Being Positive: Stories from parents living with COVID
With a growing number of COVID-19 cases in Melbourne and a rise in local families isolating, it’s little wonder that many of us feel concerned about the weeks and months ahead. As parents, we always want to do what’s best for our children and shielding them from dangers, especially one as infectious as COVID, seems a daunting and frightening challenge. Unfortunately we’ve begrudgingly accepted that achieving COVID zero is impossible and so begins the challenge of learning to live with COVID-19 and getting on with life, all while protecting our families and friends.
Shocked, embarrassed and scared, are how many have described feeling upon receiving a positive diagnosis. Getting over the stigma attached to COVID is a real thing and not to be underestimated. Everyone assumes that you’ve done the wrong thing. The challenge therefore to encourage openness in our community without fear of judgement takes on equal importance in our journey to live with this virus.
Sharing knowledge and experience is what our MotH members do best and I was honoured to have two members come forward to share their story about living with COVID-19. Their stories are but one of many and we know that everyone's experience will be different. However, by sharing stories openly, honestly and free from judgement, our members hoped to break down the stigma around ‘being positive’. They’ve also learnt a lot on their journey and wanted to share what they wished they had known so that others don’t have to learn the hard way.
In sharing these stories our Moths hope to help our community choose a path that allows open and honest conversations on COVID experiences. Developing a shared sense of community responsibility towards getting tested early and announcing exposure sites would be a great outcome too. I hope you will join me in thanking our MotH members for sharing their stories with us and wish them well on their own journey of recovery.
Anon’s Story (Our member has chosen to remain anonymous)
I live in Upwey with my partner and two primary school aged kids and I tested positive for COVID on 6 October. My COVID experience is via a mystery community case not associated with an exposure site. It's almost cruel that I don't know where I got it from. My symptoms are mild, so mild that initially I considered not getting tested. Thankfully I had decided to do the right thing, just to be sure. I am so glad I did! I’ve always followed all the rules (masks, check ins, distancing etc) but my symptoms were so mild I hadn’t contemplated ever testing positive. To put it simply, the headfuckery associated with this has been a bit much.
I'm frustrated and weary about how lacking the information is. We know how to avoid COVID and the public health message has been that if we do the right thing we won't get it, but in my case this is simply not true. Adjacent to that, the information from each of the state and federal agencies that I've received is mostly not correct, which makes sense as the system is horribly overwhelmed.
The message from DHHS is that I should completely isolate myself from my household. I understand this message, however as a family this is not practical. We shared drinks, cuddles, breath, all the things all the way through my infectious period and to my results, which took 48 hours from being tested (though this is not indicative of a positive result always, more that the system is overwhelmed) so we decided that I would use one bathroom and not slobber on anyone, be wise with personal hygiene! They’re continuing to test negative, which is indicative of me being vaccinated. I have already received an sms from DHHS detailing my clearance date, so if I’m well when I reach this date, I will be safe to return to the general population!
Markeeta’s Story
I am a paediatric intensive care nurse and at work we have been covid prepping for forever now!. I had always expected that it would be me that would bring COVID home. I never expected it to be daycare!
We were already isolating by the time we heard from DHHS as we were a known contact through daycare. We appreciated the open and quick actions taken by our daycare who made sure we knew about the situation. We had a phone call from the doctor at our testing centre who also said DHHS would contact us with further details! I am still waiting for my text message we were supposed to receive from DHHS about that..
There is alot of mixed information at the moment that has admittedly caused us trouble. Different dates for follow up testing, different dates for when isolation starts and finishes and different instructions for what happens before we can leave isolation so it's quite frustrating. I am being followed up through my work with Monash health and my daughter is being followed up with eastern health. They have been great! All in all, we are going fine. As I said in my post, My daughter has been back to normal after a quick fever and we are just getting on with it!
The social stigma, real or perceived, messed with me at the start. Luckily I had people through daycare and playgroup who knew we were in isolation and asked regularly how we were going so I didn't feel I could lie to them. Once I started talking about it with people though it got easier and we all recognised that this is our new reality. We will probably all have to deal with this at some stage as we open up!
I am still surprised that no one else in our house has tested positive even with myself vaccinated! My hubby is only half vaxed and my son is only 11. I genuinely thought with our second test at day 5 that we would all be positive. We didn't really try to separate the family as by the time we got my daughter's results we had already spent a night bed sharing with her feverish and really she is five, there is no hope she is not sharing germs! My son's reaction to not being positive is "now I have to have more swabs!", so clearly he is not the least bit worried about getting sick!
What I wished I’d known
Markeeta: I would have liked to know that even though "we" keep telling you how contagious delta strain is that it still may not infect the whole family! I would want to know that even with all the information, it's still a scary diagnosis and takes time to get your head around! It's normal to be anxious and fearful.
I would have wanted to know that DHHS are swamped and may take a few days to make contact. We had so many parents at our daycare ready to head back out of isolation after their first negative test because the centre was listed as both a Tier 1 and Tier 2 site. When they hadn't heard from the DHHS they believed they fit in the Tier 2 category but four more cases later and everyone is then Tier 1. Almost all of them had gotten tested too soon after exposure!
If I didn't have a medical background, I would have wanted everyone to reassure me that my kid was more than likely not going to get very sick and chances of actually dying are almost none. My hubby was shitting himself about my daughter and needed a lot of reassurance she would be ok, which came from me. I
We are going for another test on Monday. We do the best family outings! We were told initially we only had to get retested at day 13. However, the nurse from Monash agreed but warned us that our isolation would start again from the day you receive an updated positive result. The tip was to get testing done more regularly so it's not another two weeks on top of the time you have just done!
Anon: I would have liked to have known that once I received my positive notification from the tester, that I should make myself known to my GP who for me turned out to have the most pragmatic approach with information and has called me twice weekly. I think that I would have also liked to know that the system is stretched, and I would have loved to have received an outline of what to expect from services and medical support. Something like a 'you'll receive your positive from the pathologist; then the DHHS will send you an sms with an online questionnaire; then you'll eventually hear from DHHS and you might be referred to Eastern or Monash Health' etc. That didn’t happen but I hope they are working on this.
What I have learnt
Mareeta: I’ve learnt that it's also ok to tell people or not to tell people, it's what works for you. Having said that, I think having a forum like MOTHs could open up a great safe place to talk about it all.
Anon: My GP's advice has been so practical. She suggested a diary and buying a pulse oximeter to track oxygenation as I had chest pains.
Thank you to our members for sharing their stories. I know that readers will appreciate the courage it has taken to open up about what has been at times a highly political and difficult subject (particularly for Melbournians) to discuss. Below are some useful links which I hope will encourage people to get tested as soon as possible if feeling unwell. The Royal Children's Hospital has also created a great YouTube video that discusses COVID-19 and children’s health. Finally the Yarra Ranges Shire council has been providing fantastic webinars on mental health topics which can be found in our Events section. Stay safe everyone and be kind to yourselves and your community and hopefully soon we'll be able to enjoy a great Summer.
