Quarantine Chronicles: SHU shares her family's experience

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hartunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun. From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode one hundred and eighty, which is first airing in mid January of twenty twenty one. I've been referring to this episode as the Quarantine Chronicles because Sarah has said she's willing to talk about her family's experience with COVID and quarantine over the past few weeks. You know, one of the things we all love about Sarah, those of you who read her blog the shoebox dot com shubox dot com, is she's so open about her life and shares her whole story. I mean, we've been there with the great stuff that we get to celebrate along with her. She's been you know, so transparent about sharing her struggles about various things, I mean the whole you know, PMDD we've talked about on this program before, or you know, she's talked about infertility and things like this. It's just such an open book, which is such a gift to all of us. And of course, so she's been talking about her family then testing positive for COVID, and I know that it's involved being very vulnerable to share stuff like this on her blog, and sure enough, you open yourself up for criticism, which you know, I really think is unfortunate. I mean, I humans love their stories, and when something bad happens to someone, sometimes people have a tendency to try to figure out what the person did wrong, because if there's something the person did wrong, then I guess it can't happen to me. But of course this is totally really ridiculous. I mean, bad stuff happens to good people all the time. So anyway, off the soap bucks. So we're going to talk about Sarah's experience. Sarah, First of all, how is everyone doing? You know, you guys are mostly on the mend, right, we are mostly on the mend. I would not say, one hundred percent, because it is a really weird virus, and I can talk about that. It's not like, you know, normally, something runs through your house and you're like, okay, I'm really sick, and then you're better. It's a little trickier and sneakier than that, which is sort of like against my nature as someone who just likes to be like okay and then let's move on to the next thing. It's a new year, whatever. So that part's kind of interesting. But overall, we have been super super lucky in our family and in our close context that I'm not going to go into detail about that because that is not my story. But everyone around us who has been affected by this luckily has been fine and is doing well. No one has had to be hospitalized, which is wonderful. And so yes, as much as my story will be interesting to some, I guess two things. Number One, I just don't want to acknowledge my luck here and that we didn't get super sick. So while it's, you know, an interesting story, there are much more powerful and kind of gut wrenching stories that you can hear all across the world. And the other thing, actually, I don't know what the other thing was, but that's okay. That was my main thing, just to say, like I I even in telling the story, I just the biggest part of my story is gratitude that we are not dealing with anything I think long term or where the people were mostly asymptomatic, then I mean they, oh, the kids were entirely a symptomatic. Yeah, there was like one day with Genevieve, like and I don't even know. I don't know which kid got it, or if any kid got it first or if somebody else, Like the origin is actually remains unknown and will remain unknown forever, because the thing is, we weren't triggered to test the kids until we heard about a contact, and then all three were positive and none had ever shown any symptoms except for maybe Genevieve being a little bit tired. But the thing is, Genevieve's also like just in the process of dropping her nap like in the past month, So I don't know that I would entirely say, oh, well, that's a clear sign. There was one night when she fell asleep at like five point thirty and slept all the way till the next morning. But like Cameron used to do that on the regular, So I don't know. No kid had a runny nose, no kid had a sore throat, no kid had a fever, no kid coughed even one time, you would never have known anything was going on with the kids. Now you just coughed. Is that did you? I still have like a little stuff, like a little tiny bit of like intermittent feeling like I don't know, like my breathe is not one hundred percent normal, and like my husband's coughing more than I am. I'm coughing like twice a day, you know what I mean, like not a lot. I think that it is a nasty bug though, that like gets in there and settles in there and kind of waxes and wanes and again that's you know. Actually, I'm not sure I would have believed somebody else telling me that. I would have been like, eh, whatever. But that has been our experience and the experience that I've read about as well. So has Josh mostly okay, or he had it a little bit worse than you. It sounded like from his his symptoms. And let me also admit that we're super, super lucky and that we were both vaccinated likely by the time that we I mean, I guess I don't know the timeline for sure, because there can be a long incubation period and it's