Nine Minutes
By Julie Gwin
I have nine minutes.
That is how long it takes to run an “instant” test for COVID-19. I am the nurse in charge of employee COVID-19 testing for the medical facility I work at, and nine minutes is how long I have. I stick a long cotton swab into a small, white lab machine, close the lid, hit Start, and set the timer on my phone. Nine minutes. I have nine minutes before I see whether my patient has COVID-19 or not.
For the last 10 months, I have lived my entire life in nine-minute increments.
Nine minutes to make three phone calls. I tell two patients that they don’t have gonorrhea and one that he does.
Ding goes the alarm on my phone. My nine minutes are up. The screen on the front of my COVID-testing machine says “negative.” I frown at it, wondering if it’s accurate. My patient has been coughing for four days and went to visit her sister up at the lake last weekend. Nevertheless, I tell her that she’s negative but that she should stay home until she’s not sick anymore, because no test is perfect. I don’t tell her that I’m certainly not perfect, and that I always wonder, did I do a good enough job? Did I swab her using the exact correct technique? Did I miss the spot in her nose where the virus might be living? Did I fail in some way and not even realize it?
Next patient.
“I’m going to insert this into your nose and swab it around. It shouldn’t hurt, but it definitely feels weird. I promise I’ll be as gentle as possible.” I put my right hand on the back of the patient’s head so they can’t jerk away and gently slide the cotton swab up their nose. Twist, twist, swab, swab. “Okay, that’s the worst of it. This takes a few minutes to run, so I’ll be back with your result as soon as it’s finished.”
Set the machine up, insert the swab, hit Start. Set the timer on my phone for nine minutes.
Nine minutes to text my older daughter who just started high school and should be awkwardly flirting with teenage boys. Instead, she is trying to figure out how to do her ceramics homework – make a pinch pot out of a lump of clay – over Zoom. “Mom, can we use our oven as a kiln? It has to be 800 degrees!” I scrawl a Post-It to myself to get some non-kiln-requiring clay for her.
Nine minutes to email my boss and tell him our EKG machine is acting up again, and we need to order a new one. Yes, I know they are expensive. Yes, we really need it. He’s a good guy. He’ll find the money somehow.
Nine minutes to send a text to my younger daughter who is trying to navigate middle school. “Can you feed the dog?” I remind her. We got the dog in April to distract her from the fact that school had closed and we couldn’t promise her that it would ever be open again, and no, she wasn’t allowed to have her friends over to play. Ever. The dog barks too much and sometimes pees on the carpet, but my daughter has cried a lot less at night since the dog started sleeping with her, so I call it a win. I scrawl a Post-It to myself to buy some more of that spray that is supposed to keep dogs from peeing on the carpet.
Ding. My nine minutes are up. The little screen on the front of my COVID-testing machine says “positive.” Darn. I hate making people cry. I collect the instructions we give everyone on how to isolate at home and go tell my patient that she has COVID. She cries, and I’m not allowed to hug her.
Next patient.
“I’m going to insert this into your nose and swab it around.” Right hand on the back of their head. Cotton swab in the nose. Twist, twist, swab, swab. “I’ll be back with your result as soon as it’s finished.”
Set the machine up, insert the swab, hit Start. Set the timer on my phone for nine minutes.
Nine minutes to sign off on my staff’s time cards so they get paid on Monday.
Eight minutes to feel guilty about not doing more for all the people who I know are out of work when I still have a good job, and I don’t have to worry about feeding my kids.
Seven minutes to get a text from my husband asking if I think we should refinance our house. “Interest rates are so low right now!” It’ll take longer than the six minutes I now have left to read the paperwork from the bank, so I send him a heart emoji and a “Yeah, maybe! Think you can handle dinner tonight?” and feel guilty about not having more time for him.
Five minutes to have one of my nurses knock on my door. “Can I talk to you?” she says. “Of course!” I hastily shove the COVID-testing kits stacked all over my office to the side to clear a chair for her. I hope it’s something quick and easy.
Four minutes as she starts to cry. Not quick and easy then. “My aunt died.”
“Oh no, I’m so sorry!” I reach over to hug her and pause for a second, wondering if it’s safe to touch her. I hate myself for thinking that. I pat her shoulder awkwardly instead. “When did it happen?”
“Over Thanksgiving. In Mexico. She lives down there.” She cries harder. I hate this stupid virus for keeping everyone apart, so I hug her anyway. “I can’t even go for the funeral. Everybody at her house has COVID.” Darn. I hadn’t wanted to ask. I’m so very, very tired of hearing about my staff losing family members to COVID-19. I was hoping for a heart attack, maybe some complications from diabetes or liver disease. Anything else.
Three minutes as she cries quietly and tells me she is worried about her dad who is devastated that he will not be there when his sister is buried.
Two minutes as I give her a handful of tissues and tell her that it won’t be a problem to give her some time off. I try not to think about how short-staffed we are.
One minute as I gently usher her out of my office, patting her back again, telling her how sorry I am again, and sending her back to work. Her patients are waiting.
Ding. My nine minutes are up. The little screen on the front of my machine says “positive.” Darn. I hate making people cry.
Photo/Julie Gwin.
Julie Gwin is the director of clinical operations for Community Health Alliance, a nonprofit medical group with seven clinics in Reno, Nevada. She has been a registered nurse for nine years; previously, she spent a decade editing research journals and nonfiction books. She holds a BA in linguistics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an MBA from California Lutheran University. She is a military wife with two daughters, and she will never, ever forget the first time she did CPR and restarted a patient’s heart.