The Infantry

The reality is starting to sink in.  This morning, I watched a video from the president of the university I am attending that was directed just to the advanced practice nursing students.  That’s me.  He referred to nurses as the infantry and extended his gratitude, flexibility, and support for all of us.  We are at war.  We are ill-prepared: no training exists for something that changes by the hour, and we do not have enough gear to protect ourselves…and yet we signed up for this.

We are nurses.

We do not turn away from our patients.  We know what heartache and fear looks like. We know how to care for and comfort people, even when things get bleak.  How do we force ourselves to continue to go to war knowing that there is a risk to our health and welfare?  If not us, then who?  We have to.

We are nurses.

We band together, support each other, and have each other’s backs when things get really bad…on a regular day.  Things are about to get really bad here and we will continue to support each other with all the love and support spanning from the president of the university to people we don’t even know making us masks to the people sending us flowers/food, and to the families we have waiting for us at home.

This morning it sank in a little more.  I am in the infantry.  I am potentially exposed every day.  I have to isolate at home to protect the people I love and sometimes I feel like a leper who no one wants to touch.  I don’t blame them because it is the right thing to do. I often wonder, how am I going to do this everyday and for how long?

I have a higher power.  It’s not God, but it’s something like that…a warm, beautiful place that brings me peace.  Music soothes my soul, so I play it a lot.  I get up and make my bed just like any other day.  I keep doing the laundry and clean my house. I continue to care for myself as I always do with more attention and intention to what I am doing.   I set out my clothes.  I cook my meals and prepare my lunches with care.  I meditate.  I talk to my family and friends on FaceTime.  I play the piano.  I play the ukulele like I know how to (I don’t).  I write my feelings down (mmm…blooooog).  I don’t look at the news or get sucked into the wormhole of the Internet.  I unfollow negative people on social media.  I dial it down, slow it down, and appreciate the little things like how excited my dog gets when I get home, the way the fire looks in the fireplace, how pretty the snow is when it falls, how a song makes me feel, how I can make sound come out of an instrument, or how it feels to take a nice deep breath, feel the air go into my lungs and let my body relax.

This is a time to reach deep down inside ourselves and find that place that gives us hope, strength, courage, and love.  It is a time to open up to the people around us and let them care for us, love us, and listen to us.  It is a time to laugh, a time to cry, a time to read those funny papers, watch those silly movies, dance in the living room, sing that karaoke, and tell those we love how we feel.

It is a time to open our hearts and weep for the things we cannot control and then let them go.  We are the strong.

We are nurses.