Day 3 - COVID19: Our Weekly Normal... Or So I Thought

Back to Our Weekly Normal...Or So I Thought

DAY 3: It's Wednesday morning. My morning rush was less rushed this day.

Before dismissal during our planning time, two of my co-workers had just walked into my classroom and we were discussing our end of 3rd-quarter to-do-lists. That's when I noticed that T.J. had called me an hour earlier. I called him back, thinking he just wanted to update me about having left work early since he had just returned from an exhausting trip the previous day. He did leave work early but not for the reason I thought. He left work because he heard from his friend Jeff.

My conversation with T.J. was short. His friend Jeff had called him late in the morning when he was at work. Jeff had left him a message explaining that one of his travel buddies in his skiing trip to Austria had tested positive for coronavirus. Jeff was informing T.J. that he was getting tested that day and would know his results in 24 to 48 hours. Jeff was bummed to have to share the news with T.J. I can only imagine. You haven't seen your college friend in almost two decades and this is the memory they'll share of meeting up. T.J. shared the message with me later that evening. The man sounded somber, apologetic, concerned, not just for himself but for T.J. and his family. I am thankful for his response, for immediately calling my husband, for taking on the importance of the situation, for being aware that informing others is taking care of others.

Mi querida familia y amigos, it was finally real. My heart dropped. You know that tight feeling you get in your chest but it feels like it pushes further in? Yeah, well, that's what I felt. Anxiety sometimes feels like that, like a pressure that expands. For me at least. This feeling was my heart dropping, not the anxiety one, not on this day. In any case, my mind was racing. What did all of this mean? Was T.J. okay? What did we have to do next? What did I need to do?
 
During school dismissal my co-workers and I joked about me keeping my distance. I did because, although my co-workers were joking and I along with them, the news had been picking up and we honestly weren't too sure how to approach, interact, react, act, with this coronavirus possibility hitting so close to home. At this point it really only was a possibility. It was the friend of my husband's friend that tested positive. Not Jeff. Not T.J.

I kept bouncing this information in my head. I did speak to one of the administrators about the possibility that my husband was in close contact with someone who might possibly be positive for coronavirus. Maybe, possibly, who knows, but just in case... It was all just a very removed possibility but I still wanted to give a heads up. The supervisor listened, showed the appropriate amount of concern (listen, there's a large staff, and I honestly don't expect administration to know me that well), and asked me to keep them updated. It was close to home, it was real, yet, not just real enough. To keep it in perspective, for me all of this happened within a span of one to two hours.

I was calm on my drive home. And for sure in a state of disbelief. My father-in-law had picked up Joseph from daycare. T.J. had left work immediately and spent the whole day cleaning and disinfecting the house. He started keeping as much physical distance from us as possible that evening, not anything extreme, but definitely treating the situation in a way that neither his son nor his wife could get sick in case he was contagious.

Later that evening, my WhatsApp group with my coworkers was blowing up around dinner time. Major sporting events were being cancelled. The local news channels were in high excitement with the latest information about the coronavirus. The day T.J. had returned from his trip, our very own county already had a couple of cases confirmed (see this timeline). It was starting to become ground zero for our State. All this is simultaneously happening the same week T.J. received news from Jeff. We were experiencing this regional frenzy first hand, if not at the very beginning, then definitely not far behind it.

My boss called me later that evening during my son's bedtime routine at 8:30. She asked me not to come to work the next day. It was a precautionary measure. I was freaking out after I hung up. There were so many things I had to do in the next couple of days. Furthermore, my personal paid time off was limited to when my son has a doctor's appointment or gets sick. I couldn't afford to just take days off. There were so many emotions I was experiencing after that phone call. Yet, I knew and agreed that it was crucial to the well-being of others. Even though my husband hadn't traveled to a high risk area, our quarantine started the day T.J. received Jeff's call.

However, as real as all of this felt, especially because it was affecting us directly, there was still that chance, that possibility, that Jeff's results would be negative.