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“We never get to see Lauren! Can we stop and see Lauren? I miss my friends!” exclaimed Lydia, Deana’s five-and-a-half-year-old daughter as they walked past Lauren’s home with her four-year-old sister, Emilee.
Deana’s heart was breaking. How could she explain to her five-year-old that although Lauren was likely just inside that house, she couldn’t go and see her because they were under quarantine for the coronavirus?
She got down on one knee to get closer to them, and held their hands.
“You need to understand there is a sickness out in the world right now. A lot of people are sick. We can’t have visits with people right now because we don’t want people to get sick,” Deana explained.
Emilee was crying now, “But I don’t have the cough anymore, Mummy.”
“I know baby,” Deana tried to console her, “But this is a much bigger thing than just your cough.”
Deana felt the full weight the words had on her girls.
“That was surreal. That was right out of a book. You don’t have that kind of a conversation. I think that that is something my children will really remember in the future. ‘Mum had to explain to us that there’s a sickness in the world’. My God,” she recalled. “That’s something for someone like Claire to write in a book…”
Stump Creek, Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, USA
It is the end of social isolation week two and quarantine week one for Deana, Justin and their girls, in the small village of Stump Creek near Punxsutawney, famous for being the setting of the 1985 classic movie, Groundhog Day.
Deana and Justin moved their family from Dallas, Texas a year and a half prior to be closer to Deana’s aging father who doesn’t like to travel. Deana works from home in healthcare automation (AI, robotics etc…) and loves her job. Justin, a trained master plumber, is a stay at home Dad. Deana describes her region as being very rural; a red state with a lot of Trump supporters.
Coronavirus in Republican heartland
“My Dad walks around with his Make America Great Again hat and his Trump sticker on his car. People are mostly worried about gun rights and being able to own guns and things up here so we’re extremely weird,” she explained.
She is particularly disheartened by the local community’s response to the coronavirus.
“People are not very well educated and it is very economically depressed. They think this is a democratic hoax and the democrats just want us to be all out of a job… It’s crazy. They are believing this spin that is coming out of conspiracy theorists here,” she continued.
Justin hasn’t met many people since moving from Dallas, so he really enjoys the regular visits from his brother, a long-haul truck driver. Stump Creek is only 10 minutes’ drive from the Interstate 80, which is the only highway that traverses the East and West Coasts of the US directly. Staying with the Deana and Justin is a nice change from the usual truck stops so it is a win win. He stayed over last weekend from Friday to Sunday which they all enjoyed.
That weekend, Justin’s father sent a cryptic message from his home in Dallas.
“I can’t breathe”
“I can’t breathe. I don’t feel good,” he said.
They immediately got on the phone with him. He was barely able to breath and they told him he needed to call an ambulance right away. No, he didn’t need to do that. He was perfectly fine to pack a bag, take a shower, and drive himself.
A short while later they got a message, “Can’t drive, call police.”
Deana sprang into action immediately and called 911. She called from Pennsylvania, so when she told them the address of the emergency was in Texas, they didn’t know what to do. She was stunned. They couldn’t work out how to put her onto the local Texas 911 dispatch.
They finally found the local Sherriff’s number and told her to call them. The Sherriff connected her to someone, who connected her to someone else, and finally someone went on to help her father in-law.
He is now in hospital and while he doesn’t have pneumonia, they have kept him in isolation until his coronavirus test comes back, which takes seven days. Justin’s brother came directly from his father’s place in Dallas to stay with them, so they took the very responsible course of switching from just social isolation, to full quarantine until her father in-law’s test results come back or 14 days pass, whatever happens first.
Sweetness and light, 24/7
Although Deana works from home around 40 hours a week, and Justin is a stay at home Dad, the kids are both at preschool, and they are used to having time to themselves during the day. By the end of week two having the kids 24/7 when I spoke to Deana, they were both very stressed with this change in routine.
There are a variety of things they did to keep the kids occupied, entertained, and still learning. One effective tool was to rotate the toys in the playroom. Every couple of days she puts out a bunch of toys, then she will put them all away, and put out some different toys. That way it seems fresh and exciting for them.
The preschool posted work sheets out for what they would have been doing if they were there. They try to do some of them, but neither of them are teachers or home schoolers, so they are not killing themselves to make sure it is all done.
If you saw Groundhog Day, you would know the weather in Punxsutawney can get pretty special with snow and blizzards, but the weather is turning now, so they can all spend more time outside. They have chickens, so the kids helped make a new chicken coup. They have a trampoline and Justin built them a zip line so there is lots to do in the backyard. But when all else fails, there is always the TV. “A hell of a lot of TV,” she said.
How are the kids?
They miss school and ask about going a lot. The preschool set up a private Facebook page so the kids can leave messages for their teachers and share pictures and activities with the other kids. They are also used to talking with their cousins on Facetime, so they get it and can interact with their classmates that way too.
Also, the girls are very well travelled. Lydia has been to 31 States in America, and Emilee 19, so they are used to different environments and living conditions.
“We are fortunate that they just trust us,” Deana explained. “Whatever the situation is they just trust us and go with it. Better than Mommy. Mommy has a hell of a lot of anxiety.”
Keeping it together isn’t easy for everyone
Deana is bipolar, and both her and Justin cope with their anxieties with alcohol.
“He is in a similar boat to me in regards to alcohol so we need to careful about who is taking care of the children when, and try not to both be three sheets to the wind at the same time,” Deana cautioned herself.
Deana sees therapists regularly, but they have just closed their office to face to face visits because of the risk of coronavirus contamination. Unfortunately Deana’s health insurer does not cover telepsych, or phone / online psych consultations, only face to face.
The US Government and these insurers have not worked out what will happen in this unprecedented time for cases like this.
Deana’s advice for socially isolating with your kids
She stresses the importance of looking after yourself and your family, but understanding it is okay to not always be okay.
“Most important is to give yourself and your children and your partner a wide berth. Because everybody is experiencing a lot of stress here and we have a tendency to expect everyone else to act and behave the same way they would have before. But everyone has additional anxiety, so if your kids are extra cranky or extra needy, it is important to understand that this is a stressful time for them too, and let them have their moments.
“Also, a lot of people are trying to do the home school and focus strongly on the education piece, but I think it is actually a much better time to just devote to family relationships and attachments. I don’t think schooling needs to be as important as some people are placing it,” she said.
A reminder to reach out
It was awesome catching up with Deana. We stay connected through Facebook and a lovely active Facebook Messenger group which includes a bunch of other lovely people we went on exchange to University in Japan with in the late 1990s. But we hadn’t had a one on one chat for YEARS.
It was easy. And really nice. And right now, I think we could ALL use more of this. I intend to take this opportunity of slowing down socially in the physical sense, to connect with those I have not been physically close with for some time, but miss in my life. I am also here if you want to share your story, or just need a chat. I would love to hear from you.
Everyday doesn’t have to be Groundhog Day.
The End
Thanks for reading and/or listening. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please like and share on social media. I’m on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin and my handle is @ClaireRWriter.
If you want to work with me, check out my website ClaireRWriter.com and book a meeting.
Until next time!
Like!! Really appreciate you sharing this blog post.Really thank you! Keep writing.
Thanks for your feedback. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
I could not resist commenting. Very well written!
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it.