Your stories: Part 3

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/04/2020 (2181 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At a time like this, we believe it’s important to turn to our readers.

You are the ones living through this state of emergency and adapting to the challenges of COVID-19. That’s why we are launching a special experiment with this reader-generated column that allows us to share your experiences, your thoughts and your concerns about the pandemic.

This is the third collection of your personal stories that will help our community come together during this historic time.

Don Regehr 

This is my 20th day of severe flu-like symptoms (extreme fatigue, aches and weakness, and more recently a constant headache).

I spend most of my days passed out in a chair or back in bed if I can find the strength to move. I contacted Health Links almost two weeks ago and the person went strictly by their checklist and deemed me ineligible for testing. The main sticking point was that I had not travelled internationally and could not say I had come in contact with anyone with the virus. I explained I had spent 12 days at an international hostel with dorm rooms and shared kitchen and common areas and that I have an extremely compromised immune system.

I don’t believe one needs to be an epidemiologist to understand I was in one of the worst possible incubators of international viral transmission. But because she couldn’t check a key box on her list she hurried me off the call. She said if my symptoms worsened to call them again.

I wanted to write some thoughts down, because with all the sudden deaths I keep hearing of, I fear my body is at a tipping point where it will simply tire of the fight. I wanted to say, just because you say you are responding to a crisis and providing a service, if you really aren’t serving people, you’re not! I get so upset when I see the Manitoba statistics for confirmed cases! If you don’t look for something, you will not find it. This is the most energy I have mustered in 20 days. Thank you for this forum.

 

Natalie Gordon 

In February my son contacted me about the coronavirus. He wanted to know if he, as a health-care worker, should be worried. As a retired geneticist with extensive training in epidemiology I decided to investigate. I soon concluded we needed to prepare for a pandemic. I determined my husband was at high risk. We began quietly stocking up on food and supplies so if we had to self-isolate for a month we could do it. Among the supplies I stocked up on were surgical masks, N95 masks and nitrile gloves. 

I wasn’t very worried because I believed the stories from the press, that Canada had learned from SARS1 and we had a huge stockpile of N95 masks and other PPE ready. I figured I only had to worry about being able to care for ourselves in self-isolation for a few weeks because the information said my husband would be at high risk.

On March 10 my husband had a second stroke. It was terrifying being in hospital wondering every moment if he would be exposed to the virus in hospital. We were told not to worry about it. COVID-19 was not in Manitoba yet. I was staying at a local hotel and a group from Saskatchewan joined me in the breakfast room. I overheard them talking about a woman from their town who tested positive but refused to self-isolate. I left immediately.

I stopped going for breakfast and bought deli to eat in my room instead. I washed my hands so often they were becoming chapped. My husband recovered enough to be ready to come home four days later. Well, not really ready, but we pushed the staff hard to let him go. I purchased over $400 in equipment to make our home more accessible, adding to what we already had from his first stroke. 

Before we went home, I ignored the warnings not to hoard and I shopped and stocked up on more food, just in case a month of hiding from the virus wasn’t going to be enough. The hunt for N95 masks was soon underway everywhere. Suddenly they were as precious as gold. Suddenly it was impossible for essential workers to find the N95 gear they needed to protect themselves while they protect us.

As soon as we got home, I ordered enough of his meds to last three months and we haven’t been outside since except once a day to walk the dog and get the mail. Because of our “hoarding” we don’t have to go out at all.

By mid-March it was clear something was seriously wrong in preparation land. My son, who works on the front lines, was reading about the virus but his workplace was refusing him access to N95 masks. My son was not being allowed to use donated masks or any others. The numbers of infected began climbing.

My son approached his manager about better personal protection equipment. He was laughed at. When he persisted he was threatened with termination. He went to his union and they shrugged at him. The masks had to be conserved for when the virus really hit. I had reserved six N95 masks for myself in case my husband needs to go back in hospital. I dropped them in the mail to my son with a prayer that we don’t need them because he needs them more.

He was told he was not allowed to wear them. Each day was a torture for him, wondering if the patient he was moving this time was carrying the virus. I began to try to find out what happened to all those N95 stockpiles we had been assured were ready. I was horrified to discover they had either been squandered or never existed. Canada had no stockpiles of personal protective equipment. I decided government statistics and assurances cannot be trusted and it is up to every Canadian to take care of themselves. The same government that told me we had stockpiles of N95 masks is telling me the supply chain is safe. I ordered enough seeds to double the size of my vegetable garden and started twice as many bedding plants as usual. 