a little bit fuzzy. But I probably had vaccine in my system before the main exposures occurred, I think, which might have helped both of us have milder cases. And as you all probably know, the vaccine is a two dose vaccine. We're lucky enough to be in one of the health systems where they basically gave it to all healthcare workers. I think that's pretty much true across the nation now, and by the time this ads hope errors hopefully even more than that. But we both did receive dose number one. We're even not sure whether we're going to be allowed to get dose number two yet, because there are kind of differing opinions. I'm happy to get it if I'm allowed, but I may get there and they may say that I have to wait ninety days, which is fine. Yeah, So maybe you could explain this meadically for us, though, because wouldn't you be I don't know if if people who've had COVID are then immune to it, which is of course the point I don't want to do a COVID expert, because I'm definitely not. From what I read, like my own, like going to the CDC website, research was that because you're likely to be generally immune from COVID for ninety days, there's just no rush to get the vaccine. I don't think there's any thought that it would be harmful to get it. I do think if someone was acutely ill with COVID, getting it doesn't make sense because you might not get the benefit from it, like you might not be able to amount the appropriate immune response. But that this caveat, like this is not my area. I could talk to you all day about like type one diabetes or something like that. I'm just you know, repeating when I'm reading off the CDC. So it looks like there doesn't there's likely not a harm in getting it, but it's also not necessarily recommended that you need it, and so that's why I may have to put it off. But again, I'm gonna whatever the vaccine authority people tell me to do, I will follow their instructions. So tell us a little bit of the timeline of it. So you know, you guys found out about your potential exposure, you went and got tested, but there were there were negative tests before there were positive tests, right, Yeah, So all three kids tested positive, and I think my husband and I got tested at the same time and we're both negative, but we were both like, I don't know, I don't think I feel one hundred percent. My husband was starting to have a cough. I was like, I don't think I'm breathing normally, and I started getting headaches that week. We both tested again twice, and it wasn't until the third test for each of us that they both turned out positive. And his w I think was two days like before mine, But that was more just like logistics than anything else. That was kind of a lesson in that early COVID, which apparently is when you can be pretty contagious, may not be picked up on the PCR, although that conflicts with what I've heard is that the viral load on the PCR kind of correlates with how continuous you are. So again, not a COVID expert, but I one hundred percent can tell you that I did have COVID type of symptoms several days prior to actually testing positive for COVID, and in fact was testing negative at that time. So if you have a contact and are symptomatic, I wouldn't necessarily hang your hat, especially on an early negative heath. And just see you explained to people the PCR what that is versus they yes, So if you're if you're not familiar, the PCR is kind of it basically replicates the viral sequences from the virus' genome and it will actually the one in our community that they actually look at three so you can see if you're positive on all of them. Ours we're all positive on all of them because I guess they want to kind of like serves as a control. And then there's another gene that they replicate, like probably some skin gene that's an everybody's sample. That's kind of like you know, the pregnancy test has two lines. Well that's like the control line anyway, So they replicate these genes and if it's above a certain amount, then you're carrying enough virus. But the antigen test is a much faster test that just looks for the presence or not of a little bit of a protein that is part of the coronavirus. But the one that is a little bit more sensitive is generally the PCR test and how are you guys getting this done? Were you going to a testing site, like going to your PCP, like what was your setup here? So this really varies by location. You guys know, I'm in South Florida. It's actually very easy for any public individual to get a test. There's a lot of drive through test sites. Josh and I did a combination of using the drive through public sites and also since we are hospital employees, if you're asymptomatic, which we were in the very beginning, you're allowed to go anytime and get a test in one of the eers. So it was a combination of those things. But our kids obviously are not hospital employees that they use the community testing sites, and where we live they're free. And I will say I've been pretty impressed. Every time we've gone to get a test. The results are back within about forty eight hours, so it's not a terrible turnaround, and they come back on your phone just to tear phone after they loose swab or throat swab or what's your all At this point, I had so many COVID tests at this point. The