The exhausting, rewarding work of a nurse who helps Covid patients
The exhausting, rewarding work of a nurse who helps Covid patients
Plus: Sales of lottery tickets remain robust; RNC host committee to plant 2,020 trees in Charlotte; SouthPark mall to reopen next week; S.C. opens outdoor restaurant seating and beach rentals
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Tiffany Pennington says Atrium Health Pineville’s ICU is filled with surprises and heartache; ‘We do cry. It’s hard.’
Tiffany Pennington has one of the riskiest jobs in healthcare, caring for Covid-19 patients in a 16-bed unit at Atrium Health Pineville. Most of her patients can’t talk, and family members aren’t allowed to visit, so Pennington takes special care to keep families connected.
By Cristina Bolling
Tiffany Pennington doesn’t know if her patients can hear her, but she speaks to them as though they can.
As they lie in the Atrium Health Pineville ICU sedated and intubated, their bodies ravaged by Covid-19, Pennington does the myriad tasks an ICU nurse must do during the course of a 12-hour shift, all the while talking to them as though they could talk back.
“I heard you like gardening!” she’ll say to a patient whose family member has given her, by phone, a verbal snapshot of their loved one’s life. Or she’ll flip on a patient’s favorite TV show or music station in the hopes that maybe for a little while it’ll bring comfort.
The bedside chairs are empty these days in Atrium Health Pineville and in hospitals across the country, as the coronavirus pandemic has changed everything about the way people recover there, and the way they die.
With the exception of the very end of life, there is no family allowed in the hospital. (The Ledger wrote last week about the life and death of Ballantyne’s Bill Bauer, who passed away of Covid-19 in the Pineville ICU.) One family member is permitted to be in a patient’s room for one hour during the final stages of death.
“I always try to take the opportunity to ask my families when I’m on the phone with them, ‘Tell me a little bit about your family member that I’m taking care of. How long have you been married? What are they like?’” Pennington said during a recent Zoom call with The Ledger.
“Nursing can be all about following orders and doing these things and just not putting empathy into your patients and their families,” she said. Taking the time to get to know them “can be exhausting but so rewarding. You walk out and you know that you did something to impact someone’s life.”
Speakerphone ‘I love yous’: Pennington typically cares for two patients at a time, and when she checks in by phone with family members, she makes a point to ask this question: Would you like me to put you on speakerphone in the room?
“Hearing is the last thing to go,” she tells them.
“I’ve seen patients light up, even though they’re intubated, because they can hear. I listen to some families, and I’m about to break down and cry. We do cry. It’s hard,” she said.
“I think it brings comfort to the families, to give them that opportunity to talk to their loved ones. You never know if that’s the last time they’re going to be able to tell them that they love them.”
Donning and doffing, and other changes: So much has changed in the 16-bed ICU unit since Pennington started working there seven months ago.
Instead of working her shift in an Atrium T-shirt and scrub pants, as she did until a couple of months ago, she must now report to the hospital 20 minutes early for a medical screening and to change out of her street clothes and into surgical scrubs, booties, a surgical head cover and an N-95 mask. No makeup is allowed.
Every time she goes into or out of a patient’s room she must “don and doff,” or put on and take off, a gown and face shield.
She can’t say whether her 16-bed medical ICU unit is full, or how many patients she’s treated or seen die — Atrium officials say those numbers are confidential — but she said she’s sometimes put “on call” if the unit is not full.
(There are two adult ICUs in Pineville — the “medical ICU” and the “CTICU,” or the cardiothoracic ICU. At Pineville, the medical ICU currently treats only Covid-19 patients; the rest of the ICU patients are treated in the CTICU.)
Some nursing protocols have changed as they care for Covid-19 patients, Pennington said. IV poles, some monitors and ventilator heads are brought out into the hallways, so medical staff can monitor patients’ conditions and medications quickly and easily without having to gown up to walk into the room.
Once every shift is over, Pennington changes completely out of the clothes she wore on the floor and back into the clothes she wore in that morning. Once she’s home, she heads straight for the shower.