My son is now one of health-care workers who has to self-quarantine for 14 days due to being exposed to the virus. He is furious he can’t work when he is needed. He is furious with the bureaucracy that decided to conserve the stocks of PPE until it was too late. He’s furious he has to self-isolate from his wife and children.

My own fury is even greater. This is my firstborn son who now might have the virus. The people in charge treated him, and all his fellow workers, like a disposable commodity. I am so angry, but I have nowhere to put my anger. I am locked in at home with a high-risk person who could be killed by exposure.

I have one small bit of comfort. The six N95 masks I sent are now going to be hoarded for protecting my grandchildren and daughter-in-law if my son gets sick. I don’t care if the government doesn’t like that. Meanwhile I check my stockpile and calculate what to cook today to make things last, because the same government that said we didn’t need to stockpile food and medicine is now saying we might be doing this until July. I sure hope that’s also wrong.

 

Reva Namak 

I would like to see local needle industries get the proper specs for making real protective licensed surgical masks instead of fake masks which give the illusion of protection. It’s like a miner finding fool’s gold and will offer virtually no protection from COVID-19.

 

L.J. Rhodes 

I still struggle to wrap my mind around the fact that we are all in this situation, but at least we’re together as a global community, not just a bunch if disparate local ones. As twisted as it might sound, there’s comfort in that.

My husband and I ventured out for groceries. Since we had been housebound for several days, we decided to take a detour just to see something other than the inside of our home. However, we knew we needed to go somewhere others weren’t likely to be, so we ended up standing at the edge of a lake, under a large tree, in a thunderstorm. Because who else would do such a thing?

I took a picture of my husband there, and as I looked at it when we got home, the sense of isolation, desolation, and loneliness I think many of us feel right now really started to show itself in the image, and even the tree came to resemble lightning branching out across the sky, as if reminding me just how much danger there was and is all around us right now.

I decided to make a wine-toned cyanotype of the image, because, even in such an awful situation, there is still beauty to be found if we just look for it. This is my coronavirus story so far. I can only hope I don’t end up with a darker one down the road.

 

Charlotte Whidden 

It’s hard to believe how quickly my life changed. One day I was a normal teenager just trying to get to all my classes on time. Now, I’m a teenager living in a global pandemic. Never once did I ever think this would happen. Never once did I think I’d be taking my classes in my bedroom. I still can’t wrap my head around everything that’s happening in the world. It’s so crazy, and I hope it ends soon.

 

Ron Buffie 

For years I’d arrive early at the food court in Winnipeg Square, below the offices in which I worked, pick up a newspaper and coffee, and have some time to myself to reflect on life, before heading upstairs to see what problems awaited me. After retiring, though I lived far down Pembina Highway, I still found myself driving downtown under the guise of doing some banking. On one trip it occured to me that as I had a branch of the same bank, half a block from home, I was driving downtown to convince myself I was still part of the action, a factor in society.

Since then I’ve moved to Transcona and with the move brought along my old habits. Though I’ve changed time and places I still enjoy my coffee and newspaper, often by myself, and some time with the usual Kildonan Place gang. The COVID-19 pandemic has helped me realize how gently fortune has treated me. I’ve never had any serious health problems, never had to go to war, worked in times of full employment, and in times you could work up from truck driver to president. As well, work has taken me to wonderful places where I’ve had interesting experiences, seen and met remarkable people.

Though my problems are insignificant, let me tell you how I’ve tried to adjust to these new condtions. I try to bulk up my purchases, drugs, groceries, and necessities from one store. I use store-provided bags, and debit card when paying, and try to keep my distance. I try to boost the morale of other shut-ins with an exchange of folksy and humorous emails.

Having said all that, I still need to be part of society, which I try to do from a safe distance. As all my old coffee haunts are closed, I get my coffee and paper fix from a convenience store. With the temperature in the low 10s, I set a table and chair into a sunny sheltered alcove in my backyard. There with a CD providing soothing background music. I’m doing just fine.