Vaccine vignettes: Hospital workers find 'peace of mind'

Aminderjit Dhanoa didn't expect he would be "the first one."

The one to launch a vaccination effort against COVID-19 at Edward Hospital in Naperville. Dhanoa intimately knows the toll of the disease. He's a survivor himself.

"It was like nothing I've ever experienced before," said Dhanoa, who suffered serious symptoms for three days in October. "It was the worst."

The 37-year-old respiratory therapist made it through his illness, acutely aware of those who did not.

"Some patients struggle every day, and we wait for them to get better but some of them just don't," he said. "We just keep doing our work."

And that's exactly what he did after nurse Nikki Carini-Wardecki administered the hospital's first vaccine into Dhanoa's right arm Thursday.

Dhanoa got back to work.

"I'm still going to take all the precautions, but it's a peace of mind to have the vaccine now."

- Katlyn Smith and John Starks

Such a heartwarming thing

The waiting line snaked through the hallways Thursday at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights.

Doctors, intensive care unit nurses, fire department paramedics and hospital security guards all stood 6 feet apart for the first doses of the vaccine.

"This is just such a heartwarming thing. We can finally get our lives back to normal," said Laura Aagesen, an emergency room nurse who has led education efforts on COVID-19 test swabbing at the hospital since the spring.

She was the second person to get one of the 2,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines delivered to the hospital at 10:30 a.m. By 2:30 p.m., she was helping oversee a recovery room where the vaccinated employees and first responders were asked to stay for 15 minutes in case they experienced any side effects.

Amid the hectic pace - the hospital's goal was to give doses to 150 people an hour - Aagesen reflected on the moment.

"It's just been so hard for everyone," said Aagesen, who is the hospital emergency department's trauma and stroke coordinator. "Not just here at the hospital and all the team I work with, but the teachers and everything."

She said it was such a blessing to take a step to getting back to normal.

"The staff have had family losses," she said. "We had one of the nurses lose her husband to COVID. We're seeing a lot of human suffering every day, and it just intensifies the fear and anxiety of working as a nurse everyday. The fear of getting it or bringing it home to family - that's a real fear."

- Christopher Placek

Science behind us

Dr. Alicja Salman flexed her arm like a modern-day "Rosie the Riveter" to share in a moment of scientific triumph.

She and her husband, Dr. Jacob Salman, were among the newly vaccinated health care workers at Advocate Sherman Hospital in Elgin. The Chicago couple, both hospitalists on the front lines since March, volunteered for the shots, immensely grateful for the scientists who developed the vaccine.

"We have science behind us," Dr. Jacob Salman said.

He was coming off about a 10-week stretch of caring for patients daily.

"Even from Day 1, when this first started, we had some days off, but I felt it was like an honor and a duty that I need to be here, that we need to be here every single day."

The Salmans weren't feeling any reactions less than an hour after their shots. They'll soon return to work in a couple days with new armor against the virus.

"We still have that adrenaline rush," Dr. Alicja Salman said. "We're still here. We're still helping. We're still trying to push things along."

- Katlyn Smith

Their Christmas present

About 2 p.m. Wednesday, around 960 doses of the Pfizer vaccine arrived at AMITA Health Saint Joseph Hospital Elgin, accompanied by seven unmarked police cars.

Dr. Anandita Gephart, the hospital's chief medical officer, and several co-workers watched the arrival.

"A lot of people today were saying that it is their Christmas present," Gephart said Thursday morning when she was the first to receive the vaccine.

Gephart said her colleagues, some of whom work with COVID-19 patients on a near-daily basis, have worried throughout the pandemic that they will get infected and unwittingly spread the virus to loved ones.

"We are hearing a lot of relief that they will no longer be bringing COVID back to their homes to their children and family," she said.

After getting her shot, Gephart joined hospital employees - some wearing Santa hats and elf ears - in administering the vaccine to other members of the medical staff while Christmas music played lightly in the background.

Gephart sought to set an example for people to not be frightened of the vaccine and to see it as the medical miracle that it is.

"So much research was done in such a short time. I'm just in awe of the scientists," she said. "I want the public to know that getting it is definitely recommended and not to be afraid."

- Doug T. Graham