It was only two and half years ago that life as we knew it changed as a global pandemic began to rapidly spread across the world. At the outbreak of the pandemic, I had been working in a large hospital in New York City since 2016. New York City soon became the epicenter of COVID-19 cases in the United States and my hospital was not spared. Floor by floor, as the hospital quickly filled with COVID-19 patients, the need for nurses drastically increased. It was in March of 2020 when I was floated from my home unit to work in one of the many floors newly converted to treat COVID-19 patients. Patients and nurses on these floors needed help so I volunteered to remain working in the COVID ICU indefinitely.

The first few weeks were especially rough. Each shift was daunting, as we confronted the unimaginable. We spent many shifts tripled up with critically ill patients— most of which would have typically required a 1:1 nurse-to-patient ratio assignment. I’ll never forget this one shift pausing as I witnessed two sets of family members walking onto the unit to say their quick goodbye to their loved one. As I saw the family members hesitantly approaching their loved ones’ rooms, I witnessed a nurse frantically kicking the Omnicell in frustration as she desperately attempted to free a jammed drawer that was holding life-saving medication for her patient; another nurse sprinting into her patients room as the vent alarms sirened; and another nurse weeping in the corner as her patients’ family said goodbye to their son. As this surreal scene unfolded simultaneously before my eyes, all to the backdrop of alarm bells ringing, I quickly snapped out of it to hang one of the last bags of fentanyl we had left due to a nationwide shortage at the time. Shifts like that made it difficult to see how we could go on this way.

Eventually, travel nurses arrived to provide assistance on the COVID-19 units. Their help was invaluable. They were the light in the middle of a very dark tunnel; an essential support. As a result, although COVID-19 remained, the shifts gradually became more manageable.

Nearly two years later, at the end of February 2022, the news of Ukraine’s invasion by Russia began spreading across the world. Seeing images online of the millions of people fleeing their homes in the face of war left me feeling uneasy and heartbroken. I wondered what I could do to help.

A few weeks later in March, I applied to work with a medical relief organization to provide medical aid at the Poland-Ukraine border. Ukrainian refugees needed care, and medical volunteers needed support. I knew that my nursing skills and experience made me a good candidate to provide assistance. Or I felt well equipped with my nursing skills and experience to provide assistance in any way that I was needed. I was added to a list of nurses to help in the future.

Fast forward a few months, while standing in line to see a play in June about the immigration experience in America called “New York Circa 1909”, I received an email with an urgent request for doctors and nurses to provide medical care in Ukraine. I immediately wanted to reply that I could go, but wanted to pray about it first.

Ten-minutes later, I’m inside Soho Playhouse waiting for the show to begin and the director steps out to share with the audience that one of their actors, who is Ukrainian, had just found out that her playhouse in Ukraine had been completely destroyed in the war. That felt like a quick answer to me so I booked a flight shortly after I flew into Warsaw where I met with the other volunteers who I would be working alongside in the coming week. Our team was small—comprised of an emergency medicine doctor from New York, a driver and logistics coordinator from Germany, and myself. The medical doctor I worked with could speak Russian and was able to communicate well with our Ukrainian patients which was integral in us gathering accurate medical histories, gaining our patients’ trust to provide them care, and listening to the stories they shared with us. We worked one day at a large refugee center in Warsaw housing approximately 1,000 refugees before we picked up medical supplies, packed our mobile clinic, and headed into Ukraine. On our drive down, we were accompanied by a sky painted with the most vibrant double rainbow I had ever seen.

We provided primary care from the mobile clinic in and around a city in Ukraine called Stryy. Our first worksite was a village called Hnizdychiv. This small village welcomed about 50 individuals displaced from their homes in eastern Ukraine and were living in a schoolhouse converted into a makeshift shelter. After setting up our workspace, a long line began forming outside of our mobile clinic.

Being displaced from your home also means losing access to your primary care appointments, routine blood work, and important prescription refills— something that may not be on the forefront of one’s mind in the midst of war but as this trip highlighted, is very important nonetheless. I was able to conduct physical assessments, measure blood pressures and blood sugars, administer prescribed medications, provide wound care, and emotional support. We treated a wide range of patients from young children with viral infections, to adults and elderly patients with untreated chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases. We also provided care to a significant number of patients who complained of muscular pain, headaches, anxiety, and difficulty sleeping which was attributed to the stress they had endured due to the war. Some patients just wanted a “check up.”

Hearing stories of the unimaginable suffering and loss these human beings have and continue to endure is something that is still very difficult for me to wrap my mind around. I held back tears as an elderly patient shared with us that her beloved home and all that she owned, in a Kyiv suburb called Irpin was completely decimated by Russian forces. She shared with us through tears how difficult it was for her to sleep at night. We sat with her awhile. The pain in her blue eyes as she shared her suffering with us is a memory permanently etched into my mind. She tried to pay us with no prevail and thanked us with such sincerity. We hugged before she left. I wished I could do more.

Sadly that story wasn’t uncommon. One of our patients we met in a town called Dashava was a 73 year old woman who shared with us that she spends her evenings taking English lessons. She kept moving forward despite the war and being displaced from her home in eastern Ukraine. Another woman I met spent her days caring for her fellow Ukrainians as her husband and son fought in the war. She was gracious with her stories she shared and she even gave me a hand carved pen as a gift.

In between seeing patients, I looked outside of the mobile clinic window to see children playing with a little white dog. The kids were laughing as the dog licked their faces and wagged his tail in excitement. It reminded me of this young girl we met at the refugee center in Warsaw who eagerly showed everyone she could her little white field mouse. She giggled in excitement as she placed him in a flower pot and watched him as he adventured through the violets.

Despite the trauma endured, the people of Ukraine’s kindness, generosity and resilience shined brightly and I was left in awe of the strength of the human spirit. At the conclusion of each day of work, we were welcomed inside to eat a hot bowl of homemade borscht.

Nurses hold a unique position in that every day they face humanity in its most raw form—facing life and death through the eyes of their patients; holding space for their patients in their most vulnerable and at times darkest season of their life. With that comes great responsibility, immense challenges, and also beautiful opportunities to serve another. It’s no question that nurses go above and beyond for their patients. There is an art and science to nursing and we each hold a special quality within us that enables us to provide care in a way that’s unique only to you.

Sometimes I get caught up with how I can be doing more but I’ve realized using what you have, even if seemingly small, can mean more to another person than you think.

A smile, a kind word, one’s very presence, can mean more than we realize.

I know that because the travel nurses coming from around the country did more than help care for patients in a pandemic; they also shared a burden and provided relief to their fellow nurses. I know that because that big bowl of homemade borscht at the end of a long day was more than just dinner to me. In both instances I felt cared for and seen, and it was a window into the kindness and strength of humanity even in the midst of tragedy.

We’re all in this life together.

It was a very quick week for our two-person medical team plus our driver/logistics coordinator, but I’ll forever carry with me the time, the stories, and the people I’ve met. Our patients kept thanking us and told us they were grateful we were there to “heal them.” They said, “This is exactly what we needed, not just the medical care but to know someone from another country cares about us.”