The wife of the epidemic doctor： a wife and a combatant.

Whether it’s the "commando team" who intubates patients or the mobile team that "puts out fires" everywhere in the emergency department, the medical staff in the epidemic storm center are always desperate at great risks.

Their every move involves the hearts of their families. Especially for families with dual medical workers, the husband is in the forefront, while the wife is fighting in the front line and has to take care of the family.

On the eve of Women’s Day on March 8th, we talked to three wives of first-line medical care and listened to their thrilling stories about the war "epidemic".

"I couldn’t sleep well during the three weeks he intubated the commando."

Narrator:Shu shaofang

Lover:Director of Anesthesiology Department, wuhan union hospital, Chen Xiangdong, Captain of Intubation Commando

Caption: Shu Shaofang said that this is one of the few photos of her and her lover. Photo courtesy of respondents

Knowing the danger, we must also support him.

90 seconds is a hope for patients, but a fatal threat to doctors. Because open airway intubation, we must race against time, so that medication can be effective quickly. However, the nearest distance between a doctor and a patient is calculated in centimeters. The risk of infection in the whole process is extremely high and particularly dangerous.

I am also an anesthesiologist, and I know what this intubation means. The gas exhaled by patients contains a lot of viruses, so it is not too much to call them "death squads".

On February 12, Mr. Wang suddenly called me and said that the Union Medical College Hospital was going to set up an intubation commando team to ask for my advice. I paused, and then said to him, is it still necessary to ask for my advice? You’re the director. You have to go. I support you. Only when you take the lead in signing up can others feel at ease. As a result, he said that he had signed up.

Actually, I’m very, very scared. I love to worry, and now I’m on tenterhooks every day. I haven’t slept well during his more than three weeks in the commando team. In fact, neither has my husband. In the past, he always slept every second as soon as he touched the pillow. After the outbreak, although he came back from time to time, he couldn’t sleep well at home and had to take sleeping pills.

Even at home from work, his cell phone keeps ringing. Every night, I have to arrange my work and worry about the safety of my colleagues, so I will stay up late. The epidemic came suddenly, and we didn’t know about the virus. The number of patients increased sharply. No matter which hospital, it was an encounter and we were caught off guard.

Being in a hurry just doesn’t work.

I used to be a nurse and went to America with my husband for more than ten years. Later, Mr. Wang was determined to return to China to play a greater role. I followed him back, and now I am a management teacher in the anesthesiology laboratory of Union Medical College Hospital. Because I haven’t been on the front line for more than ten years, I’m very anxious, but I can’t work hard.

What we can do now is to continue to manage the laboratory well. The school (note: Union Medical College Hospital belongs to Huazhong University of Science and Technology) requires students to be well placed before the holiday. Now I am staring at the study and life of doctoral students who stay in Wuhan. I will make a phone call every two days and care about them, otherwise I won’t be at ease. In fact, there are my students in the intubation commando team brought by my husband. Tell me, can I not worry!

My mother is almost 90 years old and lives alone. During the epidemic, my brother moved to take care of her life. My brother is 58 years old and is not good at online shopping. Sometimes when I buy with my neighbors, I also help them. Then I repeatedly told them to go out less and be good. At this point, don’t distract us again.

My son is now in America and communicates with me every day. Usually, I only make a phone call once a week, and there is a lot more communication with us after the outbreak. Father and son used to talk when my husband was at home. Now, my husband seldom goes home, and my son communicates with me much more. In the past, when I called my son, he didn’t answer if he was busy. Now I just need to call him and answer it every second.

Mr. Wang promised me that he would come back safely and that all the commandos would come back safely. He must keep his word!

"Lao Li, you protect Wuhan and I will protect you."

Narrator:Liu bin

Lover:Deputy Director, Emergency Department, Wuhan University People’s Hospital, Li Wenqiang

Caption: Liu Bin’s lover Li Wenqiang.

"Firemen" who put out fires everywhere in the emergency department

More than two weeks after Wuhan announced the closure of the passage from Han, it was the most stressful period for my husband.

My husband, Li Wenqiang, is the vice president of the People’s Hospital of Wuhan University in charge of business in Shayang People’s Hospital, and returned to Wuhan for vacation before the Spring Festival. On January 10th, the epidemic situation in Wuhan became more and more serious. He had a premonition that the hospital might need it, so he cancelled his plan to go back to his hometown for the New Year.

At that time, there were many patients, just like the water sprayed out after the water pipe burst suddenly.

On January 23, Lao Li was informed by the People’s Hospital to go back to the emergency department to work. He immediately reported for duty and participated in the treatment of patients. From that day on, he went out at 8 o’clock every morning and didn’t go home until 6 o’clock in the evening. He was too tired to say a word when he got home. After dinner, he will also report the patient’s admission on the same day.

In order to keep him in a good physical condition, I have to let him go to bed as early as possible, but at night, there are too many things that need to be coordinated and solved by the clinical departments and departments of the hospital, and the phone keeps calling, and sometimes there are calls after midnight. I see it in my eyes and worry about it, but those are all emergency calls, and he must answer them.

Those ten days were the most stressful time for him, and also the time when I was most worried and anxious. I was afraid that he would have a bad rest, his resistance would drop and he would be easily infected.

In mid-February, with the increase of beds and emergency doctors, I felt that his pressure was gradually reduced. But when one of his colleagues was infected and gave a critical notice, he was particularly depressed.

I can understand that doctors are human beings. Although their professional ethics can enable them to stand up and face danger and try their best to treat patients, when colleagues around them face life and death, they feel the same way and will inevitably feel sad.

