A week spent at home under quarantine

NEW HAMPTON — Friday was the fifth consecutive day I stayed at home in quarantine with my family on doctor’s orders. Not my doctor, mind you, but the physician treating my son’s girlfriend in Portland, Maine.

She had dinner with us March 12 and wasn’t feeling great, but didn’t think much of it. The next morning, she had a low-grade fever and went to an urgent care clinic. Influenza was ruled out, but she did not fit the criteria for a coronavirus test.

In Portland on Monday, her doctor told her she did meet the criteria. By then she had a cough, and perhaps her status as a healthcare worker also gave her greater priority.

You know that sensation in your nose when you take in too much wasabi or horseradish? That’s what it feels like to have your nostril deeply swabbed for the coronavirus, she reported.

There wasn’t a solid estimate for when the results would be available. Best case, maybe a day or two.

The doctor said her contacts, like us, should stay in quarantine until the test results come back. Five days later, we all feel fine, but we’re still awaiting those results and we’re still staying in our house.

Remote work

Working from home is not so bad, as many people are now finding out. My daughter, who lives in Boston, and another son, who lives in Portland, both work for companies that have told their employees to work remotely until this virus outbreak is sorted out.

Many have found out they can be productive without going to the office. Computers and cell phones work just as well from home in most cases.

Also, it has the advantage of being the right thing to do. The best expert advice for flattening the curve of disease growth is to stay home as much as possible. This reduces the chance for community spread and exponential growth in new cases.

People over 60, and I fall under that category, barely, and those with serious underlying medical conditions are also advised to stay home if they can, since they are most at risk of serious complications if they catch it.

We should all thank the grocery clerks, delivery drivers, pharmacists, utility workers, firefighters, police officers, janitors and others who must go to work in person and are keeping the rest of us safe and well fed.

Loss of routine

What is a little strange and unsettling is the shredding of routine.

The positive side of working from home is the time and money saved by not having to commute to work.

On the other hand, my daily trip to the athletic club has fallen by the wayside. Now, I’m doing jumping jacks when I get stiff from typing too long on my laptop at the kitchen table.

For the first time in a long time, I went on a 4-mile run with my wife. My muscles became so sore afterward I wondered if it was the first sign of coronavirus — it wasn’t.

Usually my office has a rollicking morning meeting where we discuss stories of the day.

Now we’re doing it on a staticky conference call. Friday morning, my voice got muted and nobody could figure out how to turn me back on. I joked they had finally found a way to shut me up.

Pluses, minuses

Camaraderie, collaboration and creative process are all helped by close proximity to one another, but that has become a luxury many of us now have to avoid.

Still, for every negative, there is a positive.

I’ve been able to bond with the tiny poodle/Yorkie mix we recently adopted. He likes and sometimes demands to sit on my lap as I write.

Meanwhile, life goes on. I call my sources and hope they call me back before my deadline, just like always. The only difference now is that many of them, like me, are working from home.

Coronavirus test

If the test results from my son’s girlfriend come back positive, another quarantine period will be needed to make sure we don’t have the disease. I suppose we could get tested at that point, but since we’re not symptomatic, I don’t know if we would meet the criteria.

If it comes back negative, I’m free to go about my business as normal, although there is no normal anymore.

In a way, I’m glad I have to wait for these test results. It’s been a wakeup call about how important it is to be safe in this environment.

In fact, at the start of the week, I was almost out the door on my way to work when I realized, with help from my wife and son, that I really shouldn’t, not only for my own good, but for the good of others as well.