One theme of this blog has been posting about things that I think it’s important to post about.
These are occasionally political, often professional (and maybe not that important), and fairly often personal. This one is in the last category and is an effort at making sense of COVID, specifically COVID in our family, with one big caveat that we are okay and are going to be okay. Posting here made more sense to me than posting on social media; that’s not to say this will be fleshed out or necessarily worthy of being a post, but here goes.
We’ve been cautious about COVID, in part because we’ve been able to. My wife started her internship in a school two weeks ago, and, crappily, contracted COVID sometime last week, probably late last week. This was disappointing, in part because she was so cautious about COVID and making sure that she and our son (and I) did not get it. She had some cold-like symptoms beginning around Friday, and by Sunday morning it was pretty apparent that she had some kind of bug. There were active COVID cases at the school - part of what makes this disappointing.
Once Katie tested positive, we… well, we didn’t spring into action. Often these kinds of things require you to think quickly on your feet, and we didn’t. Honestly, we thought that it was certain that my son and I had it, too, but were asymptomatic or - more likely - were a few days behind her. Katie put a mask on promptly, and, I did too. The first night was weird - were in this liminal state. I had actually tried to make an appointment for a rapid test that same day, but something weird happened with my appointment at CVS. Fortunately, when rescheduling, I found an urgent care that could test my son and I both around noon the next day.
We isolated the next morning, except for immediately before we left for the appointment, when Katie gave me a hand to get ready. We waited for around 30 minutes (outside - time which we spent jumping over a puddle) at the urgent care and then had our tests done. 15 minutes later we received the results, we were COVID negative. My first message to Katie was a bad word. We spoke on the phone on the way home and discussed some options: we get a hotel, and Katie isolates at home; Katie gets a hotel, and we isolate at home; we visit my parents, and Katie stays at home; and, we stay at home and isolate in different rooms. We chose the last option and basically hoped for the best. Our plan was for Katie to stay in our bedroom. I would sleep in our living room. We have doors from our bedroom outside; we were able to use this to share (food, clothes) between us. We bought the best HVAC system air filters I could find on Amazon. And so this is what we have done for the last almost four days.
Thankfully, and most importantly, Katie is strong and is doing well. We are optimistic that her symptoms will not be worse than mild-moderate. It is pretty weird to be doing this. I think it is a good test of and testimony to the strength of our marriage. We are doing fine.
Our little one is doing fine. He misses his Mom a lot! It is very odd for him. He will need to be home from daycare for at least 14 days. He and I will continue to get tested. Ultimately, I feel very lucky. I have been able to cancel meetings and basically focus on my son and Katie. I do not have to worry about employment and friends and family have been more than supportive. So it is a weird, weird, weird time, and it is disappointing, and I am thankful.