Reshicka Upshaw wakes before dawn to get her children ready for school. She makes sure their teeth are brushed, their clothes clean, their homework done.Holy Spirit You are welcome here. Lead us Guide us Teach us and Comfort us as only You know how. Hallelujah.
Travel nurse Reshicka Upshaw, 40, of Cincinnati, gets a thank-you fist bump from Alfred Gutierrez, 70, after he received a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 shot at a mass vaccination site at the Ontario Convention Center. First, she talked it over with her children. Her 22- and 24-year-old daughters agreed to care for their younger siblings, including the baby, their brother and their 13,- 16- and 18-year-old sisters. But, her daughters told her, "You can only do 30 days."
Travel nurse Marjoy LeBrun, left, from Atlanta, talks to Vernell Jones before giving him the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Ontario Convention Center. Employed by agencies, they typically work on short-term contracts at elevated wages. The travel nurses stepped off charter buses and out of rental cars, well before county residents lined up outside the Ontario Convention Center. The nurses wore gray and blue scrubs and carried coffee to steel themselves for the 10-hour day ahead.
Some nurses administered vaccines, others did data entry or staffed the observation area. Upshaw was the floater for the day, filling in where needed.Reshicka Upshaw, traveling nurse from Cincinnati, Ohio Upshaw estimates that she's given at least 800 vaccines since she arrived in late January. Residents have invited her to church and to join them on vacation in Hawaii. More than one person has told her she has "the hands of an angel."Within 20 minutes of the site opening, Alejandra Rodriguez and her husband, Ricardo Martinez, were directed into a parking space in front of the vaccination station.
Upshaw put a check mark on a Post-it Note that she stuck to the windshield. It meant that the couple were ready to be vaccinated. Another nurse, Leshea Moore, came over and swabbed Rodriguez's arm with an alcohol wipe through the driver's side window before she pushed the needle into her skin. That morning, she fielded calls from her son who told her his baby sister needed Pampers instead of Pull-Ups.