Self-Isolation
By Richard Burke
Two weeks and beyond our coming home from warmer places, the day the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, we count the ways our lives are different – and the same.
The WHO declaration and our crossing back into Canada at Coutts were only coincidental. And, we didn’t know about the statement until after we had settled down after unpacking and Marlene cleaning the house top to bottom. She should have been resting, since she had been under the weather for a week, but, you know, things needed to be done.
When we left on a road trip down Highway 4 to Coutts and I-15 to Las Vegas and the Palm Springs area Feb. 19, the coronavirus was in the news: 76,262 cases worldwide, mostly in China. The death toll was 2,160, only eight of which were not in China, none in North America. The more specific term COVID-19 had begun to be used only a week before we left, but the severity of the coronavirus’s effect on the world was not top of mind. The fact that Feb. 19 was our 20th Anniversary.
Stopping that night at Idaho Falls was part of the celebration. Renting a nice hotel room and going out to a restaurant called the Sandpiper that overlooked the falls (it was dark so we couldn’t see them) was appropriate.
Fast forward to Feb. 28: 84,615 cases, 2,953 deaths. We were leaving Las Vegas after having spent a week there (we don’t gamble and could have seen the sights in a few days), headed further south on I-15 to Palm Springs and me with a deep cough developing. Seemed like allergies, which made sense when I saw pollen covering the car. Next day, the first coronavirus death in the US was recorded, in the Seattle area. News by the day was more centred on COVID-19 everywhere.
In short order, we spent time with several family members also seeking respite from the Canadian winter. The cough caused my stomach and back to hurt. Maybe this was more than allergies. I tried to keep my distance, not successfully. At one family dinner in a Mexican Restaurant, a nephew sitting next to me said I was coughing up a lung. I was certainly wondering why I was there. Meantime, across the table, Marlene was feeling worse by the minute. She really wondered about the wisdom of being there as well. She self-isolated for the next couple of days. I didn’t, choosing to golf, not as aware as I should have been about social distancing, although you didn’t hear much about that then.
The day before we came home, someone was tested positive for the coronavirus near where we were staying. We had heard a couple of days earlier Las Vegas had its first case. I had been feeling a general anxiety about being away from home, so March 8 couldn’t come too soon for us to drive north across the desert on our way to Canada.
Crossing the border late on the third day of travel brought the usual smile – home is a good place. It felt different this time, better, maybe more urgent. I still had a fresh memory of a dinner back in Southern California our second day there. As part of a group of eight Canadians, I suggested with tongue in cheek that the six from Saskatchewan must be anxious for spring to arrive there – in June. From across the table, one responded forcefully that Alberta was so much better off without the NDP and that all businesses in Alberta were suffering horrendously, and on and on. Dumbfounded, coughing and regretting having opened my mouth, I replied, ”Well, I feel blessed every day to be an Albertan and Canadian,” and that we have it so good compared with others. I couldn’t imagine how switching governments would make much difference.
Home for a day, with all that behind us, Marlene tried to get through to the 811 Alberta Health Link, finally succeeding at 11:30 p.m. We were instructed to get tested for coronavirus. Next day, we were sitting in the car in the parking lot behind the Health Unit getting swabs stuck way up our noses. The nurse, in Armageddon gear, measured our faces to see how long the swab needed to be. She was very cordial.
I found out three days later by phone from Alberta Health I had tested negative and could leave the house while practising social distancing. Word came two days after that Marlene also tested negative. That was March 18, when worldwide the number of cases stood at 218,744, tripled in a month and deaths 8,951, quadrupled. A week later, writing this, the numbers were 454,983, and deaths 20,549, both more than doubled in a week. I’m guessing the numbers illustrate the term exponential growth and not flattening the curve, as our public health officials are urging us to help achieve by staying home.
Through it all, we were communicating often with family who were in Mexico and Hawaii, as well as those in Palm Springs trying unsuccessfully to get home early. They are all home now, self-isolating, as is our neighbour, for two weeks. And our adult children are having to deal with today’s reality, two of them in the health care field and the other forced to work at home in an oil-related job. All this with the grandkids at home too.
Support seems more urgent. Reassurance is important. For the Church’s part, it has shown over millennia how to respond.
From an article in the Catholic Herald, a publication in the United Kingdom: “What is most impressive – and perhaps least known – about the Church’s fight against pandemics is its consistent support for physicians, nurses and medical assistants involved in them. As the Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage notes, “Saints’ shrines … were a natural refuge during plague epidemics.” However, “miraculous healing was not an alternative to learned medicine. Most people understood that a saint’s intervention was a normal part of a continuum that included learned medicine.”
What is the same through this for us is maintaining the faith, particularly through Lent. What is different is watching Bishop McGrattan’s mass online Sunday morning, sitting on our living room couch, after which Marlene said, “Thank you for going to church with me.”
Grocery shopping is also the same, but different, certainly less frequent, as we try to stay home. Doing the chicken dance to keep a distance from others in the store is new.
Even staying home is the same, but different. It is never difficult finding things to do, like minding the new seedlings in the greenhouse, or focussing on an intricate painting Marlene is working on.
Thankfully, there seems to be more time to contemplate the present and the future, in what we do and what we are asked to do, especially considering the guidance of Jesus in all of it.
The WHO declaration and our crossing back into Canada at Coutts were only coincidental. And, we didn’t know about the statement until after we had settled down after unpacking and Marlene cleaning the house top to bottom. She should have been resting, since she had been under the weather for a week, but, you know, things needed to be done.
When we left on a road trip down Highway 4 to Coutts and I-15 to Las Vegas and the Palm Springs area Feb. 19, the coronavirus was in the news: 76,262 cases worldwide, mostly in China. The death toll was 2,160, only eight of which were not in China, none in North America. The more specific term COVID-19 had begun to be used only a week before we left, but the severity of the coronavirus’s effect on the world was not top of mind. The fact that Feb. 19 was our 20th Anniversary.
Stopping that night at Idaho Falls was part of the celebration. Renting a nice hotel room and going out to a restaurant called the Sandpiper that overlooked the falls (it was dark so we couldn’t see them) was appropriate.
Fast forward to Feb. 28: 84,615 cases, 2,953 deaths. We were leaving Las Vegas after having spent a week there (we don’t gamble and could have seen the sights in a few days), headed further south on I-15 to Palm Springs and me with a deep cough developing. Seemed like allergies, which made sense when I saw pollen covering the car. Next day, the first coronavirus death in the US was recorded, in the Seattle area. News by the day was more centred on COVID-19 everywhere.
In short order, we spent time with several family members also seeking respite from the Canadian winter. The cough caused my stomach and back to hurt. Maybe this was more than allergies. I tried to keep my distance, not successfully. At one family dinner in a Mexican Restaurant, a nephew sitting next to me said I was coughing up a lung. I was certainly wondering why I was there. Meantime, across the table, Marlene was feeling worse by the minute. She really wondered about the wisdom of being there as well. She self-isolated for the next couple of days. I didn’t, choosing to golf, not as aware as I should have been about social distancing, although you didn’t hear much about that then.
The day before we came home, someone was tested positive for the coronavirus near where we were staying. We had heard a couple of days earlier Las Vegas had its first case. I had been feeling a general anxiety about being away from home, so March 8 couldn’t come too soon for us to drive north across the desert on our way to Canada.
Crossing the border late on the third day of travel brought the usual smile – home is a good place. It felt different this time, better, maybe more urgent. I still had a fresh memory of a dinner back in Southern California our second day there. As part of a group of eight Canadians, I suggested with tongue in cheek that the six from Saskatchewan must be anxious for spring to arrive there – in June. From across the table, one responded forcefully that Alberta was so much better off without the NDP and that all businesses in Alberta were suffering horrendously, and on and on. Dumbfounded, coughing and regretting having opened my mouth, I replied, ”Well, I feel blessed every day to be an Albertan and Canadian,” and that we have it so good compared with others. I couldn’t imagine how switching governments would make much difference.
Home for a day, with all that behind us, Marlene tried to get through to the 811 Alberta Health Link, finally succeeding at 11:30 p.m. We were instructed to get tested for coronavirus. Next day, we were sitting in the car in the parking lot behind the Health Unit getting swabs stuck way up our noses. The nurse, in Armageddon gear, measured our faces to see how long the swab needed to be. She was very cordial.
I found out three days later by phone from Alberta Health I had tested negative and could leave the house while practising social distancing. Word came two days after that Marlene also tested negative. That was March 18, when worldwide the number of cases stood at 218,744, tripled in a month and deaths 8,951, quadrupled. A week later, writing this, the numbers were 454,983, and deaths 20,549, both more than doubled in a week. I’m guessing the numbers illustrate the term exponential growth and not flattening the curve, as our public health officials are urging us to help achieve by staying home.
Through it all, we were communicating often with family who were in Mexico and Hawaii, as well as those in Palm Springs trying unsuccessfully to get home early. They are all home now, self-isolating, as is our neighbour, for two weeks. And our adult children are having to deal with today’s reality, two of them in the health care field and the other forced to work at home in an oil-related job. All this with the grandkids at home too.
Support seems more urgent. Reassurance is important. For the Church’s part, it has shown over millennia how to respond.
From an article in the Catholic Herald, a publication in the United Kingdom: “What is most impressive – and perhaps least known – about the Church’s fight against pandemics is its consistent support for physicians, nurses and medical assistants involved in them. As the Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage notes, “Saints’ shrines … were a natural refuge during plague epidemics.” However, “miraculous healing was not an alternative to learned medicine. Most people understood that a saint’s intervention was a normal part of a continuum that included learned medicine.”
What is the same through this for us is maintaining the faith, particularly through Lent. What is different is watching Bishop McGrattan’s mass online Sunday morning, sitting on our living room couch, after which Marlene said, “Thank you for going to church with me.”
Grocery shopping is also the same, but different, certainly less frequent, as we try to stay home. Doing the chicken dance to keep a distance from others in the store is new.
Even staying home is the same, but different. It is never difficult finding things to do, like minding the new seedlings in the greenhouse, or focussing on an intricate painting Marlene is working on.
Thankfully, there seems to be more time to contemplate the present and the future, in what we do and what we are asked to do, especially considering the guidance of Jesus in all of it.