*On the Front Lines*

Krystal Zandstra : Registered Nurse, Creative Human : Torrance, CA

“13:00 - The doctor in my non COVID patient’s room wants me to place an NG prior to their surgery tomorrow. To empty out their stomach in case of aspiration when an airway tube is placed. Placing an NG in an awake and alert patient is on my list of top ten worst nursing tasks. It’s a tube that goes in the nose and into the stomach. I’ll place ‘em all day in patients that are sedated, but NO DICE on an awake, alert person. I made two attempts. I’m swatted at, spit on, screamed at. Poor results. Sorry doc. Someone else’s turn.”

Krystal and I went to high school together, were on student government councils together, planned proms together, stayed over at each other’s houses “studying” together, made stupid movies together. One of the first movies we ever made - Lord I hope it simultaneously exists and doesn’t exist for anyone else to see - was based off the song “Chantilly Lace” and we called it “Coca Cola Cafe”. It was just three of us girls, so we played all the parts of the scorned love story together, added such advanced special effects as a fan blowing our hair in the wind and playing music as we filmed as a soundtrack. This was middle school and we didn’t stop all through high school, convinced we were the clever-ist and most hilarious storytellers ever. And you know what, we were, as far as we knew. It was sweet and fun and felt like a secret world. Making silly movies like a parody of Beauty and the Beast or Clue was what got us through some strange high school times.

Flash forward to college and Krystal and I both went to school in the Midwest - she in Michigan, I in the Chicago area. We naturally drifted apart as these things do, but since we have both moved back to Southern California, we have rekindled a friendship based on different terms and circumstances that happen over time and experience lived apart. But I am so grateful to have this sassy, vibrant, kind-hearted and intelligent human back in my life.

I am grateful she took some time out of her emotionally and physically draining COVID-19 existence to share a glimpse of hospital life on the front lines with us: