Lessons Learned From My Time in COVID ICU
This month marks the two-year anniversary of a severe and life-threatening fight I had with COVID. I wrote two articles reflecting on the experience and it’s implications for spiritual formation and leadership. Below you’ll find an excerpt from one of the articles. You can read the full article here.
—
When the sun came up, I was exhausted, physically uncomfortable, weak, and lonely. In my most vulnerable physical state, when I needed close family and friends to be close to me, they were not allowed due to COVID restrictions. That afternoon, as I began collecting my belongings while the nurse walked me through my discharge paperwork, I began to feel hot and flush. My fever spiked, which pressed pause on the departure plan. The doctor was called and a few more hours of waiting ensued. I was growing impatient and discouraged by the minute. I just wanted to go home.
Due to COVID precautions, ICU nurses are required to “gown up” before entering a patient’s room, putting on a fresh set of protective medical equipment over their scrubs—plastic gowns, head coverings, medical gloves, booties over their shoes— repeating the process countless times a day. While we waited to hear back from the doctor regarding my discharge, my nurse, Brenda, was about to leave to the room. Wanting to ensure we didn’t forget anything before she began the arduous process of gowning down, she asked, “Can I get you anything else? Motrin? A blanket? More water?”
“No, thanks.”
Before leaving my room, she turned back to me one last time. “Would you like me to rub your back?”
“Yes.” I blurted out without thinking.
Laying on my side, she came around behind me, my bare back exposed due to those silly hospital gowns. During my hospital stay, I had remained uncharacteristically calm. Even the nurses commented on my peaceful demeanor, which was due primarily to the fact that the whole ordeal seemed so surreal to me, like an out-of-body experience. But when her hands touched my back, the emotional volcano erupted; tears left my eyes at a force I’d not yet experienced in my adult life. I cried. More accurately, I wept violently. I was startled by the intensity of my emotion, and I’m quite certain I startled Brenda as well. Another nurse down the hall had heard the noise and popped her head in to ask if everything was all right. For 15 minutes Brenda rubbed my back while I continued to weep. My deep, dark emotional currents all met at the confluence of that backrub.
—
As I wrote in my new book, A Time To Heal, a significant portion of Jesus’ ministry was expressed through his acts of healing. We see examples of his healing acts through his words. We read of times where he healed with his spit (quite disturbing and shocking for us today given our continuing global pandemic). And, of course, was read of numerous examples of healing that came about through his touch.
He touched ailing eyes. He stroked crooked limbs. He felt the eyes of a blind. He held the hands of a dying little girl and Peter’s mother-in-law. He reached out and embraced the bodies of lepers, knowing full well it made him ceremonially unclean. He placed his hand on the coffin of a boy during a funeral procession and returned him alive to his mother. Sometimes other people touched him and were healed, like the desperate, hemorrhaging woman—and he blessed her for doing so. I knew Jesus healed people through touch, but in the midst of my research for the book, it surprised me just how central physical touch was to his healing ministry.
—
We may not be gowned up in an ICU room like Brenda. But we join with Jesus in our everyday, ordinary lives by wisely and compassionately looking for appropriate opportunities, at the right time, to provide healing touches in his name.
The world is wounded and in need of healing. As we remain hopeful and begin to see signs of emerging from the pandemic, may we recognize the invitation from Jesus to help remove the graveclothes so others can they live in freedom and health once again.