only thing I've actually never done an antigen test, and I've never done any of the saliva tests, so I'm sure that will be in my future someday if they start to do screenings. But the hospital does a nose swab currently. I've had many, many of those, and it's funny because the technicians do seem to vary in their level of aggressiveness that we get in and whether or not they do both the nostrils or just one. So I'm like, wouldn't it be the same every time? But it's not, And all the community sites around here are currently doing the throat swab, so it basically just feels like a strap test for the kids. You might think that the throat swab would be more kind, but in the young kids who don't want to open their mouths, it actually leads to much more of a battle situation than a nose swab because you can't really it's hard to close your nose. You can try, but yeah, yes, yes, goode. So yeah, I have probably had ten COVID tests by this point in the year. Yeah, and so how does the clock work on it? Then? With your your isolation when you have family members test positive or when you yourself test positive, or from the onset of symptoms. How Because I know that shifted over the course of this, Like first you thought, okay, well yeah, and it actually can depend on your local department of health, like the CDC says like fourteen days, but then there's like leeway by the various department of health to use seven or tent So that's kind of interesting, like you would think it would just the same virus, right, But our department of health they called us, so they text you the result, but if you're positive, you also get to follow up phone call and they ask all about contacts and they ask about they kind of give you instructions with like where to seek care if you need it, as well as instructions about quarantine. And so they said that I believe it was ten days after the test date and you had to be a completely symptom free for at least seventy two hours, which that gets me a little question because it's kind of like what about like, you know, one cough every eight hours, Like is that a symptom? Like I don't know. I'll cross that bridge when I get there because I'm still I'm still under quarantine. So but yes, it's about ten days from your test, not from your symptoms, at least in our locale that may be different. And so this corresponded though with the holidays, so you guys were off work for some of it anyway, I mean that was yeah. No, So when the kids were positive and we were negative, at first we're like, well, this might be fine because you know, nobody's going to get it. The kids will get it, but maybe they were already exposed. They'll just get over it. We won't get it from them. And then of course we got it. I mean, I'm assuming we got it from them. But yeah, so it didn't work out quite as neatly as we thought. The other thing, which was kind of a surprise is that I assume the kids could go back to school once a certain amount of days had elapsed. But both our local public school and the private school that I have Cameron and you've currently at, require a negative PCR. So the reason that I'm kind of like, huh, is that that can take a week, or it can actually take months in some unlucky people. It's thought that those people are not contagious. I don't think anybody knows for one hundred one hundred, one hundred percent, which is why they're saying their policies are kind of airing on the side of caution. So yeah, we're we're kind of in a limbo right now. I think everything's going to be okay, though I will say the online learning is still not ideal, in particular for Cameron, who's in first grade, but it is better now than it was, you know, seven eight months ago, so you know, partly because he's he's learned how to read better, right, Like, that's part it, right, which I think required going to in person school to do so very those few months. No really, I mean he made absolutely like you know, it was like, is this a different kid? Like I was very impressed with the progress that he's made since he went to go back to school. But you know what, more lockdowns could be calming, especially I don't know, you know, we're recording this and in fairly early January. It's going to air in a couple of weeks. We know that there's some more rapidly spreading variants in Europe right now, probably here too, and at least down in Florida. Our schools have been pretty adamant about staying open, but I'm imagining that there's still some sort of threshold that they have, So I actually feel better knowing that, I'm like, Okay, this time around wouldn't be as bad as last time if we did have to go all online again. All right, let's take a quick ad break and then we'll be right back. So welcome back. We are talking about Sarah's COVID quarantine chronicles. It's hard to say those three words together fast. I was stumbling over that earlier. So well, the quarantine clack tics at different things. And so you know, we're recording this in early January. You, in terms of going back to work, are probably looking mid January something like that. Or I'm actually theoretically cleared to go back likely next week, as long as my symptoms have resolved, and that's done through our employee health actually has a whole separate phone interview