I want to start this post by thanking all the health service workers. At this time where any human contact can be a legit life-threatening experience, they’re out there on the front lines putting themselves in danger for the greater good. For our well-being. But let’s also look at another side of their sacrifice most of us don’t really know about, which starts with the people around them. Whether it’s a significant other, kids, parents, and even roommates, every doctor and nurse has someone they come home to after working those ungodly shifts where the big Rona can get them. Let’s stick to one example. Say a nurse. Say that nurse is married without kids and lives with his or her partner in a one-bedroom apartment. Say the partner has a job. Say they work with me in the same office... You get where I’m going right?
So one peaceful Friday evening, emphasis on PEACEFUL, I was home doing absolutely nothing (cause everything was already starting to shut down). All of a sudden, I get a text from a co-worker saying their nurse partner had just been informed that a patient they had been in contact with a few days back tested positive for COVID.
*Now imagine my face (fairly young with hair in all the right places) and the camera zooms in as I start to develop a shocked and worried expression. aaand scene!*
In that split second my life turned upside-down. I immediately started feeling like I myself became the infamous Coronavirus with all its might and evilness, killing everything I touch or so much as breathe on. Living in the house with family, who are over 60 years old (yes, I’m willing to embarrass myself to get my point across), I knew I had to take extreme precautions. I started wearing gloves for anything except sleeping or taking a shower, wore a bandana around my face (we didn’t have masks at home yet), and pretty much used Clorox spray to sanitize every tile I stepped on.
The hardest part was that you had to be extremely aware ALL the time. So you’re wearing gloves the whole time, but then you have an itch. You can’t touch another part of your body with the glove. You have to take it off. Same thing when it comes to the phone. I touch my face with the phone so now I can’t touch it with my gloves. And I don’t have an infinite supply of gloves either, so the very act of taking them off without touching the outside part becomes a whole mission.
Thankfully for me, health service providers at the time were some of the very few people who had access to COVID tests, and since the partner job is as essential as it gets, the results came in that Sunday afternoon. And they were …. Drumroll…… Negative!!!!!
The gloves were ripped off, the bandana waved in the air, and I broke out in the most sincere victory dance imaginable. I literally felt as if I was the only winner of the Powerball jackpot. Although it only took 3 days for the scare to pass, it felt like multiple lifetimes. But I pulled through so all is good on this side. For now.
To be continued….
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