My Attempt of a Journal During the 2020 Pandemic or Perhaps I’ll Call it the Covid Diaries

March 31st, 2020. North Vancouver Entry 1: In the beginning.

I remember the moment it struck me that our lives were going to be different from now on. It was the afternoon when I saw the handwritten sign outside the walk-in medical clinic. On a large poster board a letter was addressed, “Dear patients, as of March 16th 2020, our clinics will be closed...blah blah blah,” then something about telemedicine video conferencing. So doctors were no longer seeing patients face-to-face. Little did I know that the day before was the last day I could pop into shops without the overwhelming fear this new virus was somehow going to attach itself to me like the face sucking creature from the movie Alien.

I had a strong feeling that I shouldn’t be out on the main street filled with people trying to practise this new dance called social distancing. Staying at least 2 metres apart was proving hard, especially for those who don’t understand the metric system. Already I had rung my own doctor that morning to get an inhaler for my pesky asthma cough that just wasn’t budging. I was denied entry as they had an understandable new policy that anyone with a cough, fever or any COVID-19 symptoms would have to visit the Urgent and Primary Care Centre instead.

Although I had no symptoms except a cough, the thought of going to the only clinic that's testing for this new virus felt like going into the belly of the beast. Should I risk getting an inhaler only to end up leaving that place covered in COVID cooties? And why did my sloth-like brain not think about the now available safe virtual doctors in the walk-in clinic?

With a feeling of doom looming over me I drove myself down to what I imagined to be a clinic overrun with the walking dead waiting to be tested. With my hands in my pockets, two gloved security guards escorted me like royalty up the elevator and through all the doors. I was directed to touch nothing. Donning a mask, I take a seat as far away as I can from the other masked sickies, while we all wait for the even more heavily masked and gowned nurses behind glass barriers to call out our names and interrogate us.

No fever, no contact with an infected person, no recent travel to a hotspot. Except my kids and hubby had just explored Harry Potter World at Universal Studios about two weeks ago. Then the whole thing was shut due to pandemic season. Does that count? The nurse explained I didn’t fit the category to be tested. I also wasn’t one of those brave souls working in healthcare exposed to the ticking time bomb. And I wasn’t old enough, wrinkly enough, or living in a long term care facility where the virus had started to drop in and hitch a ride on our vulnerable oldies.

Usually the idea of a nasal scrubbing would get me running in the opposite direction but the WHO was recommending anyone with any symptoms to be tested. Reading between the lines I could tell that our Canadian province just didn’t have enough test kits to go around. Looks like most people were going to miss out on a free nostril probing till we round up more swabbing sticks.

I spend the first week of March spring break training my children to be 1st class hotel maids. In the event that my hubby and I fall sick at the same time, I explain to them that they will have to take over all the household duties. We’re still hopeful at this time that kids can’t get that sick and if infected will just look like their usual snotty-nosed selves. Whereas us over 40s may be bedridden with barely enough strength to select something on Netflix.

I stand behind my kids like a sergeant major inspecting their toilet cleaning skills and quizzing them on when the blinds should be opened and closed and how to turn on the dishwasher. Perhaps my biggest fear is not actually getting COVID-19 but awaking from a COVID coma to a dark and dank house with a mountain of dishes, now home to a friendly pack of rats, who the kids have now adopted and named.

This first week of spring break also brings a barrage of shutdowns. Every day another email, another notice of another business that is no longer open. No more swimming in community pools, no more visits to museums. No more walking down the library aisles. No more organized sports. (Although I’m secretly happy that we get to sleep in on weekends). We didn’t know at this point that getting up and walking to school was going to become a distant memory and sleeping in was going to be our new daily routine.

Then the government declares all close contact services must stop. No more massages or haircuts. It strikes me that the only people who are going to be touching me for the next while will be my children and husband. I try to soak up as many cuddles as I can as I feel like it’s possible any day I’m going to be struck down by the virus and be forced into self-isolation in the only bedroom that has an ensuite. It’s the best room in the house so quietly I’m a little bit excited about the prospect of being left alone. But I’m sure after two days of loneliness, cabin fever will set in and I will be looking for ways to escape.

Someone in my book club posts horror pictures of what we’re going to look like when we emerge from this quasi-lockdown. Overgrown, split end infested hair, desperately in need of a root touch up and unshaped monobrows. I replied back saying at least I have an excuse now for looking weird and unkempt. Thank you, COVID-19. I’m secretly looking forward to my husband growing a man bun. Although, this is not on his list of things to achieve. If I could just get Amazon to deliver a pirate shirt and an ‘Outlander’ kilt, I’ll have everything I ever wanted.