and all this kind of stuff, and they don't require a negative test, they just require a number of days elapsed. So I'm maybe back as early as next week, obviously taking all the precautions I was taking previously, and ninety five face shield to protect others, although again the science suggests that I shouldn't really be shedding any virus by that time. Tell us about sort of life in quarantine, then I mean, because obviously most of us haven't been going that many places anyway, so it's not like there's I mean, there's some change to it, but this has been obviously more strict version. I mean, we've been ordering groceries in and things like that. So tell us how you've sort of planned your days as you are, of course the uber planner. Yeah, so this has been different. I mean, even though we were I think a fairly conservative other than the fact that we sent our kids to school, a fairly conservative COVID family, not doing a lot of stuff, not doing play dates, et cetera. We did used to really go around the block a lot, and we used to we did start going to playgrounds a little bit, but obviously we had to stop all of those things with quarantine and even really going outside beyond the borders of our private property felt, you know, not cool, so we stayed within our property and house. We did use our front driveway a little bit if anybody was to get anywhere near us, and they didn't. Our neighborhood just doesn't like that. There aren't that many people that walk around, which is fine because we do. But our driveway is recessed enough from the street that we wouldn't ever you know, be in contact. So we used our driveway a little bit to kick around the soccer ball and to we have a basketball hoop, and we used our back patio a lot more than we did previously, just because it was an outdoor place to be. I went through a lot of sidewalk. I bought an industrial thing of bubbles and some fancy bubble wands that actually got us through like quite a few days. It was like we're spending an hour play with the bubble wan. And we had this game of we have a pool fence and if they we had like the giant bubbles like they think, and if you could do it just right, you could get a giant bubble to go over the pool fence and it would bounce on the water in the pool. It's like you got little things. It's the little things. And it was just enough of a challenge that like kept us going for quite a while. So stuff like that, So my days did have a structure. Even made a print out of like I called it Camp Mommy and Daddy because it was supposed to be Camp Mommy, but you know, my husband was stuck home too, so I mean secret, but it was actually probably a lot more fun of a break for me than it would have been otherwise. But he has to make up his call and work Thanksgiving and Christmas next year, so which is fair but is not gonna be fun anyway. Okay, so morning we tried to go outside, you know, you know, within our property. We tried not to touch screens until about one thirty, and then it was like screen brief for all. In fact, even Genevieve has started to do a little bit of iPad, which I didn't really think I would be allowing, but she really loves it and whatever. It's not for very long. So the kids would usually watch TV or they play Minecraft and she would watch TV. Josh and I were tired, like so that's the thing. We had coronavirus, so we didn't necessarily want to run around. And it was also kind of like every time I would like hear somebody talk about like rest and care for yourself if you get COVID, I'm like, hah haha, like come to our house and see what that might be like with three kids who are completely asymptomatic running around going crazy. So we did take advantage of that time. I usually napped on the couch. I needed a nap every day, Like even if I got enough of sleep at night, I would pass out immediately after lunch, and I let Genevieve watch I don't know a lot of Pink Delicious and Daniel Tiger and whatever it was, and so yeah, and then it would usually be almost dinnertime. I used our sponsors Sunbasket to help make dinner easier, and that was not a sponsor thing. I actually I just bought it and it was great. So we did two weeks of that just to make things easier. The plan I didn't have to think. I used whole foods like grocery delivery instead of going to the store, which I had been doing previously, and we just kinda one day at a time. We made it work and it wasn't bad. I mean, I think the screen having the afternoon kind of made sense and it really allowed us to rest. Oh, we did require it was one thirty because we required a thirty minute reading block between one and one thirty where sometimes Annabelle would read to Genevieve and Cameron would read and whatever. But we that's how we got to one thirty without the screens. And then then free for all? Why not? Why not? Was Josh enjoying the screens too? Is he into still doing the Minecraft? Yeah? Minecraft with the kids? Like they're on some I don't know. They they got to the end. They got to the end of Minecraft. It's like something called like the end, which is some I don't know whatever. Yes, I think the end of Netflix or something. You watched all of it, I don't know. I completely stay out of it. Oh, and the kids and Josh are in this huge Settlers of Katan