More worried about the grocery store: Pennington’s husband, Terry, is also a nurse, but he works from home in the insurance industry. They have two girls and a boy: Taylor, 17; Titus, 5 and Tinsley, 3. The family moved to the Charlotte area from Lexington, S.C., about a year ago.
When Pennington, 33, first learned that she’d be taking care of Covid-19 patients, she worried for her own health and that of her family. But she said she doesn’t worry as much anymore.
“Honestly, me walking into a grocery store to buy some items for my family — I’m more concerned about being out there than I am in the hospital,” she said, “because I know what I’m going into. I know that we have all the proper equipment to protect ourselves, and we all take the time to make sure we’re protecting each other.”
But unplugging from the concerns of her workday is harder.
“You worry about your patients. I wonder how they’re doing. I can’t wait to go back to work and find out how they are,” she said. “I think it’s a little bit more tough, more challenging than it was before. You kind of always think about things.”
But she’s quick to point out that not all ICU stories have a sad ending.
“We’ve seen some great things in our ICU. We’ve seen some patients who were intubated and successfully extubated and doing well,” she said. “We’ve seen people that we weren’t sure were going to make it, and they ended up surprising all of us.”
‘Not a hero’: As is the case with most heroes, Pennington doesn’t consider herself one.
“We don’t look at ourselves as heroes,” she said. “We’re just nurses. We’re just healthcare workers, we just want to take care of our patients.”
She said she’s been “spoiled” by well-wishers who bring food and goodies to her and the staff at Pineville, and by family and friends who supply meals and other help.
When asked what strangers can do to support her and nurses like her, she’s quick with a response:
“Social distancing. Washing their hands. Being smart,” she said. “Not going out and spreading the virus.”
Reach managing editor Cristina Bolling at cristina@cltledger.com. This story is presented in partnership with The Charlotte Observer.
Lottery sales hanging on
Sales of lottery tickets in North Carolina seem to be holding up OK despite widespread economic pain. Or are they holding up because of widespread economic pain?
The N.C. Education Lottery told The Ledger on Friday that sales for April were $242.3M, a decline of just 6% compared with April 2019. Sales in March were also down 6% compared with a year earlier.
Sales of lottery tickets are generally thought to be recession-proof. In the last economic downturn in 2008-09, sales nationwide rose. Studies have shown that when unemployment rates rise, so do ticket sales.
Guess it’s good to know that some people are feeling lucky. —TM
Today’s supporting sponsor is TechnikOne:
RNC host committee donates 2,020 trees
The Charlotte 2020 Host Committee for the Republican National Convention has selected a symbolic gift for the city that it expects to keep on giving: 2,020 trees.
The host committee is working on the effort with TreesCharlotte, a non-profit that plants up to 6,000 trees a year through a combination of public and private funds.
The host committee’s gift of trees is valued at more than $100,000. It will represent almost half of all trees the non-profit organization will plant this year. The gift was paid for in part with a donation from LendingTree, the online lender based in Charlotte.
The trees being planted are two to four years old and five to 10 feet tall, said Jen Rothacker, TreesCharlotte’s community engagement officer. Plantings have already occurred in two neighborhoods (Bennington Place in southwest Charlotte and Caldwell Farms in the University City area), one county park (Mason Wallace Park in southeast Charlotte) and three Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (Dorothy J. Vaughan Academy of Technology, Oakdale Elementary and Mallard Creek High).
“These trees make up one of the most beautiful cities in America,” Rothacker said. “If you’re going to thank a city for hosting so many people, what better way to do it than with something they’re proud of?” — By Zahnell Pinnock, a multimedia storytelling major in the James L. Knight School of Communication at Queens University of Charlotte.
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New from the Ledger Covid-19 Data Room:
Are North Carolina’s numbers really “leveling”? Or are state officials just making it look that way?
New Mecklenburg figures show hospitalizations remain flat
State hits testing goal for third straight day
The Ledger Covid-19 Data Room is where we take a closer look at the North Carolina and Mecklenburg County numbers related to the coronavirus.
