Page 61 - My FlipBook 1

THE ER PHYSICIAN
ENRIQUE LOPEZ
CRITICAL-CARE PHYSICIAN, PHOEBE
PUTNEY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
Albany, Georgia
tilator, and a nurse came out from another
$118 BILLION: Amount the federal government
patient’s room and said their ventilator broke.
spent from 2011 until 2017 on protecting the
nation from health threats I went in. The machine was spewing the
$6 BILLION: Amount that went to assisting the patient’s ventilatory gases around the room. I
country’s network of more than six thousand could feel it blowing in my face. I didn’t have
hospitals
the time to put on my biohazard suit, so I just
put on my N95 mask. But I could smell it. I
LAST WEEK, ALBANY, Georgia, was in the could taste it. And I was like, I’m going to die.
top five for cases per capita on the planet. We’re It’s all you can think about as you’re trouble-
not New York. We’re a small town filled with shooting to save this person. So do I have it now?
farmers, and doctors and nurses from the hos-
THE OTHER DAY, we had a patient with the
pital, and it’s a much simpler life. We got
same thing—their ventilator broke, and the
knocked down, and as a community we’re pick-
virus was spilling into the room. I put on my
ing each other back up and continuing to fight.
biohazard suit, so I was safe. I told the three
THE OTHER DAY, I stood in front of four- nurses, “Don’t go in there. I’ll take care of this.”
teen monitors. I looked at those monitors, and Doing it alone would’ve been very difficult, but
I realized that all of those patients were going I wasn’t going to risk their lives. So I walked in,
to die and there was nothing I could do. It was and I didn’t hear the door close, because the
this overwhelming feeling of powerlessness. nurses walked in behind me. All of them. They
WE HUG EACH other. We’re not supposed said, “We’re not leaving. Let’s do this.”
to, but we hug each other. MY WIFE MADE me a little office, where I
I TRIED TO SAVE a patient today. I was walk- have posters of my dad. He did free heart sur-
ing down the hall to check on somebody’s ven- gery on babies in Mexico. I look at those post-
ers and I’m filled with pride, because I know
that he made a difference. I want my children
“I’m in my truck, looking at my daughter, and to feel the same way. I may get the virus and
all I want to do is hug her,” Lopez, a father of
three, told Esquire. He’d just returned home die, and that would be tragic, but at least I’ll
from work. “But I don’t want her to touch me.” know that I did all I could to contribute, to make
a difference, and to make my family proud. In
our greatest time of need, I was there. —As told
to Brady Langmann

had some really amazing con- “We were just having coffee this
versations with patients. I called morning.”
this young guy, in his twenties, I’m really disappointed in the
who had COVID. Toward the end church. I just feel like more
of our conversation, he was like, priests need to be here in the
“I was not expecting this today. trenches. Because that’s what
This was really good. Thank you the church has told people their
so much.” We prayed together, whole lives. And then you have
and it was really meaningful for an eighty-year-old patient who
him—for someone to reach out thinks these sacraments are so
Chaplain Gerne leads nurses through a body-scan meditation held and acknowledge his suffering important, and they aren’t avail-
in a serenity space, one of several throughout Mass General.
and ask if he wanted to pray. able because of the virus.
I had a situation where a gen- The church talks about pres-
tleman who’d been married for ence. You can’t do confession
THE What’s so hard is that no one over fifty years was only allowed over the telephone. You can’t do
HOSPITAL with COVID can have visitors. I to stay with his wife for an hour. the sacrament of the sick over
find that I’m doing a lot of calls
the telephone.
We are an
[She didn’t have COVID-19.]
CHAPLAIN to family members of COVID I blessed her with holy water and embodied faith. You need to be
patients, because they’re not said the Prayer of Commenda- there with the person, holding
KATE GERNE allowed to come in. That’s very tion and provided spiritual sup- their hands, anointing them with
COURTESY SUBJECTS SETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL There’s sorrow. There’s grief. port. He was at risk just by being the oils, hearing their confes-
CHAPLAIN, MASSACHU-
emotionally draining on me, too.
sions.
There’s something so
in the hospital, but he had to say
Boston
My skills for doing a spiritual
healing about touch. I just—I will
goodbye. We were on the ele-
assessment over the phone
vator walking out of the hospi-
never take being in a hospital for
tal together, and he was like,
have definitely improved. I have
granted. —As told to D. H.
61 SUMMER 2020