In the thick of what we're going through right now, as a nation, together, I personally find that the one thought that can comfort me the most, even when the ugliness of it all is staring right at me, is that from my point of view, the idea of teamwork is so clear and never seemed so evident.

For the sake of full disclosure, I'm not a doctor, not a nurse, but I'm with a collective group of hospital workers who are still facing this risk of contracting or carrying the virus every day. I'm a dietary assistant at my local hospital, and I face the risk every day either from regular interactions with other workers who actually work around this virus daily, or from personally handling the dirty trays of the patients who are currently infected.

Our hospital is taking every necessary precaution, despite a global lack of essential supplies. I feel comfortable walking around that hospital and interacting with my peers, knowing I've suited up and washed up correctly, but that's the scary thing about this virus: it could sneak up on you and attack when you least expect it.

When all the hype was starting to progress about the potential danger of this virus, I'll admit, I wasn't budging. I thought it'd go away soon, not impact a whole lot of people and just simply be a blimp in our current lives.

I was wrong.

I didn't seriously start worrying about how quick and dangerous this virus was until America got as many confirmed cases as it did as well as deaths, just in the last couple weeks. My home state, West Virginia, was the last state to have a confirmed case of this virus; while this seemed like a slight win, we had to face that we were having to prepare for a storm.

Currently, the hospital I work for is preparing for a large influx of possible COVID patients as we speak. Non-essential surgeries have been postponed, severe restrictions on visitors and a lot of employees ordered to work from home if possible. With all this happening, the hospital has been quieter with less patients and no visitors to tend to.

The calm before the storm.

I am technically listed as an essential employee because my job falls under the patient services category. I, along with hundreds of other essential employees I work with on a daily basis, have been issued cards that go with our hospital IDs to show law enforcement in case we were caught breaking the quarantine.

Currently, only eight states in America are NOT under stay-at-home orders. In West Virginia, my home state, our stay-at-home order, issued by Gov. Justice, started on March 24th.

Before the quarantine orders were put into place, I never really went out a lot anyway. I came to work, and I went home, mostly; so I wasn't too worried about the possibility of cabin fever. For my job, I don't come into exact contact with patients, but I work up on the floors where there could be possibly infected patients.

I interact with other employees that work all around the hospital by sharing an elevator with a nurse or standing in the cafeteria line behind a housekeeper. When I leave work, I make sure I've washed my hands and arms well and disinfect my phone, badge and shoes.

Then, when I get home I leave my shoes outside and immediately change out of my scrubs. But, for a lot of healthcare employees, such as Nurses, Xray Techs and Respiratory Therapists around the world, and even a few at the hospital where I work, going home barely even seems like an option.

My family has held back on seeing our elder relatives. I used to stay with my grandmother once a week and go over there frequently to help with housework or take her to the store, but I haven't seen her since the middle of March. The hardest part of all of this is knowing that I can't see or help my grandmothers.

We won't be able to come together for Easter dinner and celebrate like we do every year, but I know that staying away from them is the best thing I can do to help keep them healthy. I personally know an X-ray Tech at the hospital I work for, and she's expressed how interactions with her husband and kids are limited out of fear of possibly spreading the virus.

And while social distancing and quarantining definitely has a lot of downsides, there are some BIG changes that I've noticed in people since this has happened.

I've noticed that my coworkers, whether from my department or any other team of hospital workers, they all not only have a goal to get through the end of the day, but to do it safely to go home to their families healthy. Because of that, they're paying more attention to the way they go about their daily work routine to make sure they're being cautious.

They're also paying attention to their actions towards other coworkers around them to make sure they're being careful as well. A nurse I work with almost daily reminds a CNA that it's better to wear a coffee filter inside their N95 mask so they'll be able to breathe a little better.

A couple of Central Services employees that roll the used and limited supply of N95 masks in big tubs around the hospital to be cleaned daily reminded me the other day before I got on the elevator to not touch the handlebars, just in case.

No longer are we as hospital workers just hoping for the end of the day, we are PRAYING that we get to the end of the day, untouched by this virus.