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MILAN (AP) – A 54-year-old nurse became convinced that the coronavirus ‘hated’ her during the first seven months of the epidemics in Italy. These are the words of Cristina Settembrese for it.
Settembrese, who specializes in treating patients with infectious diseases, faced enormous risks during the long hours she spent in close contact with sick and dying patients from COVID-19. She was careful to scale her precautions to match and has always tested negative despite having been exposed multiple times.
The nurse’s meetings with the coronavirus began on February 21, the day Italy’s first domestic cases were confirmed in the north of the country. Nurses and doctors were among those newly infected, so Settembrese immediately volunteered to treat people in Codogno, home of the Italian patient zero and just an hour’s drive from where she worked at the hospital. San Paolo Hospital in Milan.
Soon his own hospital was under siege as the virus spread through the Lombardy region, its first point of departure beyond Asia. Settembrese, a single mother, immediately sent her 24-year-old daughter to live with her parents. Alone at home, the nurse slept on the couch, partly to be ready in case she was called to work, partly in response to a trauma that took her by surprise.
When the number of cases finally declined and her hospital emptied of its COVID-19 patients, she struggled to share the relief she had seen in others, those who had not seen. the trauma of his service. During a short summer break, she saw the virus return in the fall on the unmasked faces of other vacationers. And his concern grew.
Yet the resurgence came faster – and sooner – than even Settembrese feared. This week alone, the number of cases in his hospital has increased by a third. He also appeared closer to home.
Here is, in his words, his journey through the pandemic, so far.
BRIEF RESPITE FROM ITALIAN VIRUSES
“In August, we ran out of admissions for COVID. We have had almost a month without any cases. And from September, instead, we started seeing pneumonia again, then COVID patients, still not severe cases, and we closed the ward for meningitis, tuberculosis patients, our patients. usual …. Then as cases increased and hospital admissions increased, the pneumonia became more aggressive, forcing them to reopen the intensive unit upstairs. The change has happened: the virulence is much stronger and we see it in patients.
THE MID-OCTOBER SURTENESS
“I can say the numbers have skyrocketed … Nurses have been called back from the departments to which they have returned. We call them back to help us, because alone we cannot follow. There are only a few of us, and we cannot keep up with people who wear helmets (to help breathe). ”
NIGHTMARE RETURNS
“I see this very badly. I honestly didn’t expect it. I cried a lot, four months ago I cried a lot. I lost a lot of young people, whom I always carry with me. I had not yet overcome these deaths … All of us nurses feel psychological harm. I’m experiencing this as a second wave, and I think we still haven’t seen anything.
“There are no terrible deaths this time. Now, with the treatments, you manage to avoid these intensive therapies. We found a pseudo-palliative treatment, let’s say. We know how to manage cases better.
“But I saw it inside just like before. For us, it’s like reliving a nightmare. “
RETURN TO ITALY’S REMARKABLY RELAXED SUMMER
“I spent seven or eight days of vacation and joined my mother in Riccione (on the Adriatic Sea), and I was an alien. I saw everyone without a mask, this beach full of people. Crowds in bars. And the only ones with masks were the Lombards, and the rest, all without.
“I told them everything. It was like I was in a frenzy. I would say, “Step back and put on the masks.” I was extremely worried. I looked and thought about October, and I said to my mom and daughter, “With free-for-all happening, we’re going to face a catastrophe.” Everyone told me I was an alarmist, even friends. I told them, “I’m not an alarmist. I worked in the infectious disease department for 12 years and the virus will come back. Because all viruses come back in October. And this one won’t be missing, of course. ”
FLASHBACKS OF A PANDEMIC
“This young man still touches my heart. It is a terrible and terrible story. He was a 42 year old guy. When he arrived he was in pretty good shape, then we had to intubate him with the anesthetist. I held his hand and he said, “Cristina, swear I’ll wake up, because I have two small children. And to help him fall asleep calmly, I promised him. It was a promise that I could not keep, because after four or five days the patient died. I was in a mess. I still wear this.
“A lot of times when I go into a room I see the people who were there before. All beds have faces. They have faces that I remember. Sometimes I have nightmares, I’m not ashamed to say it. I have psychologically heavy flashbacks … I still can’t fall asleep in a bed because I associate it with an illness, something that I have never felt in 35 years as a nurse. Slowly, I will get over it. But I’ve been sleeping on the couch since March. I can’t go to bed. “
Knock at home
“The other day I was destroyed, as if I had spent all day doing backbreaking work in the fields. When I couldn’t smell or taste anything, I went to get tested. Damn! I can say I am positive, but I have no major symptoms. I don’t have a fever, just a cough and aches all over it, like a terrible flu.
“At the end of the day, the virus doesn’t hate me. My defenses were down. I worked too many hours, always wearing a mask and keeping a distance. I have no idea where I got it from. Now my daughter, who has been here several times to eat between shifts, has a fever and a headache. She took a test yesterday. I am very worried and I feel very guilty.
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