Kelly LaCerra, who has been a charge nurse in the COVID-19 intensive care unit since March, said the most recent months of her career have been some of the most challenging.
“I never thought in my 35 years of being a nurse that I would ever work as hard as I’ve worked this past eight months, emotionally and physically,” LaCerra said.
She has been treating COVID-19 patients at Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville since the hospital first started admitting them. She said at the beginning of the pandemic, nurses were unsure what they would be facing.
Hometown heroes
COVID-19 has been hard on many, but for these frontline health care workers, its effects are an everyday reality. Over the next two weeks, we share the stories of a few of those who have risen to the occasion and done their jobs well in the face of unmatched pressure professionally and sometimes personally. We need heroes in this battle, and through their dedication, they have shown us what that looks like. We worked with Northeast Georgia Health System to identify those we are profiling, and this series is being made available free to nonsubscribers. Thank you to our subscribers for making our work possible. If you are not a subscriber, please consider supporting our work by subscribing to The Times. If you have a story about a frontline health care worker who has made a difference, please submit your story to news@gainesvilletimes.com. For other stories in this series, visit gainesvilletimes.com/hometownheroes.
“I think we all thought it would be over by summer. It just kept going and going and was super busy, every bed filled,” LaCerra said.
And when COVID-19 patient numbers were declining over the summer, hospital staff thought the situation would improve, but “then within a week or two weeks, it was full again and it has pretty much been full since then,” she said.
The unit has seen some difficult losses, LaCerra said, encouraging people to take precautions to protect themselves and others.
“I have lost young patients, 24, 32, 45 (years old). It shouldn’t have happened,” she said.
The pandemic has been an adjustment, she said, as nurses deal with new protocols with personal protective equipment and treating a new virus.
“The doors are all closed. You can’t see the patient except on a viewing screen in the hallway, unless you go in the room,” LaCerra said. “You have to put gowns on, gloves, masks, shields or eye protection. It’s kind of intense, and even in an emergency you have to get all that stuff on. If you get sick, who is going to take care of patients?”
Another change has been treating patients who cannot see their families. At first, nurses from other departments were helping communicate with families, and then the hospital brought in two licensed practical nurses to update families on patients’ conditions, LaCerra said.
Despite the stressful environment, nurses in the COVID ICU have supported each other through the difficult year — “Lots of helping out each other, rushing to help when somebody is going bad. It’s very much team-oriented,” LaCerra said.
As the charge nurse, LaCerra said she checks in on other nurses to make sure they are OK.
“I try to check in on every single nurse during the day. … Making sure they’re keeping up with their charting and they’re not getting behind. ‘What can I do to help you? Can I send another down to help?’” LaCerra said. “... There’s a lot of days where I’m not at the desk. I’m in the rooms turning patients, proning patients.”
LaCerra said she has turned to family for support.
“My husband is retired, so he pretty much does everything at home — cleaning, cooking. When I come home, he’s made dinner and it’s ready to eat, which is super supportive,” she said. “ … My kids are super funny. They’re super supportive, too, but neither one of them lives here.”
LaCerra, who lives in White County and moved to Georgia from Florida about three years ago, said she has kept in touch with friends through Zoom. Her parents also live nearby. While she broke her leg in October and has not been working at the hospital for the past few weeks, she plans to return soon.
She said her community has held some virtual events, but she has still seen the effects of isolation, especially on the elderly population.
“I live in a community with a lot of elderly people, and some of them have been in their houses for months. They only go out to get groceries. They don’t go anywhere. They don’t see anybody. It’s super depressing for them,” LaCerra said. “I feel like I’m the lucky one, because I get to get in my car and drive an hour to work, listen to a book on tape, relax and then work my 12-hour shifts and then drive home and have time to decompress.”