kick which I would love to join, but I can't because Genevieve can't. So generally our new evening ritual if they've had their full of screens is that the three of them are playing Settlers and then I read to Genevieve and then sometimes she goes to bed at like eight, And so you've been able to like trade off with Josh more and like have more of the two of them. In aspect, it was great, Like I haven't had a winter break where my husband was home the entire time in like years, so like there was that if we had felt one hundred percent, that would have made it even better. But COVID's weird, like so that's what I was getting at. Like I didn't have a terrible cough, I didn't have runny nose. It wasn't that kind of misery. I didn't even have fevers. Just felt really, really tired, and I just felt like my breathing wasn't normal. And I learned, and I didn't know this at first, that you're not really supposed to like run or do strenuous exercise, either while you have it or immediately after. I actually went on a couple of very light, easy runs before I found that out. And I'm like, Okay, that kind of makes sense, because like there is something weird. Maybe it's the like mild mild carditis that people get, maybe it's some fluid leftover in the lungs or something. So I have been taking it pretty easy since since learning that, Yeah, or any particular like bright moments in you know, not to be pollyannish about, like what's the really prummy situation, but you know, anything that'll be a fun memory looking back on this. Uh. I when we got the positive results forever for each kid, I just somehow I just found it sort of after the first one came back and then the second one came back and then the third one. Each one just almost like it was like oddly funny, like I think it was sort of gallows humor, like it was a mixture of fear where but they would come back and be like, oh my god, another one, like really really and especially after I've taken so many tests and they were always negative, it was so weird to see the positives. So I know, also I'll remember that. I don't know if it was a bright spot. Yeah, just having the days together was really nice. Again, I'll be missing that next year for it next year holiday next year too, So that's going to be it's going to be, it's going to be what it is, what it is. Well, we'll see. Well yeah, no, that's I mean, thank you for sharing all this with us. I really, you know, appreciate your being open and talking about it. And I'm sure a lot of our listeners have had similar experiences. I mean, how many millions of people have had this at this point, so you know, it's it's pretty pretty common to have had this experience. So glad that you guys came through it as well as you did. So we moving to the question section. We have a question from a listener who mentions that we've we've discussed some of this before, but you know, one of the challenges of working from home with two elementary school age kids. Her husband is working from home, usually in their bedroom. She had a baby in September, so the guest room office is now the nursery and they were looking to hire a nanny as their family has grown. The nanny agency using said they really, you know, preferred if a parent was working from home that it be sort of off closed in an office, which which makes total sense, Like everyone prefers that, right, like the parent working at home. Was that for COVID reasons or for more like psychological psychological reasons like that you're not just sitting in the middle of the kitchen table, you know, they're trying to like work care for the kids around you. I don't know, I think that generally just explaining as a policy that they they prefer that she goes into an office. So she's saying, well, we don't actually really have space, so how do we make this work? So you know, they because buying a like buy a new home or renovating is going to be expensive. You know, my first thought was that he could try renting space and like a coworking space. You know, I sometimes go to our local regis when I need office space, and that might be more economical, certainly than buying a new house or renovating house. And it's also you can try it out right, Like you can just go, you know, a couple of days and see how it goes, go a week, rent for a month whatever. You know, there's no long term commitment here, so if they come up with a different solution, or if his office decides to bring people back, you're not locked into anything. So so that was was my first idea. And then you know, they can see how it goes and if long term his employer is saying, yeah, you're all working at home forever, well, then they can decide, like if they're gonna bite the bullet and move somewhere else. Did you like my crazy answer? The third one shed. I you know, I know people around here who have I was always sort of a little jealous. One of my kid's friend's family who lives around here. Their father's office is this gorgeous like carriage house in the back of their yard. Like it's it's a shed sort of type thing, but it's really nicely done up, and I'm like, WHOA, that looks perfect, and they're actually like, I mean, they're marketing themselves specifically for this. Now, if you look it up, there's one called studio. I don't want