Category: Voices from the pandemic
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Gym owner: ‘When I got the shot, I started crying immediately. I got a vaccine for the disease that devastatingly killed my mother.’
“I feel OK, but I’m not ecstatic to be here. It’s hard to be alive and vibrant in this time that seems very dark.”
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Waters on 50th resident: ‘It’s unbelievable that it’s been a year’
We’re hanging in pretty well, but we’ve talked to a couple of people who’ve gotten really down. Usually they’re bubbly and outgoing, and now they’re just kind of withdrawn. It’s been very hard, especially on single people. I have Ron to keep me amused.
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Jones-Harrison nursing assistant: ‘You see the light at the end of the tunnel’
You can only cry. But I was blessed that I was able to help.
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Justice Page teacher: ‘I’ll open the window, and then I’ll keep the wasps out how?’
My sixth-grade students will be returning to classes. I’m relieved to have an answer, relieved to know, relieved to stop wondering. But then my mind goes to all the questions.
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Waters on 50th resident: ‘I’ve never ached like that, and I have rheumatoid arthritis’
When I woke up on Tuesday morning [after the second shot], I had the chills really bad. I was covered up with all these blankets. My teeth chattered. I was achy all over.
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Gym owner: ‘How do you come back from grief?’
I’ve been looking up passages in the Bible to see what heaven looks like. Because I want to know what she’s doing. Am I going to get to see her again?
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HCMC nurse: ‘I’m now able to hug with abandon’
I feel like the worst of the disease is behind us, but if these variants become prevalent, then we’ve got a whole new ballgame.
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Justice Page teacher: ‘Things are up in the air, but you can only be so frustrated’
Teachers are in line for vaccines right now, and I’ve had some colleagues get vaccinated, but it’s a really small number — like single digits.
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Waters on 50th resident: ‘It feels real good to be vaccinated’
The dizziness lasted all night, but I felt better by the morning. The next day my arm was sore, but it was just like when you get the flu shot — nothing more.
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Gym owner: ‘I knew it was bad, I knew people could die. But it’s a horror.’
My mom, Apryl, passed away last week, and I’m still very emotional. It was horrible. The virus can give you hope and then take it away very quickly.
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HCMC physician: The vaccine ‘felt like a turning point’
It was the best mild cold I ever had because I knew I was getting immune — or at least immune to the severe disease.
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Temple Israel rabbi: ‘This is a scary time for the Jewish community’
“When it says ‘Camp Auschwitz’ on t-shirts in the Capitol, we know these are people full of hate, anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia and they are not people we can talk to.”
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HCMC nurse: ‘The vaccine has given us some hope’
We’re holding up these iPads so they can do Christmas with their families on Zoom, and we look and there are huge family gatherings happening with many people. And I’m thinking, “How many of you are going to be in the ICU in a couple of weeks?”
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Waters on 50th resident: ‘We are signed up with Moderna for the vaccine’
I’m really glad the vaccine’s coming. I hope it will ease things up a little bit, because we really are stuck here.
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Gym owner: ‘If they take [my mom] off the ventilator, she’ll die’
I’m trying to be positive and get through each day as it comes. My mom, who’s been hospitalized with COVID-19 for the past six weeks, is not doing bad but she’s not doing great. More and more things keep getting stacked on. Her lung collapsed last Monday, and she’s got a pneumothorax, where there’s air…
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Justice Page teacher: ‘I’ve definitely had less kid drama’
When students are joining you from where they are, that is where they are. That could be a shelter or it could be caring for their youngest sibling. It’s not unusual for a student to say, “Tracey, I’ll be right back, I have to make the [baby] bottle quick.”
Zac Farber 