I suppose my COVID-19 story is just a little different than most that will be reading this.
By day, I'm a home health PTA. That means that I perform physical therapy house calls. On an average day, I will see anywhere from 6 to 9 people and drive around 75 to 100 per day.
When the news first broke about the virus, not much changed, I was still performing the same amount of house-calls with an occasional question from the patients about what it is, what they can do, etc. Most of them seemed to not take it as a threat.
Today is a bit different.
The area I cover in SE Texas only has 13 confirmed cases as of Friday, March 27th. There has been one death so far, and I was surprised to see how many of my patients knew the man that passed. In a strange way his passing has made it more real to the people in the area. Which in the grand scheme is probably a good thing.
So what has changed?
For me, not much. I still go to work each day as I'm considered essential and have the paper-work to prove it.
However, many of my patients are now refusing services due to COVID fears, so I'm now seeing about 4 or 5 people per day. Thankfully I have quite a bit of vaca time banked away to supplement the checks.
As far as my company goes, I was given this:
This is to be used if any of my patients are showing or report any of the symptoms of Cough, SOB, or Fever. I do have a metric ton of alcohol wipes and hand sanitizer
I have had one patient report the symptoms and I made the judgement call to cancel the session before going in the door. I would rather be safe than sorry when it comes to this considering about 6 years ago I spent 4 days in the hospital with MRSA. While there are no official studies that I am aware of, I am considered immunocompromised. Which does make this virus a little bit scary.
Now. The wife.. You may know her on here as @isaria. Well, things are a bit different for her. She's a piano teacher by day before becoming the YELLING QUEEN at night. She's fortunate that she's been able to shift into online lessons for her students. Apparently parents are very interested in keeping their kids occupied for 30 minutes or so. We're lucky enough to have enough space that she has an office/studio that's been working well so far.
We are on lockdown here, which as far as I can tell, doesn't mean jack-squat to the area we're in. Besides a strange line to enter the grocery since they are limiting how many people can shop at once, I don't really see too many big changes.
For us, it's business as usual, I do the shopping for our needs and @isaria.. Well, she yells about the same amount.
On the bright side, I did manage a big score this afternoon.
BAM!
As far as changing goes, I'm not sure too much will change for us. We don't go out at all and instead we spend our non-work hours at home.
As a final thought, I personally know one person that is currently infected, and several others that are probably infected, but haven't been able to get a test. While I'm sure they will be okay, I still hope that people will take this seriously.
Thanks for reading my #quarantinelife
Shane (formerly @swelker101)
