram nurses who get scrub sponsorships.
“I tweeted it after a 13 hr shift when I had one braincell left that was off in the corner singing Africa by toto.”
The nurse’s post was welcomed by other colleagues who heeded her call to share pictures of themselves showing what Covid “has done to us”.
Despite the excruciating hours and the sorrow at seeing so many families lose their loved ones, Kathryn nonetheless said she “loves being a nurse”.
“Didn’t exactly expect to be a new nurse in the middle of a highly politicized pandemic,” she said.
“But life comes at you fast and even in a pandemic, there’s nothing else I want to do. Caring for the sickest of the sick is an honor and I treasure my patients,” she tweeted.
