Before I entered #academia, I was an #ICU #nurse, and I worked in neuro trauma ICU, medical ICU, and cardiovascular ICU. Like all nurses, I've seen a lot of gut-wrenching things (especially in neuro). 1/

The most impactful circumstance of my bedside nursing career occurred when I was 22 years old, and it is burned into my memory: a man who was #intubated on a #ventilator and in kidney failure wrote on a clipboard to me: "please take it out and let me die." 2/

He had no family. There was no one to call. He literally wrote: "There isn't anybody." We discussed everything with him, and he understood. I told him how we'd make him comfortable and that there was no way to know exactly how long it would take. 3/

I remember seeing him shake his head in understanding, and wondering how he was holding it together so well. Again, I was 22.

Toward the middle of my shift, he was extubated. I gave him morphine and Ativan. 4/

I checked on him often throughout the day, not really knowing how to handle a patient who was dying without any family. There was not exactly a protocol for this. About three hours before I was supposed to leave, I checked on him. He was resting, but he woke up. 5/

He looked at me and said, barely able to get it out given his hypoxia, "I'm really sorry. But I don't actually think I want to do this by myself." A solitary tear went down his cheek, and I'll never forget what I said "Oh of course not. I'm going to sit with you." 6/

I remember thinking that's what my mom would've told me to say, and also worrying I sounded too upbeat.

I got another nurse to cover my other patient, and I sat with him. He said a few more words to me, and his last words on this earth were "It's not scary now." 7/

I stayed about 90 minutes past my shift, and I was with him when he died.

Patients dying from #COVID19 are dying without family with them. Their only hope is a nurse, nursing assistant, respiratory therapist, etc. being able to stay with them. 8/

And these health care workers are becoming so overwhelmed that they cannot spare the time to sit with the dying. To me, this is one of the most barbaric parts of this #pandemic. 9/

I keep thinking of that patient, and how he would've felt if I had told him I couldn't be with him--and I had only known him for 12 hours.

Please, please take this seriously. Stay home. Do all the things. <3 10/10.