Full circle
There were hugs and tears Monday morning as a lead nurse on the pandemic's front line and the first Butler Health System COVID-19 patient to come off a ventilator, Karen Rich, reunited for Rich's coronavirus vaccination.
Stacey Heider, the clinical supervisor on the 7 Tower unit at Butler Memorial Hospital, bolted toward Rich when she saw her former patient energetically enter the hospital lobby with her husband, Don.
The two embraced tightly and wiped tears from above their masks.
“She's become our family,” Heider said of Rich. “The physical therapists, housekeepers, she was like everyone's mother.”
Rich's odyssey with COVID-19 started in March, when she began feeling ill at home.
Her worsening symptoms necessitated a trip to the hospital's emergency room, and doctors soon admitted her for care for the new and mysterious COVID-19 virus.
Rich, of Franklin Township, met Heider on 7 Tower before her symptoms worsened and she was transferred to the intensive care unit.
Rich was placed on a ventilator to aid her breathing as doctors scrambled to stem the virus overtaking her body.
Unlike many patients over the past year, she survived the ventilator and was moved back to 7 Tower.
Rich spent one month at Butler hospital before being raucously cheered upon her discharge April 14 by health care workers, who lined both sides of the hallway.
“After that, we kind of kept in communication,” Heider said of Rich.
She said Rich had a strong will to live and approached each treatment she received with enthusiasm and dedication.
During the long month Rich spent in the hospital, Heider frequently spent time in her room just to chat and provide some comfort and companionship.
As the longtime nurse waited for Rich in an anteroom in the hospital lobby Monday to give her new friend her first coronavirus vaccine, Heider reflected on the virus, the vaccine and the effect on health care workers.
“We have watched so much death,” Heider said. “I have been here since 1991, and I have never put so many people in body bags as I did in December.”
She has taken to preparing her staff on 7 Tower like they are going into battle each day as they care for COVID-19 patients, and she reminds them of the value of teamwork and leaning on one another when outcomes are poor.
“We are fighting a war here,” Heider said. “We felt like we were in combat.”
When the hospital received its first shipment of vaccines, the nurses saw a glimmer of hope piercing the darkness of caring for those with the virus.“The first day the hospital gave vaccines, we looked out the window and saw a line of people,” Heider recalled. “And we just started weeping. They all just want to live.”Rich was excited and shaking with joy and gratitude as she prepared to receive her coronavirus vaccine from Heider.“If it wasn't for you guys, I don't think I'd be here today,” she told Heider. “I keep saying, 'Thank God for giving me a miracle and the Butler Health System for saving my life.”She and her husband, along with many family members, have been searching for a place for the couple to get the vaccine within a two-hour drive of Butler.They were thrilled when the hospital that saved her life notified them of vaccines available for her and her husband.“I think it's meant to be,” Rich said. “It's full circle.”Don Rich agreed.“We have a safety zone here,” he said. “I owe them a complete debt of gratitude. I was so scared when Karen was in the hospital.”He recalled the images of his wife's lungs from X-rays and scans, and their white appearance because of the virus.“It didn't look good there for a while,” said Don Rich, who suffered mild COVID-19 symptoms at home while his wife was hospitalized. “This is the place where I wanted to get the shot.”Dr. John Love, director of infectious disease at Butler Health System, saw Heider and Rich in the lobby as he walked past and decided to join the happy reunion for a few moments.“The last time I saw her, I was one of dozens of people in a parade when she was discharged,” Love said. “It was really important for the organization. She was the first person that sick who we were able to get out to her car and back to her life.”Love marveled at Rich's robust appearance, and credited Heider and her colleagues with the outcome.“At the end of the day, Stacey and the nurses deserve the credit,” Love said. “That's the magic.”Love said Rich entered the hospital just as the virus was spreading in Pennsylvania and Butler County, which made her treatment difficult because doctors were learning as they proceeded.He said Rich received treatments, such as the drug, hydroxychloroquine, that are no longer considered effective, and didn't receive treatments used now that were undiscovered at the time.“Our understanding of what needs to happen is just more thorough now,” Love said as he beamed at Rich.Rich said her symptoms faded over a period of months after arriving at home, where nurses, physical therapists and other health care specialists visited her during her recovery.At first, she had to remain on a low level of oxygen and used a walker to slowly get around her house.“People said to me, 'Baby steps,'” Rich said of her prolonged recovery period.Today, a healthy Rich's wish is that everyone will get the vaccine as soon as they can.“We all have to unite to get rid of this,” she said. “My family was frantic about the possibility of losing me.”Love agreed.“As long as this virus is given shelter among pockets of people, it's going to circulate,” he said.Heider then swabbed Rich's arm with alcohol before administering Rich's dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.Afterward, the two women hugged and cried together again.“That was the easiest vaccine I've ever gotten,” Rich said. “If we all unite and fight this war, we're going to quit losing battles.”The Riches will return in three weeks for their second vaccine.“I just trusted Stacey,” Rich said of her nursing care at Butler Memorial Hospital almost one year ago, “and I trusted her more today.“I'll cry all the way home.”
