Thank You to Our Heroes!
Erica Schick, ICU RN
Avista Adventist Hospital
Today we want to honor Erica Schick, ICU RN, Avista Adventist Hospital in Louisville, Colorado. Here is her story as reported by Jeremy Jojola, Wilson Beese (9NEWS).
Erica Schick is a mother who decided on a drastic career change six years ago — today, she's working with COVID-19 patients in a busy intensive care unit. “ICU nursing can be stressful, especially if you have a crashing patient,” Schick said over Zoom video. “And then you have it in the back of your mind you don’t want to get sick.”
While the 41-year-old nurse spoke, other nurses could be seen in the background, dashing from one end of the hallway to the other. They were adorned in heavy protective gear with tubes and transparent head coverings that made them look like astronauts. “It’s such a new disease, new illness [that] we don’t know much about,” Schick said. “Things are changing with protection and how we do stuff. There's always new information.”
For a few minutes, amid the beeps of medical machines, Schick shared what life has been like in the eight-bed intensive care unit at Avista Adventist Hospital in Louisville. “We’ve had patients from young to old that have been affected by it,” Schick said of the virus that causes COVID-19. “It’s been hard. There are definitely some days when I cry a lot.”
Ventilators are keeping her patients alive while she works non-stop to make sure the machines keep the oxygen flowing. On this day, Schick expressed sadness over a female patient who was taken off a ventilator but then had to be put back on the machine after her breathing failed. “It’s never easy to see, but I have also seen where we’ve had patients intubated and they walked out of here, so that’s a silver lining too,” she said. “Being in a hospital when you’re this sick, I feel it’s just so lonely too.”
While her patients have been separated from their families because of stricter visitation rules, Schick has also been separated from her kids and husband. For the past three weeks, Schick’s 2-year-old and 5-year-old have been living with their father in Pagosa Springs so they won’t get sick, just in case she brings the virus home.
“It can be stressful...especially with an intubated patient where you’re in these aerosolizing procedures, and so the virus can get everywhere," she said. "You hear about New York, where nurses are getting sick."
About seven years ago, Schick was in a much different place. Before working face-to-face with a deadly disease, she was a Spanish teacher who became fed up with the non-stop school work. “I quit teaching because of stress," Schick said. "I was constantly grading, non-stop, even when I would go home. I couldn’t find a good work-life balance."
Six years ago, Schick became a nurse and found the profession extremely rewarding, especially now when she can watch patients recover from COVID-19. Yet, the mental toll may be everlasting for this mother who finds herself alone and missing her family when she does have time off. “I have done some house cleaning, and reorganizing, and getting smaller clothes out of my kids rooms," Schick said. "And just some days, if it’s a stressful day, I just lay around."
Meditation apps on her phone have helped, but Schick said she can feel the pressure at work change her mental health. “I can tell my sleep is affected," she said. "I’ve never felt like I’m a super anxious person, and I feel like I’m much more anxious than I was." Asked about the surge of patients, she said the level of work has recently been steady but ebbs and flows at times.
“I don’t think our normal will be normal again,” Schick said. “My biggest fear is, until we get a vaccine, what’s going to happen?”
Thank you Erica for your commitment, dedication, and compassion for your patients and communities.
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