NEW ORLEANS — Jessica Faust has been a New Orleans critical care nurse for more than 13 years. She thought she’d seen it all until COVID-19 came.
It was a learning curve. This virus was like nothing we have seen before,” she said. “It was wild. We went from normalcy and doing transplants and prospective units to madness. We just had to survive.”
She’s seen the loss and triumphs of the virus. After weeks of battle, she’s not taking her fight to New York City. A journey inspired by her late brother Jake.
“He passed away last year and he kept coming to me, telling me I needed to help,” Faust said. “I just felt like I wasn’t doing enough. So, I talked to my family saying I think I need to try something else.”
She arrived in New York Friday and starts at NYU Winthrop Hospital tonight. Mentally, she said she’s going to war.
“You have to listen to alarms in peoples’ rooms, drips are triturating, monitoring your patient because they turn so fast,” Faust said. “You literally have to be on your toes.”
Over the next eight weeks, Faust will face this deadly virus head on.
“I'm nervous because of course I don't know the institution and I don't know these nurses,” Faust said. “I'm not nervous about taking care of these patients that's not the issue, I just want to help and I hope I can keep up."
And while her journey is full of unknowns, she knows she’s not in it alone.
"I just feel like props to every nurse in the world fighting this virus,” she said. “It's hard, it's taxing, it's emotional but we're doing it."
And while she’s surrounded by a group of hardworking heroes, she also knows her brother is by her side rooting her on through this trying time.
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