My apologies as this one bounces around a bit.  I started writing in April 2020, picked it back up in July 2020, again in January 2021, and added the painful finishing touch in October 2022. 

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July 2020
The following was written mid April 2020. But for the life of me I couldn’t finish it. Each time I tried my day would inevitably be ruined. Depression. Sadness. Disinterest. It wasn’t till I went for a social-distanced walk with my best friend – which at the time felt equally illegal and immoral, that she said something profound: maybe you can’t write about it because it’s not over yet.

She was right! All my previously terrible posts about my daughter almost dying were palpable because I already knew she survived them!

I honestly don’t know if all four of my immediate family members will survive the year; till there is a vaccine; till there is herd immunity…

That being said, here is my original post from mid April 2020. Naive? Maybe not. Terrified? 100%. Lysoling every package? You bet!

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April 2020
Coronavirus. Blah. It’s all we hear about 24/7 since the first cases appearing in late 2019. At the time I’m writing this I have been quarantined for 31 days, since the evening of March 14, 2020; two days later we were officially ordered to “shelter in place” (SIP).  So ominous sounding.

The early days were the hardest.  Scary, new, stressful, on edge, waiting for signs, symptoms, to appear. I thought then maybe I should start journaling or blogging again to document this time, but we were all going through the same emotions.  Historians will capture this time just fine without me putting pen to pad.  Last night however it hit me.  I jotted down an entire page of notes in less than 5 minutes.  If for nothing else, I want to remember this time.  This will be our version of our grandparents’ Great Depression and the impacts it had on their psyches for the rest of their lives. Like the inspiration for this whole blog, I want to remember all the terrible things we’ve survived.

Before the SIP order was official, people had already started panicking and making runs on grocery stores and Costco.  On Friday March 13th (how appropriate), I made my last shopping trip to date – I went to Costco for dog food – the one thing we had forgotten to stock up on.  Most stores were already out of toilet paper and water (like WTF?! but whatever – the great facepalm action of this pandemic.)  There weren’t any cleaning supplies left either, but that was understandable at least.   While there I was receiving text messages of rumors the schools were closing.  By the time I got through the seriously massive line, and being stuck behind a woman yelling at the cashier for not letting her buy the six packs of water she had pushed around the store (ugh), I escaped to walk the football field length to where I had finally found parking earlier.

I got in the car and saw it was official, the schools were closed.  I cried.  The first of many times.  So much was changing so quickly.  Thinking about the schools closing still makes me cry, even while writing this.  We said goodbye to our friends not knowing for how long, and definitely not expecting it for as long as it has become.  A few weeks later when the governor announced that school would not be resuming again this year Alex and I cried together while I told him.  He loves his teacher and his school and his friends so much.  This was his only year at this school – next year he will be at the school walking distance from our house, with only some of his old classmates joining him.  The kids are losing so much during this time.  Last night at bedtime, Alex asked if we could go for a drive the next day to see his old school, “the one I can never go back to.”

I’ve been really open with Alex about the virus and the situation we are in.  He has become neurotic about washing his hands, which is great but sad.  On the way home from his last baseball practice before SIP, he cried all the way home because he couldn’t eat his snacks because his dad didn’t have hand sanitizer in his truck.  He told him it was OK to eat it anyways but Alex still wouldn’t.

The big asterisk on our situation is Addison.  She is the vulnerable demographic for COVID-19.  She has been so healthy for the last year plus (which is why I haven’t blogged in so long).  Since SIP we have been giving her extra breathing treatments and her percussion vest twice a day.  If she does get sick this will at least give us the head start of keeping her lungs clean and clear.  I’ve seen my daughter intubated before multiple times and I don’t want to ever again.  It keeps me up at night thinking about her getting sick and having to be hospitalized and only one or neither of us being allowed to be with her when she dies.  This thought tortures me.

Addison has really lost the most from SIP. At school she had a teacher with a small student ratio, 1:1 nurse, 1:1 ASL interpreter, Speech & Language pathologist, physical therapist, occupational therapist, and feeding specialists. And now she has me.  I cannot begin to give her a fraction of the support she was receiving at school. It fills me with so much grief and guilt.  I have two children at vastly different developmental stages that both require my attention.  Everything with Addison is hands on, I cannot put an assignment in front of her and do something else, or help Alex with his work.  I am more busy during SIP than I was before.  Even while writing this I feel guilty that I’m not using this time to work on my ASL program.  Addison continues to have little to no interest in signing regardless. I fucking hate thinking and writing about this.  It sends me down a deep hole of regret and frustration.  We just can’t seem to unlock this girl.  It’s been a long running joke that Addison does so much more at school than at home. More signing, more walking, more eating, more everything.  Well it isn’t funny anymore. I can’t educate this girl on my own.  And it’s not lack of resources.  Her teacher is amazing and gives us endless amount of resources and support, it’s just not realistic in our days to get to even a fraction of it.

As for me, I’ve become accustomed to staying home.  I was made for this. I’m an introvert – I love staying home. On a vain note,  the hardest part for me at first was losing the gym.  On the last day before SIP was ordered I completed my ten-week bodybuilding program.  My big goal was to repeat the program and roll into 35 in the best shape of my life. I’ve honestly had to mourn the loss of this goal and my progress.  It’s so hard to find motivation to workout at home.  Not helping the matter is my new love of baking bread!   Real life, fresh-made artisan bread out of the oven slathered in salted butter is life itself.

What I’ve found that helps me during this time, and I acknowledge probably doesn’t help most people, is the fact that I don’t expect this SIP to lift anytime soon.  I expect this quarantine to be long and slow.  Accepting this makes each extension expected rather than a shock.  I also acknowledge how fortunate my family is to not be financially affected during this time – my husband is an essential government employee and I am my daughter’s home healthcare provider.  Most of our friends have been affected and want/need this to end as soon as possible.  Thankfully we can ride this out; we have to protect our daughter with co-morbid conditions.

I worry about how we will even be able to go back to “normal” after this.  With contagion now a fear along with mass shootings, will large crowds ever feel safe again?

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January 5th, 2021
Tomorrow, on the 297th day since our first lockdown began, I will receive my first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. It didn’t even cross my mind that I would be a candidate before the general public. Turns out my status as an In-Home Support Services (IHSS) Provider for Addison qualifies me. I started shaking when I found out. I wanted to cry. It felt big. Not because I was scared, I’m not. It feels like hope when we complacently hear about over 360,000 Americans dead already from the virus.

My family survived the year but there is little reason to believe 2021 will be any better. Yes, we have vaccines now but the roll out is slow. Addison was back in school and it was going amazingly before they shut it back down again for at least December and January. Oh yeah, and the new fancy virus mutation that is even more contagious!

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October 6th, 2022
More or less the pandemic is over. Covid is just a part of our world now. I ended up getting two more vaccine shots, including a booster. We opted to not vaccinate our kids. The kids went back to school, first with masks, but now finally without. In April 2022 my son and I both got it. We had attended his schools first “normal” event – a spring fling dance which turned into a superspreader with over 100 kids out of school the following week. We still did not want Addison to get it so we isolated upstairs in the master bedroom. My husband took off work to care for all of us. He brought us every meal and anything else we needed. Placing them on a table positioned outside our bedroom door. I know it was a hard week for him doing everything but we appreciated it immensely.

I didn’t feel too sick at first, Alex mostly had a cough and upper respiratory symptoms. We watched movies and shows, and played board games. I got so tired of playing games, all I wanted to do was do puzzles and watch movies to pass the time. I did end up getting very sick. “Very” by my definition of comfort. I didn’t need to go to the hospital but if I was reclined I could not clear my airway. I cried to my husband that I was scared I was going to die in my sleep. I was dizzy and foggy, but no upper respiratory symptoms like my son; and neither of us had fevers.

Some days when my husband and daughter weren’t home, we would put on masks and go downstairs and out to the backyard using a Clorox wipe as a glove to open the doors. We would lay in the sun to soak up some vitamin D and cry. Like I’ve said before, I am a home body, but staying in one room for days on end messes with your head. I missed my husband. I missed my daughter. In retrospect it was a really special time Alex and I got to spend together. We probably won’t ever have the chance to spend an entire week together like that again. Just him and I, every meal, ever minute, every night, cuddling. We were obviously so happy when we finally tested negative and could emerge and return to life and school. Since then, Alex has mentioned with fondness that he wants to get covid again so we could spend another whole week together.

Addison escaped getting covid from us in April thankfully. In July 2022 she got sent home from school for having a runny nose… I tested her at home and she was negative. We went on a camping trip that weekend; her runny nose became the worst I’ve ever seen! Soaking through her pillow case and sheets at night. But no cough or fever, and in general acting happy. While also on the trip my son was complaining of a sore throat. When we got home I could see a huge ulcer in the back on his throat and made him an appointment. I took both kids so if it was strep they could both get medication. They swabbed them both, and also tested them for covid. Both came back negative for strep, but Addison came back positive for covid! When I got the results I tested her again at home, negative. Between being sent home from school with a runny nose, and this day at home, the PCR test picked up that she had had covid. Our high risk comorbidity child, so sure she would be on deaths doorstep if she got it, had prevailed with only a runny nose. A bad runny nose, but only that!

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Sadly, the one thing that didn’t survive the pandemic was my marriage.