For months, Sandy Whited worked hard nursing COVID-19 patients back to health.
"Everybody pretty much is exhausted. Physically, mentally, psychologically. Because we don't know when this is going to end. There are nights I get in my car and I sit there and cry because I feel like I have not been able to help these patients," she said.
But then, in late October, the Methodist Medical Medical Center of Oak Ridge acute care nurse noticed a fever, then shortness of breath.
"When I got the diagnosis 'oh you have COVID,' I said I sat there and cried for a moment and I thought just don't let my family get it," she said.
Within two days, she was in her own hospital's ICU.
"Well why would I go anywhere else and have strangers take care of me," she said. "I knew they would do everything they possibly could to get me through this. And that's exactly what they've done."
It took a while.
Whited spent 10 days in ICU and another week and a half in a floor bed. Her fellow nurses visited through a window, leaving cards, smiles and thumbs up.
She credits them with saving her life.
"As you can see I'm on oxygen, but I'm getting a little stronger every day. I'm getting there," she said.
And now she's ready to go back, to re-join her co-workers in the fight against COVID-19.
"I'd give anything to be there with them, I know they're exhausted," she said.