When Cal moved back home at the end of May we thought that it would only be for a few months. His auditing position at Plante Moran in Chicago was set to begin in September and most of his friends planned to move out of the area by July. That quickly changed, however, when the start date for his new career was moved to January. Cal, Doug and I spent quite a bit of time talking about the next step for Cal. We weren't worried about how he would keep busy as we knew he'd be able to work part time and study for the CPA. We were more concerned about how Cal could live in the Heinisch home and remain autonomous while keeping the rest of us safe from COVID.
It took a lot of rearranging and researching, but we finally came up with a solution. We turned a portion of the basement in a studio apartment for Cal, gave him his own bathroom and asked him to only access the house through the front door (which none of the rest of us ever used.) We closed his vents off to the rest of the house and even bought an air purifier to use in the main area of our home. Thus, Cal was able to live happily in our home and interact with our family while social distancing from us. We didn't have to worry about who he had been with or what he had been exposed to at work, and he could still feel like part of the Heinisch family.
We were all comfortable with the living arrangement until Halloween. Our county and those around us started to explode with positive cases and Cal was actually directly exposed. Even though he tested negative after that incident we decided from that point on that we would add an extra layer of protection in our home by asking the Heinisch children to wear a mask around us. Everyone was in agreement that it was for the best as more and more people that we knew had come down with the virus or had to quarantine because they were exposed to it. Cam and Meg both said that they actually preferred wearing masks at home so they didn't have to worry as much about getting either Doug or I sick.
Fast forward to late December and a text from Cal letting me know that one of his friends had tested positive for the coronavirus. Cal was more than concerned that he had contracted the virus as he had spent the previous weekend with him and his friends. A positive test confirmed it that afternoon and Cal made plans on what to do next. Since my parents had left for Florida several days beforehand, Cal suggested living at their home until his ten day isolation period was over. Everyone agreed that we could make that work. Grandpa Cutes gave him the internet password so that he could work from their home and I packed up all of the groceries and supplies that I thought he might need before I could get to the store. Cal stopped at home after his test to grab his laptop, clothes and toiletries and headed off into the great unknown.
I was extremely nervous for the first five days that he was gone. I was concerned that all of our efforts to keep the rest of us safe had not worked. I was also worried that he would get extremely sick and that we wouldn't know right away since he was living on his own. Thankfully, we only had to check on him once when he didn't respond to our texts and phone calls for an entire evening. We were happy to find out that he was just extremely tired and had fallen asleep immediately after work.
In the end Cal's experience with COVID was definitely mild. Besides being exhausted, having some congestion and not being able to taste anything for a few days, there wasn't much to it. In fact he said that if his friend hadn't tested positive that he probably wouldn't have even realized that he had it. I was glad for that as he had had so many issues with asthma in his younger days. As much as he hated isolating, we all felt fortunate that he had Grandma's entire house to utilize for the two weeks. Most of all I was also extremely thankful that all of protocols that we had been put in place in the Heinisch home last summer had paid off as none one of the rest of us tested positive for the virus. Now if we could all keep it that way until we get vaccinated, that would be a true blessing.
No comments:
Post a Comment