COVID-19 has kicked my butt.
My last column for this paper was over my March break and I wrote about coffee shops and studying and normal things.
Now, you can’t look at a newspaper or turn on the news or browse your news apps without seeing headlines screaming, “PANDEMIC,” “COVID-19,” “CORONAVIRUS,” “DEATH,” “NEW CASES.”
My pandemic journey has been pandemonium.
It began on March 16 when all in-person classes were suspended at my school, St. Thomas University in Fredericton, N.B.
I was lost.
Nothing like this has happened before. I didn’t get to say goodbye to my professors or even my best friend. I had to decide if I was going to come home to Cape Breton or stay in Fredericton. I didn’t have too much of a choice. I had yet to finish all of my final projects and all of those projects required using equipment from my school.
So, I stayed.
I was getting stuff done, but the virus was spreading faster.
I’m immunocompromised so it got to the point where I couldn’t get groceries in fear of catching the virus and I didn’t want any of my roommates to accidentally bring it home. Luckily, I had careful roommates and I tried to be careful myself, but the thought of possibly getting COVID-19 was scary because I knew my body couldn’t handle that.
Then I got the call that I’d been temporarily laid off from my job. This was getting seriously serious.
I had to go home.
My roommate and I started packing and getting stuff ready. My dad was going to come and pick me up, but we had to wait for his two-week quarantine to end. He was in South Carolina for an appointment when the virus escalated so he had to quarantine as soon as he returned.
My pandemic journey has been pandemonium.
But have no fear, on Saturday, he would get out of quarantine and come get me. Simple, right?
No.
Nova Scotia made the decision to close the borders to any unnecessary travel. This meant that anyone coming into Nova Scotia from another province would need to quarantine by themselves for two weeks. If my dad came to get me, he’d technically be coming back into Nova Scotia from New Brunswick and would need to quarantine for another two weeks. But he couldn’t miss a whole month of work. So, we came up with a plan. I would limit what I was bringing home and I’d fly to Cape Breton.
When I arrived, my parents met me outside the airport, and we waved as I got in a car they left there for me. No hugs, no nothing. I went and began my two-week quarantine. It actually wasn’t as horrible as I predicted. But the worst part was knowing where my mom and grandmother were.
I knew my grandmother was in the hospital before I even came back home. No one was allowed to see her because of the restrictions at the hospital. While I was in quarantine, she was moved to palliative care and my mom was the only person allowed in to see her.
I still had a long while to go with my quarantine, but I wouldn’t be able to see her anyway. I was devasted.
My Nana grew worse, but every day when I Facetimed, she would remind me how many days I had left.
She waited.
The day I got out of quarantine was the day before Easter Sunday. My mom woke up Easter morning to bring my Nana breakfast. But she wasn’t responsive. She was hanging on but wasn’t awake.
My mom called me and said she was allowed to have one more person in to see my Nana. On the way to the hospital, I cried sad tears — my Nana is my best friend. But I also cried happy tears, I would get to see my Nana one more time.
I cried and spoke to her, knowing she was hearing everything I said. I told her stories and explained what we would do after she got out of the hospital and the pandemic ended.
About 28 hours later, my grandmother passed away peacefully. I’ve struggled a lot with not being able to see extended family and grieve with them. We can’t have a funeral or a visitation.
I’ve felt weak and exhausted grieving alongside only my immediate family.
I hope someday soon it will be possible for us to put my grandmother to rest, for me to visit my friends and embrace them in a hug, to return to work, to go back to school in the fall.
I hope someday soon, I can look at the front page of the newspaper and smile.
Hannah Rudderham is a graduate of Riverview High School in Coxheath. She is studying digital journalism and new media at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, N.B.