What I can do is to guide him from the front and try not to let him carry ideological burdens. With the constant changes in the key work of treatment, Lao Li has been assigned to work in the emergency department, emergency observation room, fever clinic observation room and hospital buffer ward. He is like a mobile squad. Wherever there is a task, he goes there. He never talks about the conditions and tries his best to make organizational arrangements.

For more than 40 days, he didn’t have a good rest for a day. I was afraid that he couldn’t carry it, so I asked him if he could adjust himself and rest for half a day. He said that the patient has an emergency at any time, and if he is there, the patient’s risk is less. In this way, he practiced the "responsibility" of a party member and the "benevolence" of a doctor.

You protect Wuhan, I will protect you.

I was still at work that day when Lao Li was informed by the provincial people’s hospital to go back to the emergency department to work. He called me early in the morning and said that the situation was urgent. The hospital was short of people and had to support the front line in advance. What do you think? I said I had no problem, and I fully cooperated with you.

He said no, no, you have to go back to your parents’ house. It turned out that he wanted to go back to our small home to rest, worried that he was too dangerous and would pass it on to me. I said yes. After work, I went to the supermarket and stocked him with a refrigerator of meat and vegetables. I thought, I can’t accompany you, and I can’t make you hungry.

After living in my parents’ home for a day, I don’t think this will work. Because after he sent me the photo of wearing protective clothing, I looked at it, ho! Armed to the teeth And eat lunch every day, this can’t be done! I discussed with him, or go back to the small home to take care of him, and we will live separately and try to be physically isolated. You protect Wuhan, I have to protect you.

Every time he goes out, I tell him to take personal protection. I pay attention to the epidemic news at home, and also find videos of disinfection and epidemic prevention, and disinfect at home while studying. When he comes home, he must wait for me to sterilize him before he can come in.

Not only do we live in separate rooms, but we will both wear masks when he comes home. I was scared at that time, because everyone didn’t know anything about the virus.

This epidemic, let me fully understand the front-line medical staff pay, danger and hard work.

Dinner in the distance

Narrator:Miao Bei

Lover:Deputy Chief Physician, Emergency Center, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Chen Haihua

"Both epidemics have caught up, but now married with children is running at both ends."

I caught up with both epidemics. During the SARS in 2003, we just got married, and I was on the front line. This year, we caught up with the COVID-19 epidemic, and both of us are still in the first line.

At the time of SARS, there was no protective clothing, only isolation gown, and the protective materials were very tight, so we all took turns to go to the fever clinic for duty. Now I’m a head nurse, and I’m back in married with children.

My husband received the notice on January 23rd, and Zhongnan Hospital began to treat COVID-19 patients very early. He’s from the emergency center. All the people who entered his ward were seriously ill and critically ill patients.

He discussed with me, and my thought at that time was that the situation was obvious, and everyone was a medical staff and could understand. Our hospital is also a designated hospital, with five isolation wards. As the head nurse, I also signed up to go to the fever ward.

But we are both struggling. What should we do at home? My daughter is just in the first grade, and my mother is 80 years old, and her health is not very good. Usually it’s us who cook and take care of the children’s homework. I’ll go back and discuss with my mother that we are both going to the first line, so just take care of yourself. How about that? My mother cried at home and said no.

Considering the actual situation in my family, the hospital leader transferred another head nurse to the fever ward. And I’m in charge of all general wards except the fever ward. The patients are all critically ill patients who can’t leave the hospital, and these patients are the high-risk groups susceptible to COVID-19, so our protection has also been upgraded.

Now, I have to run between the hospital and home. If you can’t live at home, just go home and cook a meal, and I’ll leave after dinner. It takes more than an hour to kill yourself before you go home, and then leave your clothes outside to kill yourself. I wear masks all the time at home, old and young, afraid of infecting them.

Then, I eat on the balcony alone every day. This is also a helpless way.

I didn’t let my husband in and let him eat at the elevator.

My husband and I often contact on WeChat, and occasionally talk on the phone. They really have no time to breathe. When he was in ICU, all he met were patients who needed intubation, and even many of them were patients who needed ECMO.

From the end of January to the middle of February, he was particularly stressed and in the worst mood. During that time, the number of patients soared, and he was very sad to see that the patient could not be saved.

Husband is a delicate and sensitive person. Colleagues and colleagues around him are infected, or even unfortunately killed in the line of duty, and he will try his best to suppress it in his heart, so his pressure is even greater. He said that usually their names are signed in the doctor’s column, and suddenly they are signed in the patient’s column. He can’t stand it. For several days, he cried every day. My heart is too depressed, and it is better to cry.

I comforted him: although I can’t hug and comfort you, you can vent your sadness to me, even if it is a cry. But when you face your sick comrades tomorrow, you must hold back your tears and firmly tell them that "you will be fine". You must be their solid backing and do everything possible to make them recover as soon as possible.

He said several times in the middle that he didn’t feel well, sometimes he was short of breath, and there were two consecutive cases of cold and hot. Some time ago, he had three CT scans in four days. Fortunately, the results came out, and he was fine.

It is not easy for medical staff to have more dual employees, so they can only understand each other and then silently cheer for themselves and their families. We each have a team, and we must go before the epidemic.

He came back once on February 24th. He called me and said that he hadn’t come back for a long time, so he wanted to come back and see the girl. I said you can only look at it from a distance, and you can’t enter the door.

That night, I cooked the meal and gave him a chair as a dining table outside the house near the elevator. He stuttered in the elevator, I ate on the balcony, and my daughter and grandmother ate in the living room.

This is a distant dinner!

Caption: Chen Haihua didn’t get in the door, so he stuttered at dinner in the elevator. Photo by Miao Wei