A Hand To Hold For Isolated Coronavirus Patients: Patch Hero

For many coronavirus patients in isolation, loneliness is a silent symptom of the disease. The fear of transmission means they don't have the typical support system of friends and family to visit them in the hospital. Enter nurses like Danielle Desrochers, who works up to 35 hours a week on a COVID-19 floor at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and is always there with a hand to hold.

Desrochers is a popular nurse under normal circumstances – her husband, Matthew, said she frequently brings home a Daisy Award, which the hospital gives to medical staff who are highly rated by patients upon their discharge. Since the start of the pandemic, she's been going into patients' rooms anywhere from four times to 30 times a shift.

When asked what makes his wife a hero, Matthew Desrochers said, "her kindness and ability to care for her patients." But the longer she spends comforting them, the more she risks exposure, and passing the virus to her family.

"She has a difficult time with that because she thinks of her own family here," Matthew Desrochers said. "She's been very good with just trying to strike that balance."

The family has four kids under 10 years old at home in Lynnfield, and without child care, Desrochers been "at full blast," her husband told Patch.

"When she's at work she's going crazy at work and when she's here she's taking care of four kids," he said. "She's stressed, like what am I walking into tomorrow?"

Desrochers can't jump into mom mode after work; she has to take extra precautions to make sure she doesn't spread the virus among her household. That entails changing her clothes while she's at the hospital, putting them in a bag, coming home and washing them with special soap, and immediately taking a shower.

Only then can she decompress, which right now looks like planning a social distancing party for her twins' 10th birthday.

"Normally we have a big party, but we're not going to do that," Matthew Desrochers said. "We've got these banners we're going to put on the front lawn and have friends drive by and wave."