Private Nursing During COVID-19

The Journalism of Empathy - Medill, Northwestern

It Private Nursing During COVID-19

Kristie Staisny, 48, prepares Milli, her 80-year-old late-stage dementia patient, for the 3 p.m. wheelchair stroll through the surrounding Corona Del Mar, California, neighborhood. She straps a blue medical mask and protective shield on Milli’s face, navigating around her blonde, bobbed hair. She measures out potassium medicine and juice in two pink plastic cups and safety checks the wheelchair. Milli sits in an oversized brown armchair and looks up at Staisny. She expects movement. Staisny bends down to meet Milli’s eyes. Her straight auburn hair and glasses dangle beneath her neck. She places her right arm around Milli’s back and her left arm under her knees to lift her into the adjacent wheelchair. Staisny settles her on the seat and walks behind the wheelchair to lift her again, confirming her body is snug. Staisny’s tennis shoes scuff the wooden floor. She is 5’3’’ and moves with strength and agility. In a hurried Boston accent she says, “Here we go!” Milli grunts back in approval. Gari, Milli’s husband, attempts to help. Staisny responds, “It’s alright, less hands would be better.”

Staisny’s personal life and career are inseparable during COVID-19 as a licensed vocational nurse. Activities outside of work make her patients more vulnerable to the virus. Currently she is stressed because she hasn’t received the COVID-19 vaccine. She put her two hands encased in clear latex medical gloves in front of her to explain. Gesturing to her right hand, she outlined how nurses contracted with in-home care companies will receive the vaccine through their employer. Staisny lives the option represented by her left hand. As a private LVN, she lacks a company to streamline her accessibility to the vaccine. Her voice shook when she looked me in the eyes and expressed these worries. She leaned forward to cross her arms. “You know, Milli can’t afford any hits to her immune system,” she said. The sentence tailed off. She shook her head to the left once her imagination invoked fears of Milli’s passing. 

After the wheelchair preparations Staisny rolls Milli from the living room through the entry way. Gari shuffles close behind. On the wall to their right hangs a portrait of Milli and Gari in Alaska from their 50th wedding anniversary. Alaskan artifacts from their life before Milli’s dementia line the left wall. Staisny rolls Milli through these memories daily to reach the rest of the house. She stops at the head of a dining table next to open sliding glass doors. In the empty space she slowly spins Milli around to place herself at the front. She walks back through the doors and down a wooden ramp, bracing the weight of Milli with her own body. Staisny passes the wheelchair push handles to Gari. He asks, “Is the music connected?” She nods her head yes. Gari plays 1950s love songs on a speaker attached to Milli’s wheelchair. Today, it’s “When I Fall in Love” by Nat King Cole.

When they leave Staisny sits down at the dining table and places her glasses in front of her. The California afternoon shines in through the glass lenses and open doors. The shadow of her electronic device casts darkness on her narrow, freckled face. She remains quiet for a few seconds. She is depressed. “I feel like I have no end,” she says. Her mind wanders often. She thinks about her adult children in these moments away from Milli. They live in Boston, and she has not seen them in over a year. Her twin grandchildren were born in January 2020, and it’s painful for her to miss these important milestones. The shadow on her face is now a cruel imitation of how she feels eclipsed by COVID-19. She quickly sets aside her frustration and makes a joke about the malfunctioning Google Play device in the kitchen. She puffs out her lips. Her body leans forward as if to catch her own laugh, revealing a smile. Milli can now eat blended sweet potatoes perfectly, she explains, despite enduring eating issues last week. She finds renewed confidence in Milli’s small successes.