Tough decisions

As the state begins to open up around us the fear that was ever present, almost suffocating, at the beginning of this pandemic is now beginning to return. There were a few weeks, recently, when everyone was home. Everyone was locked down. Or I should say my people where home and safe. Zach wad designated as our tribute to go to various stores as needed and we did so very sparingly. I think in the past fifty some odd days Zach has been to stores maybe half a dozen times, with an N95 mask  on and a shower upon his return. We were as safe as we could possibly be and the crushing fear of the worst case scenario subsided ever so slightly.

Let me be clear on what the worst case scenario looks like in our house right now. The worst case is Zach has to go to work, or to a store, or wherever and gets sick. He obviously doesn't know he's sick until he exposed Zane and I to the disease as well. The worst case plays out with Zane or I possibly dying from this disease. Even typing that sounds like I'm being an alarmist, but I'm really not. The definition of the most vulnerable population is someone who has a compromised immune system with underlying lung issues, such as asthma. I check both of those boxes. I am not super old, but two out of three top risk factors is not good. I cannot say with any certainty that I would survive if I got this disease. The same can be said for Zane. People with underlying heart conditions are high on the list of the most vulnerable as well. As more people do recover from this disease we are beginning to learn that a lot of them are showing signs of heart damage if they survive. Zane's heart cannot handle any damage. There is a realistic possibility he wouldn't survive this disease either. Those are just the scientific facts of the matter. I'd like to think we'd be fine, but my life is based on science and facts and those are the facts. Even while we sit here appearing perfectly healthy, those still remain the actual facts, and facing the potential of dying is unimaginable.

With that in mind, and there are moments that I have to remind myself of those facts, we have kept our family extremely locked down. Nothing is worth risking the potential of that worst case scenario playing out. The other side of the coin are the humans that are a part of this family. For the first couple weeks of lock down I cannot begin to tell you the emotions, turmoil, and heartbreak that we had to work through with our children. This was grueling work and it continues everyday, but luckily things have begun to settle. The tough conversations around why some kids in the neighborhood are getting to play with each other while our cannot continue everyday. For weeks we were bombarded with questions about why we couldn't just see some people? Why we can't just go get ice cream? Why can't we go to the park? Why can't we just maybe ride bikes next to people? Every possible way to try to find some wiggle room in this mess was attempted and fought over and cried over to no end. In no uncertain terms we explained that life is in fact not fair. We are living in unprecedented times with no rule book and frankly no leadership in this country that we can rely on for factual information. We, sadly, also are household with lots of at risk people so this was going to be our life for a while.

Eventually the kids began accept this. They began to find words to use to describe their disappointment. To describe the hard things they were doing and they also found words to describe how this situation was unfair, but they understood how important the safety of every member of our family is the most important thing. Don't get me wrong the neighborhood kids continued to break our particular family rules on a daily basis and it continued to be hard and heartbreaking, but they understood we were making different decisions. There have been multiple instances where some child was full of emotion and was blaming it on something stupid, but when we really all sat down and calmly talked about what was going on the underlying issue was really that it's not fair that not everyone is having to be a strict as we are being and they are absolutely right, it's not fair, but it's necessary. As I calmly explained to Zane again this weekend, it is more important to me that Thatcher has memories of me than Zane being able to play with his friends right now. It's more important that I do everything I can to see my children graduate high school than us get to go to a park right now.

Now that the next phase of this is coming up or is in some cases upon us every family has terribly difficult decisions to make and no two families decisions are going to look the same. Zach and I have had long, painful, scary conversations around this for weeks now. Trying to sort out how he is going to safely start going back into the office to some extent while still coming home to two very vulnerable people that he lives with. How can he minimize as much as humanly possible the amount of time he spends outside of this home while this first wave of reopening the state begins. Everything could reopen and everything could be fine. There is also a chance that everything reopens, cases spike again, things worsen and we have to start over.

Our plan looks like this. We stay the coarse. The children don't know that any rules are being relaxed. They don't know that we could technically go eat at a restaurant. They don't know that their baseball season is probably actually going to start in a few weeks which seems incredibly stupid and dangerous for what point, little league baseball? I mean I understand the economy needs to reopen but little league baseball does not need to be played. What I do know is the moment I say we can go do one small thing I will be bombarded with every question about everything and every person that they are missing. For example we went fishing at a different lake last weekend. It was about a twenty minute drive and we sat out by the lake for an hour or so. It was lovely. It also included twenty five questions about it we could go to a gas station for snacks, could we stop and eat dinner on the way home, and can we go to a million other public places. One inch of wiggle room and the flood gates will be open. For not just our safety, but also my sanity I am keeping the flood gates firmly closed until we have some indication that opening things back up isn't the worst idea ever.

So I beg of everyone please give every person you come in contact with all the grace in the world. When they talk about these decisions all that needs to be said is, "that's a really hard decision to make."
"I am so sorry that everything is so hard." "I will respect whatever decisions you make for your family." Those decisions may make your life harder or sadder. None of it is fair, none of it is fun, none of it is easy, for anyone.

I keep coming back to when I was trying walk this family through Zane's heart surgery experience. When I realized what we were facing I reached out and found every possibly resource about getting young children through major medical procedures. I called in every favor, talked to every person that I worked with who might have expertise on this. I called in Child Life Specialist that I knew to give him tours and talk to him on the phone. I found child psychologists who could get him in to be seen quickly to get give him some tools to deal with all the emotions he was working through. I talked other mothers whose children had had surgery at a similar age. I read the research, I learned the science inside and out, I looked to every possibly expert not just about the medicine but about how to help children and families deal with the trauma of this type of event. I found the best advice in each category, the things that seemed to help the most people, weighed it with how that would look in our family, then made a decision about what I though would help us all get through it as whole and healthy as possible. In the end the decisions that we made always came down to Zach and I's feelings about it, but I something to base those decisions on.

That is the thing that is lacking right now, the ability to look to the past or to experts, or survivors for hope or advice. There is no one to call and talk about how the walked their children through this particular hard time. There are no scientific studies discussing the benefits of staying home longer verses not quarantining at all. There is no research to tell us how the virus acts or ways to treat it. There is no time line of what to expect or ways to plan for the future. This means we have to be over the top conservative and weigh everything we're thinking about doing based on if doing that thing is worth me not seeing my kids grow up. It's insanity, I know it is. I also hear that voice in the back of my head saying I'm being dramatic and crazy, because that's the voice all women hear in the back of their heads, right? I'm ignoring that voice and trying desperately to keep our family safe and get through this in one piece. It's terrifying, it's exhausting, and I have no idea when it will be over.
kids grow up