What are you doing at home?

[Racer1986]

I know everyone has their own unique situations...mine is that my wife is 8 months pregnant and has asthma, although mild. I work on an orthopedic med surg floor and have been taking care of COVID rule outs intermittently since we stopped elective procedures. Yesterday I was pulled to our hospital’s COVID unit as half of our unit is now shut down indefinitely. I know this is going to be happening much more frequently and I’m now going to work expecting to care for positive COVIDs.

My wife has an acquaintance who has offered us the use of her family’s travel trailer for me to isolate myself. Currently, we have a fairly good system going in our house where we are basically living apart under the same roof. I am limiting myself to a bedroom and bathroom and she has the rest of the house. We don’t currently have any children, so that helps. The RV would come with some headaches, as we would have to have it pumped every couple of weeks and I’d still have to either do laundry in the house or go to a laundromat. But obviously it would add another layer of separation. We are not sure what the right choice is. Anyone else facing similar issues? What are you doing to isolate from those with whom you live and do you feel like it is enough to keep them safe?

God bless us all! Thanks for any insight.

[mehjaf]

I was wondering what other people are doing also. My spouse has some risk factors so I worry about giving it to him. I am sometimes working with intubated Covid-19 patients and as I suction them, suction the mouth, even though I have a face shield and regular mask on, I still wish I had an N95 mask. I go home, leave my shoes outside, removed my clothes directly into the washer by the door and go take a hot shower and scrub. I wipe off doorknobs and handles on cabinets, fridge, etc with bleach water spray. I started sleeping in a separate bedroom and have a separate bathroom. I am trying to keep my distance from him at home and don't hug or kiss. It is sad. I don't know if I am being too worried or not enough. I am wearing a mask when I go to the grocery store for other people's protection, not mine. These are weird times. I know ultimately God is sovereign and there is not one maverick molecule in the universe, but I also know that I have to use wisdom.

[Racer1986]

Thanks for your response. It sounds to me like what you are doing is definitely not being too worried. I’m sure it is terrrible to have to distance from your husband... it is awful for me to not be able to be physically close with my wife during this last month of pregnancy and feel the baby move, etc., but I keep telling myself that the ultimate goal here is to have a healthy family when this is all said and done. I think distancing at home is totally appropriate, I just hope it is enough.

[Schweet]

This very topic is actually what reignited my interest to look at these forums. I think this quote says a lot about this situation overall:

"Everything we do before a pandemic will seem alarmist. Everything we do after will seem insufficient." -Michael Leavitt

So far, none of us have any symptoms of CV and we have a child.

My significant other is more exposed so is using our master bedroom/bath and never entering the rest of our house, shoes and clothes stay in garage, away from everything. Bringing food to the back door and using Alexa to communicate.

I wanted to have our child stay with family but we get the vibe from family that our kid is already, for lack of a better word, "contaminated."

I work much less often and I take care of our kid. It isn't perfect. Unrealistic to have our family watch him for months anyway I suppose.

Unfortunately, I feel I'll eventually get it and bring it home. If that could just wait until after the peak, that would be great. In a perfect world our kid would already be staying with family I guess. Quitting work isn't an option for us so this will have to do.

[Schweet]

How is everyone else handling this?

[litepath2]

We're doing what we always do every Winter. We isolate ourselves from others. We never go out to eat in the Winter. And we shop usually mornings.

When one of us pulls down a case of whatever. We sleep separately and basically keep some distance, but not overboard about it. No kissy face, etc. The healthy one does the bleach-water cleaning of knobs and so forth.

Now that the COVID-19 is about, we still do the same things. I am no longer working as a nurse, but wifey is. They're screening workers before entry to their facility. Shes had to screen them a few times and some folks have tried to come in sick. Nope! Sent them home.

We both worked 2003 SARS and 2009 H1N1 and never gave those things any thought. I mean, how many times have you known a pt should be on neg pressure and the higher ups said no. Come in next shift, and yep!

ETA: I taught myself LOOOOOONG ago not to touch my face at all in public. We've kept sanitizers in our cars for years and years.

Summary, we're not tripping.

[toomuchbaloney]

We're retired RNs, nearly 100 years experience between us. We made a gallon of birch syrup. Built a small dam to divert the stream overflow away from our front yard and front porch. Prepped my greenhouse once I didn't need snowshoes to get to it. (Mid April LOL). We take frequent drives up the road to eat pie and look at the Alaska Range. Discovering a small batch local coffee roaster and fresh egg farmer right down the road.

My wife painted and assembled a ukulele. She wrote a couple silly quarantine songs and turned my dog team into house dogs.

[Kitiger, RN]

As far as we know, my clients and their families do not have COVID 19.

I remove my shoes at the door, phone & keys on the counter (to sanitize later), wash my hands, remove my hearing aides, mask into the UV sanitizer, all clothes directly into the washing machine, and then to the bathroom to wash up. Glasses get washed with regular soap & water.

My workbag goes in it's special spot, where it won't be touched (separate bag for each client). Doorknobs and faucets get wiped down. After that, we consider the house to be our safe zone.

I would step it up a bit as far as separation from my husband if I had known COVID clients.