KC-area nurses leave families to aid NY in COVID-19 pandemic | The Kansas City Star

The day before she left for New York, Stacie Kelly halted a cuddling session to have a conversation with her 6-year-old son, McClain. It was time to explain what was going to happen next.

Kelly told her son she was going to be gone for a while from their Gardner home. As a nurse practitioner, she had volunteered to help in a place where the coronavirus illness had been spreading the most.

McClain listened to it all before finally speaking.

“We’re gonna miss you a lot here, and we need you at home,” Kelly recalled him saying, “but those sick people need you more.”

Kelly smiled. Her son understood.

“What I want my kids to know is they’re important. Our lives are important,” Kelly said. “But there’s so much more that we can be doing for other people than just ourselves.”

It’s why Kelly, by Saturday, was in a Midtown Manhattan hotel room with best friend Ashley Kush, thousands of miles away from her family and just 48 hours removed from the crazy whim of an idea in her head.

Their story is just one of a handful of local medical professionals who have recently dedicated their own lives — while potentially sacrificing their health as well — to help on the front lines with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kelly’s interest in helping started with social media. She had seen Facebook posts from the Overland Park-based Krucial Staffing Firm, showing a need for nurses in both New Orleans and New York.

On Thursday morning, while driving to work, Kelly said she felt compelled to act. She dialed up her husband, Mark — partly wanting him to say she was crazy because of the internal fears she had — but he told her to pursue this opportunity if she thought it best; he could take care of their four kids at home if it came to that.

Kelly then called her best friend Kush. The two had previously served on a 2014 medical mission in Uganda, helping others in the midst of the Ebola virus outbreak.

Would Kush, a nurse practitioner herself, be up for another calling here?

Kush has two sons of their own, one 4 and the other 22 months. She began the phone call to her husband with four words: “Hey Harrison, crazy idea … ”

Even if the two wanted to go, it seemed a long shot at best. Krucial Staffing opened up its phone lines at 1 p.m. Thursday, with only 50 nurses and nurse practitioners nationwide getting chosen for placement in fully paid positions that also include hotel rooms. Kush had seen on social media that one would-be volunteer had tried the number over 300 times while never having a call answered by a representative.

Kelly dialed the number at 1 p.m. sharp. Her first try got through.

There was one problem: Kush wasn’t having any luck getting through on her own phone. Kelly told the man on the line she had someone else interested in going, and quickly three-way called her friend into the conversation.

Both received information at 1:15 p.m., then were told to take part, they had to be out on a flight to New York by 2 p.m. the next day.

When Kush called her husband, he knew from her first words that she’d been chosen.

“He was like, ‘OK, here we go,’” Kush said. “Kind of changed from this being a possibility to, ‘Oh my gosh,’ and then, ‘Oh wait, you’re leaving tomorrow.’”

Kush needed help. Her shift at Overland Park Regional was set to last until 9 p.m. that night, meaning she’d be up against a time crunch with her flight some 17 hours after that point. One of her concerns: finding enough scrubs to last nearly month.

Her sister-in-law put out a social media post, urging Kush’s hometown of Louisburg to donate supplies.

By the time Kush got home from her shift, she had 20 pairs of donated scrub pants and $1,400 that had been given in cash. The two also had received hospital jackets, care packets with toiletries from a local pharmacy and more than 100 masks that were given in less than 24 hours.

“It’s just incredible,” Kush said. “Just in awe of a community that came together for the greater good to help, so that I could come help these people in New York on the front line.”

The goodbyes were difficult.

Just before Kush left, both she and her husband’s families gathered in front of the house, distance-circling around her in prayer while asking for wisdom and strength.

Kush only spoke to her boys Lucas and Jacob briefly before departing, telling them mommy had to go to help people feel better. They both needed to be brave.

“I knew it’d be very selfish of me to do the goodbye I wanted that would have just been tear-filled and a hug that didn’t end,” Kush said. “That would have helped nobody, including me.”

Kelly, meanwhile, piled into the back of her suburban at the airport for some final hugs with each of her children: Sullivan, 10, Delaynie, 8, McClain and Camryn, 4.

“There were a couple tears, telling me they loved me and to be careful,” Kelly said. “And then my 4-year-old asked if I would get her a unicorn from New York.”

The reality is uncertain from here.