In brief:
S.C to allow outdoor restaurant seating: South Carolina officials will allow restaurants to offer sit-down service at outdoor tables starting on Monday. Guidelines call for keeping tables eight feet apart, limiting seating to parties of eight or fewer, sanitizing tables and chairs after each customer and maintaining social-distancing guidelines. (The State)
Malls to reopen: SouthPark mall, Concord Mills and Charlotte Premium Outlets plan to re-open on Friday, according to mall owner Simon Property Group. (Simon Property Group)
S.C. beach towns reopen to rentals; New Yorkers barred: Officials in Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Horry County, Surfside Beach and Georgetown County have voted to allow travelers to rent hotel rooms and houses again. But residents of coronavirus hotspots including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are still barred from rentals under S.C. orders. Many towns in the Charleston area are keeping rental restrictions in place through at least the second week of May. The state is planning a marketing push in early June with the message “Whenever you’re ready, we’ll be ready,” accompanied by images of “the state prepping for visitors to come back, like a hotel staffer fluffing pillows or a park ranger setting up a canoe.” (Myrtle Beach Sun News, Charleston Post and Courier)
Yard waste delay: Charlotte’s one-time pick-up of yard waste that started this week is going more slowly than expected because residents left more at the curb than the city anticipated. Residents have left more than three times the usual amount of yard waste, a city official said. (Observer)
Grocery masks: Costco is requiring customers to wear face coverings starting Monday, and Whole Foods will be distributing masks to customers and requesting they wear them while shopping. Fresh Market already requires customers to wear face coverings. (Observer)
Airline masks required: American Airlines is requiring passengers to wear masks starting May 11. Customers may bring their own, or the airline will provide them. Young children and passengers with medical issues that prevent them from wearing masks are exempt. Flight attendants started wearing masks on flights on Friday. (American Airlines)
Small business anger toward Wells: Some local small-business owners say they are switching away from Wells Fargo after their experiences trying to receive Small Business Administration loans from the bank. “For Wells Fargo to be the size of the institution that they are and to not take care of their small-business banking customers is, in my mind, absolutely wrong,” said the owner of a Fort Mill cupcake shop who is shifting her business to Truliant Federal Credit Union. A Fort Mill real estate agent and a South End lighting company had similar complaints. A Wells spokesman said the bank was doing its best to follow regulatory guidance on the new program. (Biz Journal, subscriber-only)
Tattoo resistance: The owner of a west Charlotte tattoo parlor says economic conditions are forcing him to reopen his business in violation of the state’s stay-at-home order. Mark Wade, owner of Mark Wade Tattoo on Wilkinson Boulevard, says he’s a law-abiding citizen but that bill collectors want money: “I can’t sit around and starve. I can’t let my people starve,” he said. “I don’t understand what they expect us to do. Do you expect us to sit home and wait for our lives to fall apart?” (WBTV)
Protestors wave signs, honk: About 15 protestors on foot and a few dozen cars took to uptown Charlotte on Friday to demand that the economy start reopening: “Chopper 9 Skyzoom flew over the rally and could see people holding signs. On the ground, Channel 9 crews could see people waving those signs and a stream of vehicles driving by, honking their horns.” (WSOC/Observer)
Airport money: Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, the 11th busiest airport in the country, was awarded the 18th-largest grant from the Federal Aviation Administration for economic relief related to the pandemic. The airport is set to receive $135.6M, the FAA said. The money comes from a coronavirus relief bill signed in March. (FAA)
Beer deal: Brewers at 4001 Yancey in the area known as “LoSo” is selling 32-ounce cans of beer (crowlers) for $3.33. (Brewers at 4001 Yancey)
No tax increase proposed: County Manager Dena Diorio on Friday proposed a $1.9B county budget that keeps the tax rate steady and increases funding to schools by 4% compared with the current year. (WSOC)
Loves me some internet
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire; Reporting intern: David Griffith