With nearly 25 years’ experience as a nurse, and currently an ICU supervisor, Leilani McGuire recalls one COVID-19 patient, in particular, who touched her heart.
“He was so afraid. And I knew that he wasn’t doing well and he looked at me with so much fear in his eyes and he just kept asking me, ‘Please tell me…am I going to live or am I going to die?’ And he’s begging me with tears in his eyes. And at that point, I just took his hand and I knew that we were about to intubate him…once you get intubated, your survival rate was probably 10-to-20%...a really poor chance of making it through that.”
Leilani’s response was honest and bold. “I took his hands and I looked him in the eye with all my gear on – I know all he could see was my eyes – so to be able to express what I was going to say meant so much at that point to calm him down…and I just said to him ‘I don’t know if you’re going to die. I can’t promise you anything, but I know that we’re going to take great care of you, and I know that Jesus is here with you in this room right now.”
Leilani then led him through a salvation prayer. “I don’t know if you know Jesus. I’m going to pray this with you right now and if anything happens to you, know that your spirit is always going to be alive to speak to Him.”
That patient passed away two weeks later.
Leilani realizes that ICU patients are often sedated or in a medically-induced coma, “but I know that their spirit is still there and I just begin speaking to their spirit and whatever God has on my heart to speak to them at that moment, I say it to them. I do that quite often.”
What’s it like being an ICU nurse, treating very sick patients day-after-day? “We can only speak about it. Our eyes can’t even show you what we see, but the pain that health care workers are feeling today…I’ve seen so many healthcare workers suffer from compassion fatigue and secondary trauma because of what they’ve experienced having to be the gap-to-close between the family and the patient, when they’re dying, holding their hand when they die - and to experience that over-and-over-and-over again is exhausting.”
Prayer for Medical Professionals
A recurring event called We Pray San Diego was launched by Pastor Miles McPherson of Rock Church. One particular prayer outreach was recently offered to bless healthcare workers. Nurse Leilani took part and says, “When the city of San Diego was able to come together to pray for us, I felt the prayer of God’s people. I really, really did. And I remember coming back to work that very same evening and feeling such a load was lifted. And I was able to tell my co-workers, ‘We prayed for us specifically – and know that God’s people are praying for you. Know that you are being lifted up and that there is hope.’”
How can people encourage healthcare workers? Leilani says nurses and other medical professionals were referred to as “heroes” when the pandemic first began, but in the media and culture, that has faded some. So, “When you see them, thank them and let them know that you still remember…and the sacrifices that they’ve made mean something.”
Nurses on the front lines, “They have a loss of hope, watching patients die constantly, they need our prayers.”
In our podcast below, hear Leilani share how one patient, who should not have made it, did! And how she knows prayer was the major reason. She also has specific prayer suggestions you can pray for medical professionals in your community.
