Alyssa Schumacher

It’s difficult because it’s so overwhelming and just so sad. I’ve had a couple of emotional breakdowns – crying and just taking a few moments at work to myself to kind of regain myself because I never anticipated so much sadness over these last two years. It’s stressful as a respiratory therapist when you can’t see the patients the way that you want to see them because you have so many of them to see. There have been multiple drives home where the only thing you can do is just cry because you don’t feel like you’ve conquered your shift. You feel defeated and you’re passing that defeat onto your coworkers because they’re the ones relieving you.

“I never anticipated so much sadness over these past two years.”

Alyssa Schumacher, Respiratory Therapist

So for me, it’s been a huge rollercoaster of ups and downs. And wondering if this is what I should be doing still? Am I supposed to be a respiratory therapist? Why am I weakening? All the way up to feeling so good when you leave work because you had that one patient that made it and you’re overjoyed. Dealing with those emotions is really difficult.

But I get up and go to work and take care of my patients because if I don’t, that’s one less person to care for our community. Our hospital serves 14 counties and that’s a huge area. If one of my family members needed care in the hospital and I’m not there, that’s one less respiratory therapist available for those services. That feeling did not come to me right away because there was a lot of hurt and sadness and anger prior to me changing my attitude. But when you see that patients aren’t able to get outstanding care because of being short staffed, it just clicked in me. I can’t quit because they need me. These patients need me. My team needs me. And you can’t effectively serve your community if you don’t have the people to work.