After arriving in New York on Friday night, Kelly and Kush had a brief meeting in the basement of their hotel to be prepared for what could be coming next.

Laundry facilities are scarce, so those extra scrubs will be necessary. The two had yet to get their hospital assignment — one of 15 locations in the area — while being told to be ready at a moment’s notice over the next few hours.

Though the work will be paid, it’s likely to be more demanding than anything they’ve experienced. It calls for three straight weeks of work — that’s 21 shifts in a row — while dealing with one of the most ominous health-care situations in the world.

Kelly said within five minutes of getting to the hotel Friday, the director of the staffing company compared the medical facilities to “war zones.” He said one nurse, during his first 12 hours in New York, had seen 34 patients die.

“We are fully prepared to put on our brave face — our strong face, our work face — for 12 hours, and then come home to our hotel room and talk together and cry and sleep, and do it all again the next day,” Kelly said. “Because we’ve done it before, and that’s our job. That’s what we’re here to do.”

Kelly envisioned their situation could end up similar to a scene from the movie “Pearl Harbor,” where overextended nurses used lipstick smears to mark which patients could be saved and which couldn’t.

Kush, because she and Kelly both have ER experience, could see their role as triaging, meaning they would be among the ones assigning color codes to patients while determining if they had a chance to improve.

“We’ve heard that it’s just as raw as that. You have to make the right decision,” Kush said. “You have to say, ‘I’m so sorry. You’re too far past where we can help you. We have to move on to the next person so that more people don’t pass away.’

“It’s not how we practice obviously within an un-disaster situation, but in this situation if you spend too much time on somebody that’s actively passing away, you could be missing two or three more lives that could be saved.”

The road ahead is unclear too. Though both signed up for three weeks, Kelly has already considered staying for six, believing she might be able to offer more help because she’s already stationed in the outbreak’s center.

Once they do get back to Kansas, both are likely to have to be quarantined from their families for two weeks as well. Those plans are unfinished now, with preliminary ideas that they might stay in hotel rooms for that time to ensure the safety of those around them.

They also will be away from their jobs for an extended period. Both Kelly — who works primarily at AdventHealth Ottawa — and Kush had to take leaves of absence from their current positions. There are challenges that remain back home too, like Harrison recently being furloughed from his job as a project manager.

That’s all not even taking into account the risk that by going into the middle of the crisis, Kelly and Kush have a greater likelihood of contracting the illness themselves. Krucial has ensured the two that there will be enough personal protective equipment for their roles, but their mere presence around others who are infected means a greater danger.

“We have those exact same fears,” Kush said. “And that’s when sometimes the selfish side of you comes in and you start thinking like, ‘This isn’t a good idea. I’m a young mom. I have to be healthy for my kids.’

“And then you have to think, ‘There’s a bigger picture here. There’s a bigger reason. There’s a bigger why.’ And we need to go share that. You’ve got to go share that with the world.”

Both Kelly and Kush said they were changed personally by their earlier trip to Uganda. Providing help to others that were truly appreciative, Kush said, “filled a cup of mine that I had no idea needed to be filled. It changed me in so many ways, and my heart yearns to do that kind of help, that kind of charity — providing help that no one asks for necessarily, and they can’t repay you.”

Kelly still remembers the love she received from others after even offering the smallest of measures, whether that was offering a Tylenol or holding a hand following surgery.

“You were their hero,” Kelly said. “And that carries you in your career a long way.”

The two say it’s why they’re in New York now. Kelly will miss her son Sullivan’s 10th birthday on Monday. Meanwhile, during a Saturday FaceTime call, 4-year-old Camryn asked mommy if she’d be returning home for dinner that night; Kelly sadly told her no.

Some day, Kelly hopes, her daughter will understand. Why mom isn’t home. Why she’s put herself at risk. Why she’s flown halfway across the country in an effort to help strangers … ones that she’ll likely never see again.

Kelly has a gift, she says. She can help people.

And right now, thousands in New York are in desperate need of assistance.

“What I’ve also told my kids is ... I want my kids to be proud of me,” Kelly said. “I want them, when they’re 60 years old, or 70 years old and telling the story of the 2019-2020 pandemic to their grandkids to say, ‘You know, my mom went to New York with her friend Ashley.’ And we’ll hopefully have some pictures to show them, and show that we made a difference and we were a very small part of a big difference.

“But nonetheless, we will be a small part.”