Published in (the now defunct) Page & Spine
The following story was one of the last stories published in Page & Spine before the online magazine closed to submissions. The editors were very nice and a joy to be with, so this reprint is bittersweet:
An hour into her first overnight shift at the ICU in Saint Matthew’s Hospital, Registered Nurse Jane Kilter placed her hands on her stomach, walked in the bathroom stall and threw up her vegetable soup from earlier. She staggered over to the sink, then twisted the acrylic knob to get the cold water from the spout. After she rinsed out her mouth, she turned off the faucet. She hunched over the sink, taking a few deep breaths while tears dripped down her cheeks.
Prior to Saint Matthew’s, Jane worked at the Medical-Surgical Unit in Reedsville Hospital over an hour away. She helped to take care of five to eight COVID patients at any one time. When Reedsville Hospital closed due to the pandemic’s expenses, Jane thought she could be of better service at Saint Matthew’s. When Jane drove in, she was told that twenty-five patients waited in the emergency room, while two-hundred-eighty-five out of two-hundred-ninety beds were full of COVID patients. Despite the statistics, what struck Jane the most was her first patient at the start of her shift, Jeff Nabors in Room 315, hooked to a ventilator, gasping for…
