Janet M. Shapiro, MD, thought she had recovered from a mild COVID-19 illness and was ready to get back to work. It turned out, however, that the virus wasn’t done with her quite yet.
Shapiro, an ICU director for the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, shared her fascinating story in JAMA Cardiology. It helps show just how serious this ongoing pandemic is, and how it impacts the lives of healthcare providers on a daily basis.
After treating patients during the early stages of the pandemic, Shapiro tested positive for COVID-19 after noticing she couldn’t taste her food. She had also developed a cough and fever. Upon receiving the diagnosis, she immediately thought of her patients.
“As a physician, COVID-19 is the medical challenge of a lifetime and I needed to be in it,” Shapiro wrote. “I had to turn over the daily management to trusted colleagues and still try to keep up with the constant information and decisions. It was frightening to know about the dangers of COVID-19 and so I checked my saturation, tried to sleep in prone position, and hoped that I would not worsen.”
Shapiro was back in the ICU as soon as she was cleared for work, but COVID-19 left its mark, weakening her body in a number of ways. She couldn’t keep up with her colleagues, for instance, and a visit to the cardiology department helped her see that her heart was far from 100%.
“My physician suggested admission for telemetry monitoring, but I declined,” she wrote. “I imagined what it would be like to be admitted to a telemetry floor, to hear the overhead pages for the rapid response team and medical code team that my own team responds to and wondering if that call was for me.”
While recovering further at home, Shapiro recalled what it was like to help with patient care as much as she could from afar. She got a boost from the shows of affection that came from New York citizens, including the daily cheering at 7 p.m. and the flood of positive messages, but it was still a tough time to be out of action.
Finally, Shapiro was able to return to work for good. The experience, however, had changed her forever.
“I experienced what it is to feel one’s body, the difficulty of a breath, a fast heartbeat, the vagueness of feeling unwell and the fear it brings,” she added. “This is what patients experience on a daily basis. No one is safe from illness. COVID-19 reminded me of the miracle and fragility of a healthy body.”
Even as she was writing her article, Shapiro had still not fully recovered.
“I still cannot taste my food,” she concluded. “But I completed my stress echocardiogram, achieving 3 stages of the Bruce protocol, and I feel better than ever.”
Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.