OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — Emergency room nurse Jenna Rasnic has our pandemic fatigue beat.
"I'm tired of wearing a mask, too. I'm tired of not being able to go out too," she said. "I'm also more tired of people coming in and dying when they shouldn't have to."
She sees more and more COVID-19 patients every day at Methodist Medical Center in Oak Ridge, where she works alongside nurse Bryan Helton.
"It's sad to see the fear in the eyes of a mother who has kids at home and is scared she won't be able to take care of her kids," Helton said. "Or a dad who is scared he’s going to leave his kids behind. This virus changes peoples lives."
The two emergency room nurses said the number of people getting sick is nearing a breaking point — and state leaders said it is not just at their hospital.
"Come back and look with me, I have no beds. I have no where to put you," Rasnic said, adding that patients were backing up into the ER lobby as they awaited medical care.
Rasnic and Helton fear the worst may be on the way; Helton said their hospital was nearly full last January before the pandemic.
"January is always our toughest month," he said. "People who are sick hang on through Christmas and then they pass away."
Their medical teams are already stretched thin — "Exhausted," Rasnic said — and they are tired of seeing people die of the coronavirus.
"For some families this may be the end of the line for their family name because of a silly little mask," Helton said.
His wife is an ICU nurse, so he made a plan for who would care for their 17 year-old son if the virus killed them both.
But still, Helton and Rasnic go to work and fight to save lives.
"That's the calling, that's the job," Rasnic said, even as she fears what 2021 might bring.
"That's terrifying for me as a nurse because what I'm already seeing—we're struggling. So to see those numbers continue to go up. That's a little terrifying. I won't lie."