When asked to recount a COVID-19 patient story, Missy Bartels could have chosen numerous positive stories of sick patients getting better and eventually going home.
Instead, she chose to talk about one where the outcome wasn't so great.
Bartels, a registered nurse who is the intensive care nurse manager at Bryan Health, is part of Bryan's compassionate care team.
That means she helps facilitate end-of-life visits for patients dying of COVID-19.
The situation Bartels recounted Wednesday involved an elderly woman who was receiving bilevel positive airway pressure therapy, essentially high-pressure oxygen delivered through a mask. The therapy was no longer working, and the only thing left was to go on a ventilator.
But the patient had already decided she didn't want that, so Bartels helped facilitate a visit by the woman's two daughters, who came to the hospital, donned personal protective equipment and got to spend an hour with their mom, who was still awake and alert.
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After the visit, the woman was removed from the BiPAP machine and died a few hours later.
"It was almost peaceful," Bartels said. "She made the decision, but the daughters got to be there."
Bartels and the more than two dozen members of Bryan's compassionate care team have been busy lately.
The team put together 32 compassionate care visits in November, visits arranged for people while they are in the COVID-19 intensive care unit.
Bryan has seen about 100 COVID-19 patients die since the beginning of October, after having only 25 deaths in the first six months of the pandemic.
Already this month, 31 Lancaster County residents have died of COVID-19, and 56 have died in the past 30 days, more than in the first eight months of the pandemic.
The people who work in the COVID-19 ICU that currently takes up a large part of the sixth floor at Bryan East Campus say they are worn out, although they remain resilient.
Dr. Lance Schupbach, a hospitalist with Inpatient Physician Associates, said he's hoping the recent drop in hospitalizations doesn't falsely reassure people that things are getting better, because we still haven't seen what the potential effect of Thanksgiving gatherings may be on COVID-19 case numbers and hospitalizations.
Schupbach said "complacency and skepticism" about the virus remain serious problems, and he finds himself constantly having to debunk conspiracy theories and set people straight on social media.
He said he understands that people don't like restrictions and they just want the virus to go away.
"We just need them to give us the benefit of the doubt right now," Schupbach said.
Bryan on Wednesday had 79 patients with active COVID-19 infections at its two hospital campuses, the lowest number it's seen in weeks. It had another 26 patients who no longer have an active COVID-19 infection but aren't well enough to go home. Of all those patients, 18 are on ventilators.
Leah Harrington, an assistant nurse manager at Bryan, said those patients on ventilators are extremely sick — "so sick you can't save them all."
She recounted stories of nurses losing multiple patients in a day or going more than a week without a day where a patient didn't die.
"When the nurses are having nightmares at night and they're telling you about it, it's rough," Harrington said.
Candy Locke, a nurse manager, said she's been a nurse for 30 years, "and I've never seen anything like this."
Locke said the ICU nurses are incredibly tired, "but they're incredibly resilient."
They'll need that resiliency for a few more months, at least. Bryan officials, as well as officials at hospitals throughout the state, are expecting Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use Thursday, and they're hoping to receive the first doses by this weekend.
Bryan is expecting between 2,900 and 3,000 doses, and will start vaccinating employees as early as Monday.
Many Bryan staff members are excited and eagerly awaiting their chance to get vaccinated.
Nina Redl, a chaplain at Bryan who like Bartels works on the compassionate care team, said she'll be signing up to get the vaccine as soon as possible, calling it an early Christmas present.
"It's what I want for myself. It's what I want for my staff. It's what I want for my family," she said. "It's what I want for a first step for all of us to get through this."
Until that first step comes for the majority of the population, however, people will need to remain diligent, said Dr. Bill Johnson, a pulmonologist.
"Keep your diligence, keep your mask on, and (when it's available) get the vaccine," he said.
BRYAN STAFF WHO CARE FOR PATIENTS