Sorrowful Lines from the COVID Front Lines

Breathless Regret

We don’t see or experience the tragedy of unnecessary severe illnesses and COVID-19 deaths firsthand. But like thousands of medical professionals across the country, Victor Ruiz does. He and his fellow healthcare providers are forced to slog forward in the exhausting front-line fight that has dragged on for more than 21 months.

With Omicron and the remnants of Delta increasing hospitalizations and deaths daily, the struggle continues.

Victor and his colleagues are forever changed.

These are his words.

Breathless Regret
by Victor Ruiz

A reminder I have seen
the fear in the eyes
of those she led to their deaths
with her lies:

I will tell you the thing
I will never forget.
Watching them die
in breathless regret.

Clinging to the sheets
As if it contained their soul.
Begging the disease
to please let them go.

Listening to science
a moment too late.
Allowing the misinformed
to determine their fate.

The oxygen fails,
the body goes next.
We look on as they scream
to God “not yet!”

The caregiver forever changes
at the head of your bed.
From saving your life,
to the hand on your head.

You imagined death
in a room full of love.
But instead human touch
comes from behind a glove.

When it is over
the caregiver moves on.
Hoping the next one
took that shot in the arm.

© Victor Ruiz, 2022

Victor Ruiz is a respiratory therapist in a major medical center in Texas. Respiratory therapists are involved in every case where advanced airway protection and/or high levels of oxygen are needed. They also are the primary managers of medical facilities’ ventilators. He and his colleagues have been on the front lines fighting for the lives of COVID-19 patients since the beginning of the pandemic, waiting and hoping for a vaccine, then watching in disbelief as people have declined to be vaccinated.

He is real. So are all the other aides, doctors, environmental and food service workers, nurses, pharmacists and physician assistants fighting COVID. They’re doing everything they can. They deserve our respect and consideration, and they absolutely deserve our help.

#HelpFightCOVID #WearAMask #GetVaccinated #GetTheBooster

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