Nurses juggle many roles and responsibilities in order to give the proper care to their patients, even if it means putting themselves in harm's way, especially during a pandemic. Lindee Parsons understands that this is part of the job that she signed up for.
"This isn't the first time we're on the frontline," she said. "That's just part of our job. Without COVID, we have to expose ourselves to diseases all the time."
Parsons is a nurse for AdventHealth for Children in Orlando. While she doesn't work on a COVID floor, going into to work is still scary, especially when working with babies.
"It's still scary going into the hospital every day," she said. "Worrying if you're giving it (COVID) to a baby or not, or bringing it back to family, friends or my roommate."
Early on, Parson's admitted that the fear from the pandemic took it's toll on her. She made sure that she did what she needed to do to mentally take care of herself. That included spending time with her family, talking through things with her boyfriend and spending lots of time outside doing things that she enjoys.
As a nurse, she's taking the precautions to make sure that she's safe, so that everyone around her including the babies that she tends to are safe.
"I'm doing everything to protect myself and I hope everyone else is doing the same," she said.
Parsons ran cross country and track and field for The First Academy in Orlando. The two qualities that she learned as an athlete that helps her as a nurse during the pandemic are the abilities to endure and to persevere.
"Endurance and perseverance, when you want to give up," she said. "If you're running a long race, you have to keep going and you have to keep pushing through. We all want this to be over, but you have to keep running the race."
Parson's believes that the lessons learned from this pandemic will be helpful in the future, which gives her hope.
"I think we're going to learn from this and we're going to be better prepared for the next time if it happens," she said. "As rough as it is, there's been a lot of good that's come out of it, which is always encouraging."