Imagine you are an 81 year old woman, widowed, living alone, diagnosed with COVID-19. Your children and grandchildren either live out of state, or are too afraid to come visit you because they don’t want to get sick too. You are weak from coughing, running fever, and not being able to eat very much. You can barely walk from your bed to the bathroom or kitchen because you are so weak, and you are terrified you are going to fall and not be able to call for help. You’ve been to the emergency room twice, hoping to be admitted to the hospital just so you know you are safe and not alone, but you “just aren’t quite sick enough.” Not only are you physically ill, but you are depressed now too because of your fear and isolation.

These are the patients we take care of as home health nurses. For many of these patients, we are the only physical contact they have with the outside world. When it’s time for us to leave so we can get to our next patient, we see the loneliness in their faces and feel guilty about having to leave them. We see their faces when we go to bed at night, we pray for them, and we look forward to our next visit just as much as they do.

I am in no way trying to take away from the COVID patients in hospitals fighting for their lives, with no family allowed in their hospital rooms, or from the nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists, aides and others working in a hospital or nursing home setting. I have worked in hospitals as well and have great appreciation for all hospital staff, especially the housekeepers who make sure everything is sanitized and safe. But these “forgotten” COVID patients, and the home health and hospice staff that take care of them, have really been weighing on my heart lately.

I don’t see home health and hospice in the news. We had issues getting enough PPE in the beginning as well. We are risking our health and the health of our families as well. We are stressed, we are tired, we are worried, we occasionally cry on the drive home. We did not get offered the vaccine when the hospitals and nursing homes did, and many of us still haven’t been able to get vaccinated. Yet we continue to expose ourselves, because this is what our calling is, and we can’t imagine having a career in anything else.

So tonight when you say your prayers, please say a prayer for the 81 year old woman living alone, sick with COVID, and scared of what is going to happen to her. Please say a prayer for the home health and hospice nurses, therapists and aides taking care of these “forgotten” patients, the ones you don’t see on the news or on your Facebook feed. And please say a prayer that we can return to some kind of normalcy soon, with families being able to visit each other, and medical personnel being able to hold a sick patient’s hand without gloves on.