Thank You to Our Heroes!

Carol Totz, ICU RN
Lehigh Valley Hospital-Pocono

Today we want to honor the Carol Totz, ICU RN at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Pocono, East Stroudsburg, Pennyslvania. Here is her story as reported by AARP

Carol works the night shift in the ICU at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Pocono, a small community hospital in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. She has been a registered nurse for 29 years, the last 19 in the ICU.

"We get the sickest of the patients who need to be intubated and on ventilators. Since this is so new, a lot of what we're trying is a learning curve — what we've learned from China and Italy.

If someone is on a ventilator and awake, they're often trying to fight it, so they are sedated for comfort to give their bodies time to rest. We do mouth care every two hours and turn them so they don't get bed sores.

It's all compounded by the fact we have to go in with isolation gear. We're doing the best we can with what we have. We have a shortage of supplies but no shortage of patients.

I am concerned about my health. I'm in that target age, 51. I worry I will bring something home to my husband and two children. I bring sweats with me and change into those after work. Then I change into a robe in the garage at home and run upstairs to take a shower.

I worry I won't be able to go back to Connecticut to see my dad. He's 78, not in great health, a prime target for COVID.

I'm not an anxiety-ridden person, but I had a panic attack the other day. After being a nurse for 29 years, it is difficult to be faced with situations that seem futile and not necessarily be able to help.

It's always rough when a patient dies, but now with so many dying, it's more heartwrenching.

All of us fear what we are going to be like when this passes. Are we going to be a bunch of PTSD zombies?

The hope is that we can wrangle through this and get it under control so we will have more success stories — that they'll start to outweigh the deaths. They tell you the death toll every night on the news, but they don't tell you the numbers that are getting well and going home. They need to start doing that to give us hope."

Thank you to Carol for your commitment, dedication, and compassion for your patients and communities. 

If you have a story and pictures of a front line nurse you would like us to highlight on our website and social media, please email them to us at  info@helphopehonor.org.