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 But that's exactly what happened to me recently, and the impact was
overwhelming.
After spending the best part of a year taking and editing pictures
of different aspects of the coronavirus pandemic in Britain for
Reuters, I contracted COVID-19 about a month ago and was taken to a
London hospital in an ambulance for tests.
In a cubicle set up for suspected COVID-19 cases in the Accident &
Emergency ward, I struck up a conversation the nurse treating me and
told her what I did for a living.
We chatted about "Clap for Carers", a phenomenon in Britain early in
the pandemic where people would stand in doorsteps, on streets and
outside hospitals every Thursday night to clap and cheer the health
workers battling hard to contain the crisis.
For me, photographing those scenes had been both rewarding and
immensely frustrating.
On the one hand, newspapers and broadcasters loved the images we and
others provided of an uplifting moment each week amid the pandemic
gloom.
On the other, I always wanted to know more about what was going on
inside the wards and hear medics' personal stories. But with media
access limited at the time, they simply became "the anonymous nurse"
in my mind.
For the nurse running tests on me that night, the public displays of
support had been a major boost to morale.
At one point during our conversation, she showed me on old
photograph on her phone of a newspaper front page featuring nurses
hugging and smiling one Thursday evening months before.
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 "Did you take this?" she asked.
"Ha! Yes," I replied sheepishly, recognising my
own picture.
"That's me on the left," she said, her eyes
lighting up. I laughed and then
I cried. I really cried, and I don't know why. It was probably the
real-world contact with an "anonymous nurse" going about her
business inside a ward. Possibly it was also because I was lying in
a hospital bed, with tubes running out of me, not knowing what would
come next.
The nurse went off down the corridor to fetch a friend and colleague
who was also in the picture. The colleague said her mother had
framed it and put it on her mantelpiece - pride of place in her
family home.
Hearing that was as good as getting a picture on the front page of a
newspaper. She also joked that I hadn't caught her best side.
I was discharged a few hours later. As I walked out of the ward to
recuperate at home, I put my hand on my heart and thanked the first
nurse. She wishes to remain anonymous.
(Editing by Mike Collett-White)
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