Just a week ago, I found out my best friend’s husband was prepping for the inevitable onslaught of the coronavirus as it began to sweep across every continent (except Antarctica–lucky penguins).
I had been a bit of a prepper myself a while ago until the tragedy trifecta hit our family: my mom died, my son was diagnosed with a rare disease and my disabled father moved in with us, all happening in a span of about three days.
While juggling actual emergencies, my capacity for planning for other hypothetical scenarios fell by the wayside and I figured we were done for with two medically fragile family members anyway. I stopped buying water, canned goods, and mentally rehearsing worst case scenarios because I was pretty much living my nightmare at that point.
If you think it’s weird that I liked thinking about what our post-apocalyptic survival would be like, you’re right, but at the same time I feel that I’m in my wheelhouse right about now.
I’ve already mentally put myself in this scenario, and it actually isn’t as bad as my fantasies about Ebola.
I imagined Patient 0 vomiting all over the downstairs bathroom-turned-makeshift-quarantine-room, with me wrapped in garbage bags and rubber gloves as I cared for one of my children before succumbing to the disease and dying alone by myself so as not to infect anyone else (the martyrdom is just a little bonus I gave myself).
These pretend scenarios were run around the year 2010, so my husband really didn’t have the ability to work full time from home as he does now so I had to think about how I’d make him get changed on the back porch in sort of an in-between chamber. Once society collapsed, then he wouldn’t have to work so he could help defend the homestead with me.
As an aside, I have to say this real life scenario we’re living in now gives me a little bit of a thrill as I think of our near-zero risk of community transmission that I never dared dream was possible.
Anyway, these were the kinds of things I would think about it and it gave me comfort knowing I worked out many of the particulars in my head.
As I tell my children, you don’t have to worry about something you’re already prepared for–at least that’s how I explained it when I taught my oldest how to dial 911 in case I fell off the chair I was standing on to clean the ceiling fan.
While I never recovered my stockpile, when I found out about my best friend’s husband and saw what was happening in the news, I bolted out of bed about a week before everyone else started doing it to make a late night trip to Walmart for essentials.
I was just ahead of the curve enough to pick up a little bit of pasta, canned goods, and toilet paper to last us a while without any problem. My husband chastised me for my panicked spending spree, but I have taken the high road and not reminded him of his folly.
Just kidding, I’ve literally texted him “I told you so” every day with attached pictures of empty shelves where toilet paper, peanut butter, and pasta once were at the grocery store where I work as an in-store shopper.
Now we’ve officially begun quarantine and I’m on hiatus from that job but I’ll still text him pictures of the empty meat cases that my co-workers are sharing. He loves it.
I know this first weekend at home is a honeymoon, but I feel like I’ve been preparing for this my whole life. I’ve always been waiting for the other shoe to drop and I feel like this is finally it so I can actually relax a bit because at least I know what I’m up against and it isn’t as bad as Ebola.
Also, our family has been through this before with my son being neutropenic. After my son received his treatment, he literally had no immune system and also couldn’t get the slightest bump as he’d risk a brain bleed. We’ve done this before where we’re hunkered down for the duration and we have a few tricks up our sleeves to make this bearable.
We’re planning on taking walks, rides in the car, playing in the yard as much as weather permits, watching movies, and even having theme weeks like we do over the summer. It won’t be easy, but it will be manageable if not a little lonely just as it was when we were protecting our little guy.
Don’t get me wrong, I know some folks have debilitating anxiety disorders so I don’t mean to make light of that. However, I think always living on the edge of panic about one thing or another, I’ve learned to quell my anxiety by planning for the worst and hoping for the best and I feel like that’s served me well up until now.
One of my good friends, who is my complete opposite when it comes to worrying, was a bit shaken by the sudden closure of our Catholic school. While I too was a bit in disbelief, part of me has always been just waiting for something like this to happen.
For me, the survival experience is finally getting started so we can get it over with what I’ve always considered inevitable. I wish it weren’t happening, but I’ve been worrying that it always would anyway and now here we are ready to confront it.
Let me make it clear that despite there being some playfulness in my tone, I know that this is serious business and I’m praying daily for everyone to get through this safely, especially my loved ones.
I hope to God that we’re all spared the worst of it, although by all measures it looks like it’s going to happen and its going to be bad and I don’t take that lightly.
I worry about my son because although he’s in remission, he’ll always remain a little fragile to us. We don’t know what made his bone marrow fail, but it had something to do with his immune system so another illness like this could be serious.
He’s also been through a lot and has had some heavy duty medications so I don’t know what lasting damage has occurred that we just don’t know about yet.
I especially worry for my father is now in a nursing home. Obviously it makes it easier since we won’t have aides and therapists coming to the house, but it’s so hard not being able to visit until further notice knowing he’s getting lonely. I also know he is well cared for and will be in good hands God forbid he does get sick, so that gives me comfort but I’m still concerned.
I’ve had some version of this nightmare before so I’m no stranger to the way this all feels. Being desensitized by this baseline worry gives me some sense of control.
What’s coming next is something that I’ve had nightmares about, but I’ve always had the relief of being able to wake up and know that the world is just as it was when I went to bed the night before.
There is no waking up from it this time, but I’m confident that God will get us through in the way He knows is best for us—hopefully unscathed, but regardless it will be with whatever is directed towards our greater good.
In the meantime, if anyone needs me I’ll be in the only place I’d ever want to be in this situation—not in some fancy mountain bunker deep underground, but in my very own house surrounded by the people I love most in the world.
May God keep us all safe!
