#WhyIDoIt: What Keeps a Nurse Going Through Fear, Uncertainty and Loss

“I want to pay homage to the pulse of my unit at the time. I stepped out of the cardiovascular intensive care unit (CVICU) and into Transplant in April, right when we started to get COVID-19 cases. There have been some really big wins and some really tough losses for the CVICU. Even for our most senior nurses … I have just seen how hard it has been on everyone. I feel for them. Even with the best medical minds, we were still losing people.”

“It was a pretty scary time for all of us. As a nurse, there were so many unknowns. We were adjusting on the fly to whatever new information we got. There was so much uncertainty. At first, we weren’t expecting to have COVID patients in the CVICU. Then, ECMO, a machine to support the heart and lungs, started being used as a treatment for COVID patients in severe respiratory distress. My last week in the CVICU, I treated a COVID patient on ECMO.”

“I can’t speak for everyone, but you don’t get into nursing because you think it’s going to be the most amazing career. You want to be a nurse because you have that ‘helper’ mentality. You want to make a difference. That was where it all started for me. I grew up with my mom being very sick. She needed a kidney transplant. My family actually came to the United States from Indonesia looking for medical help for her. At that point, she was in her 30s, in kidney failure and going into congestive heart failure. A week after we landed in the U.S., we ended up at Froedtert Hospital and my mom got her transplant. Froedtert is important to me. The care they have given throughout the years … I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to be able to make a difference in people’s lives because that is what Froedtert did for my family. My mom is going to be 60 this month, and she is healthy, 18 years after her transplant.”

- Nathania Massie, RN, Transplant - VAD coordinator