A week later with my two trusty blue and orange asthma puffers, I’m coughing but functioning. My son has taken on the all-important duty of the daily fever check of all family members. We’re all in the clear. But by the weekend I notice I’m struggling to breathe a bit when I go for a stroll. We take a wee family *hike and I turn back after five minutes. I assure my husband I can make it back to the car up the slight incline from the riverbed. I curse myself for leaving the inhalers in the car as my chest tightens. It’s not serious and abates when I get to the car and inhale my sweet Ventolin. By the end of the weekend, any exertion causes tightness in my chest. I move to embrace my newfound forced laziness. But as I lift a medium-size bag of flour I feel my chest constrict like someone has strapped a seatbelt around my upper torso and keeps pulling the tension tight. As much as I love any excuse not to work, I make an appointment to get a stronger inhaler.

The hunt for my new inhaler begins. London Drugs, a big pharmacy store, can’t get it in as they say it’s in high demand. Inhalers seem to have joined the list of other items that are now missing on our shelves like flour, eggs, yeast and toilet paper. Pandemics seem to turn everyone into wannabe bakers in need of visiting the bathroom often. My son’s New Year’s resolution of making a pavlova by himself has to go on hold as every day I have to remind him that we need to conserve the food that we have. Using 8 to 10 eggs on a meringue dessert isn’t a top priority when dealing with possible food shortages. My trusty local small pharmacy tracks down my new inhaler the next day along with a five day course of an immune suppressant drug I will need to take if my cough doesn’t start getting in line.

My husband is the sacrificial lamb. He must brave the streets to get my medicine and walk past the flowers lying outside the dentist who was sadly killed by this new coronavirus. This poor man attended a dental conference in the beginning of March. Unfortunately, the virus also decided to check out the dental gathering. I have friends who just a week ago visited their dentists who also went to the same conference. They are told the chances of transmission are low because dentists are usually well masked and gloved as they’re usually scared of catching our everyday diseases like colds and gingivitis.

I check in on my neighbours. One lady, who lives alone and I want to say kindly isn’t a spring chicken anymore, is unwell and tells me her daughter has tested positive for COVID-19. I breathe a sigh of relief each time she answers the phone and confirms that both of them are improving each day. Every day we see the number of infected and deaths increase in Canada and the rest of the world. The epicentre in China spreads to new hotspots of South Korea, Italy, Spain and now the USA. We watch the death toll increase and hear that neighbours and friends have parents in the old people’s home just up the road, which was the starting point for the first COVID death in Canada. It’s now a cluster point where some staff and patients are infected. Every few days our provincial health officer tells us of more deaths from this care home. I reassure family overseas that we are safe but it does make me nervous that we are so close to people who are infected or have died from this new virus.

My cough is making it harder to talk. After watching my husband butcher my stories with a friend over video chat in New Zealand, as I try to sign language a whole year’s worth of conversation, we both decide it’s time I should go on the super-duper immune suppressant drug. We weigh up the cost and benefits of becoming more susceptible to catching the virus or getting the virus when your lungs aren’t pulling their weight. We go into even more full-blown isolation and tell anyone who wants to talk to me, even from a safe distance away, I won't be seeing anyone for a while. By day four on the super drug, my family notices my voice is less raspy and I can talk more without splattering into a coughing fit. As much as they look relieved, I think they all enjoyed the quiet time they had without me barking orders and constantly asking if they’ve opened their curtains.
I can now walk again around the block without feeling too light headed or coughy and enjoy what I see in my mind as a real life game of Pac-Man. It’s like we’re all trying to avoid the four colourful ghosts/other people from this old video game. People are roaming the streets individually, or with the people they got stuck with in their household, and then abruptly turning or changing paths before other people/Pac-man ghosts get near them. Old people represent mega ghosts or vulnerable walking disease magnets. You get double points deducted if they come near you but they move so slowly and seem to take forever to pass you by as you distance yourself by standing in the middle of the road or in a person’s well tended flowerbed.

I wonder if we will remember what it’s like to share a sidewalk with other members of the public without abruptly turning away from them acting like we’re in some weird segregated world, where we’re separated from everyone. Will we remember what it’s like to act like normal people and talk to someone without shouting at them from at least two metres away? I’m sure my family looks forward to the day when I stop sharing embarrassing stories about them with my neighbours in a voice that is loud enough for the whole neighbourhood to hear. Although if Netflix does go down then at least we can overhear the neighbourhood gossip to keep us entertained.

*hike in Canada can mean a short or long walk in the forest or some non urban area but in New Zealand a hike means pack some serious outdoor supplies because it’s definitely not a light walk and maybe you should pack a locator beacon!