Julie’s story: A look inside the front lines of Northeast Ohio
By: Colleen Carroll, all photos provided by Julie Logsdon
Currently, there are over 225,000 registered nurses working in the state of Ohio, there are over 160,000 Covid-19 cases in New York City alone. The only way it’s gonna hold together in the buckeye state, is through teamwork said, Julie Logsdon.
“Everyone in management on the floors have completely pulled together,” said Logsdon. “It has only gone as smoothly as it has because everyone has each other’s backs.”
Logsdon is a 26-year-old surgical RN working for University Hospitals children’s unit, Rainbow Babies.
“It was like the minute we knew things were going to change everyone banded together,” Logsdon said. “Which was easy because we are already a really close unit.”
Logsdon explained that within a week they went from an average of 50 surgeries a day to 6.
“Surgeries were cut really early on, pretty much if it wasn’t a neurological procedure or spinal surgery it was cut,” Logsdon said.
Logsdon also says there have been heavy restrictions set on tracheal operations.
“They are extremely cautious of any surgeries involving the airway,” Logsdon said. “Any surgery where you have an open trachea you have a high risk of infection so you can imagine the added pressure now.”
Logsdon has said that the medical staff present in the operating rooms have also been cut heavily, from around six or eight to now a limit of three to four .
“It’s just two anesthesiologists, the surgeon, and one nurse,” Logsdon said. “They are really nervous about our safety as much as patients, they are working everything around giving us the least amount of exposure as they can.”
Logsdon said that even with a hefty reduction to caseloads she has remained extremely busy. Nurses in less congested departments, like pediatrics, are being outsourced to other floors and areas of the hospital, including in the ICU’s where most COVID-19 patients are placed. Logsdon has been placed in triage most days.
“Triage at the main entrance is a really strange position right now. Everyone that walks through immediately goes through a checklist and temperature check, have you had any symptoms, have you traveled, have you been in contact.” Logsdon said, “it can be scary because some of these people that come through do have a cough or do have a temperature and you just have to hope it’s nothing serious.”
Logsdon said one of the most difficult things is to turn people away from visiting the patients.
“I have gotten some strange requests from people who want to go to the cafeteria, or just need to use the bathroom and I do have to turn them away and sometimes I feel bad. But I especially feel lie the bad guy when it’s people who just want to visit patients,” Logsdon said. “It’s hard to be the person who says no especially when it’s parents wanting to see their kids.”
Currently University Hospitals is not allowing any visitors for adults and is only allowing one visitor for pediatric patients. It must be the same visitor every time for the entire length of the child’s hospital stay, parents are not allowed to alternate days between each other.
“It’s really hard to see parents have to make that decision,” Logsdon said. “I mean there is no easy guidelines for making that decision and I cannot imagine the guilt or pressure on them.”
Logsdon mentions that early in the lockdown a woman was waiting for her surrogate baby to be born, she was not allowed in the delivery room or allowed any visits for the entirety of the baby’s hospital stay.
“She would just sit in the lobby and wait for hours for a week and a half, and she would sometimes cry,” Logsdon said. “We gave her updates on the baby as much as we could. The day she got to take her baby home was so sweet, she looked so relieved.”
Logsdon also mentioned that a in early April a pregnant woman who was approaching her delivery date called to let the hospital know she was positive for COVID.
“They laid out a whole procedure for when she arrived and everyone was alerted, she wasn’t allowed to bring anyone with her to the hospital and she was immediately quarantined. I can imagine she was terrified and stressed which makes for a very tense situation,” Logsdon said.
Logsdon also mentioned shifts changed from 8-hour days Monday through Friday to 12 hour shifts three days a week. Logsdon said her biggest concern is contracting the virus and bringing it back to her boyfriend, Brian Bealko.
“We live in a pretty small space together and it makes me nervous,” Logsdon said. “I think that is what most of the staff is afraid of, not just contracting it but bringing it home. We decided if I am placed on the ICU floor I will stay at one of the discounted hotels.”
Bealko however is more concerned about Logsdons safety.
“It’s terrifying, I was not prepared for anything like this and I don’t know how I am supposed to really help her,” Bealko said.
Bealko, a broadcast technician for the Ohio Lottery, has also taken precautions.
“We’ve just really limited how much we leave the house; I do all the groceries just to have some degree of separation, neither of us have visited our parents,” Bealko said. “I can tell it’s a lot of stress on her, I mean I don’t know how she deals with it. I don’t think I would handle it nearly as well as her.”
Patricia Logsdon, Julies sister says Julie has remained calm by keeping herself distracted and staying positive.
“Julie is a really positive person, not just now but always,” Patricia said. “I think it’s why she excels so much as a nurse.”
Patricia said Julie has remained distracted by planning their sister Michelle’s wedding and preparing to adopt a dog.
“Even as exhausted as she is after she gets home from work, she is worried about everyone else and looking forward to the future, and given her placement that’s a hard thing to do,” Patricia said.
Julie recently joined the pediatric floor at University Hospitals in the summer of last year. Before she was working on the ICU floor at Summa in Akron, and still has friends there.
“They send me these photos of their jerry-rigged masks and protective coverings,” Julie said. “They are re-sterilizing all of the N95’s and so many of the nurses have contact dermatitis, which has just become the normal for them.”
Logsdon said while she worked at Summa, they were often understaffed with nurses having 2-3 patients every night.
“I just hope some kind of good comes out of this for the health workers,” Julie said. “I hope it shows people how underfunded and upside down the health system is.”
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