Less than one year ago I was driven on a Friday evening to Petawawa to train with 2 Fd Amb to prepare for work in a Long Term Care Home in Montreal as part of Op LASER. The following Tuesday at 0700 I began my first nursing shift. This was my third deployment, first domestic operation and it stands out as the most significant time in my career as a nurse.
Working with Med Techs from 5 Fd Amb and soldiers from 12 RBC, we were all thrust into an environment I don’t think any of us could have ever imagined. In our first long term care home, makeshift walls had been built with plywood and tarps in an effort to curb the spread of the virus. Many long term care employees contracted the virus early on in the pandemic so our arrival brought some much needed reprieve to an exhausted staff. Restrictions on visitors meant we not only provided essential medical care to residents, but also sat with those who were dying, positioning phones and tablets so their family members could say their goodbyes from a distance.
On the long drives back from our shifts, the team of 6 Med Techs and I began sharing pictures of our “fur-babies” at home to help boost our morale. The uncertainty of the length of the mission and new emerging information about the virus every day caused significant stress in all of us so pets were our happy place at the end of the day. The virus that had taken over all our news feeds and occupied our every waking minute seemed unstoppable. The thought of being able to protect the population with a vaccine was inconceivable.
In the year since, I have reflected nearly every day on my time spent in two different long term care homes. I grieve for those who were lost, am in awe of the staff in the homes and feel incredibly privileged to have been able to provide a critically needed service to fellow Canadians. I’ve had three family members contract COVID-19, one of whom died of it on 30 December 2020. To protect myself, my family, those around me and in honour of the many Canadians who died of COVID-19, I greatly look forward to getting my vaccine in the coming weeks. I truly do consider it part of my duty as a Canadian.
Being able to now participate in the mass-immunization of members of CFB Kingston during Op VECTOR INTERNUM makes me incredibly emotional. Please be warned, if the nurse administering your vaccine is quietly crying to herself, just break out a picture of your dog or cat and everything will be okay.
Stay safe, stay healthy.