them. They're not a sponsor. I'm not vouching sponsor. Yeah, I just googled it. But you know shed modern backyard art offices and they're like these cute little buildings and I guess they come completely prefab. I mean, how prefab is prefab? Though you press a button it all blows up. I don't know mattresses actually, I mean I could see that if you have a little bit of space in your backyard, it might be a viable option. I'm just saying, as long as there's some way of heating it or cooling it, I guess. But if it's tiny enough, you could do that with some sort of individual heating. You don't necessarily need plumbing. You can go inside to go to the bathroom. So anyway, putting a little shed, Even though I know this isn't exactly answering the person's questions, I will say that my bedroom office is completely functional, like, yes, it's a bedroom, and I do happen to have a pretty large bedroom that has like a kind of an alcohol to the side, so it feels good. But depending on the size of your master suite. I mean, I have two screens in here. I've done telehealth for my bedroom and it's fine. Oh and my other idea was that my three kids are now sleeping in one room. You never know, maybe you could put more kids together than you ever thought possible. It's been going completely fine, like their sleep is, if anything, better than it's ever been. And now we have this like empty room, which is like kind of funny because we didn't we don't even have enough bedrooms for everyone in this house. You still which my nine year old is now using for like telehealth in there, I mean not tell sorry, nine year old is doing telehealth now, that's right, yea, yeah, you know she's doing her online school in there. So it's like a little classroom. That's awesome. But you never know, you might be able to shuffle things around more than you ever thought possible. All right, well, what's your what's your love of the week? Sarah? Well, my love of the week, and I think it's because I've been home to observe it more than I ever would have been previously since I've been in quarantine is my kids teachers, because I'm just impressed. Man. I mean, I know how much energy it takes to talk to a screen for hours on end. I do it with patients. I do it with like interview days and we're interviewing residency applicants. But the fact that they do it, like day after day after day with kids who are like a group of kids, and they keep it light and they keep it energetic, I'm just like totally impressed. And I do. I feel like this year in particular, like we hit the checkpot with first and third grade, and both teachers are amazing. They're not even at the same school, but it doesn't matter. They have their different styles, but they're both completely effective. And I've just every time I've checked in on Anabelle, like the class is like having a good time and they're like laughing, but they're learning and they're engaged. And Cameron's teacher, let's just say, she's a lot more patient with him than I ever and I'm just very grateful for that. Yeah, no, that is great. You know, we've been doing virtual school this week for the older children. Our district went virtual for the week after Christmas break, just so if people needed to isolate for the week, like it just take that off the table for everyone, so, you know, as they do that and when they have the hybrid thing, which is what they normally do. I mean, the fact that we have enough devices now, I mean, it's just such a difference from the spring. And I don't know why. In the spring, I didn't, like, you know, immediately, I kept thinking they'd be going back to school and be like, oh, we're only out for two weeks, so we're only out for another two weeks, and then you know, eventually it was for the rest of the year. But I was like, oh, well, we don't want to buy like three more computers for like, because it'll only be and then of course this fall, this whatever anyway, and we did buy an iPad this summer, so we have that. But the school gave everyone devices that you know, are then optimized for the lessons they're doing, and it's just so much easier than it was in the spring, where I was having to shuffle people around to different different devices. It's just made every learning so much better than it was. So yay for adequate devices, all right, Internet? Then yeah, and we also we also upgraded that too, which is which is great, although I will tell you it cannot handle six people on zoom at once. Just you know, we we had that happen and no you need like an office building set up. I know, we totally did. I was like, well, this is when we were recording one time, I was like, why is it so slow? Why is Sarah glitching? Like what's going on? And it turned out and I think it was not only okay, I think not just the six of us on you know, video chats simultaneously. I think a child or two may have been multitasking with a phone at the same time. So it turns out that you cannot simultaneously have six people on video chat and watch like Star Wars at the same time. So there we go. All right, Well, this has been Best of Both Worlds episode one eighty talking about Sarah's Quarantine chronicles. We'll be back next week with more on making work in life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.