Hey, it's Anna. A few months ago, we shared stories from essential workers with you, what

they were seeing on the job, how they were feeling, what they were doing to cope, including

from this listener, Sharon.

I am a CNA who works at the hospital in Virginia and I'm on the front line to taking care

of COVID-19 patients.

Sharon is 40 years old. She lives in Northern Virginia where she's a single mom, her daughter's

13.

She suffers from chronic asthma and she told us then she was worried about going into

work every day.

If I were to get the virus, there is not a good outlook for me.

So just getting things in order of the only thing that's keeping me sane is knowing that

if I'm not here, I've done everything possible to help the next person take care of my kid.

Since then, we've heard from a lot of you wondering how Sharon is doing. We've been

thinking about her too. So I called her up last week to find out what's happened since

she's sent in that voice memo.

Ooh, yeah, that voice mail, that was the rough one.

What happened after you sent that to us?

After I sent that, I realized that I needed to take a leave from work because I understood

that my mental was not right at that time.

And so to go to the hospital where you're feeling overwhelmed, overworked, and where you

already leave is feeling drowned, I couldn't take it much more. So I have to take a leave.

When did your leave start?

...