My Family & COVID-19
This photo-essay is semi-chronological, following my immediate family’s story over the past five weeks. My mom is a nurse in the pediatric same-day recovery unit after being a pediatric emergency room nurse for 15 years. While her unit has been closed since the start of stay-at-home orders, she’s been pulled out of her unit to work in the adult intensive care unit three times in the past five weeks and was pulled into the COVID-19 unit once, right at the start of the stay-at-home orders.
Since she was directly in contact with COVID patients, she had to self-isolate from March 23, 2020 to April 5, 2020. My dad, sister, and I had to quarantine in the house for those two weeks as well. Many of these photos document the isolation room while the other pieces document the home environment.
I could say so much to those protesting the stay-at-home orders. I could be angry and rant on Facebook. I could post all over Instagram shaming them. I hope, instead, these photos offer some insight into life as a medical family during the pandemic. I hope the protestors can see my family’s struggle and feel some compassion.
Many families are going through much harder times. Up to this point, none of my family members have tested positive for the virus and we live in a stable, safe, and loving home. We have food on the table every night, three of us have stable jobs, and none of us are medically compromised. With that being said:
To the protestors, I feel sorry for you. I feel sorry that you don’t have a loving home to care for. I feel sorry that you may be food or shelter insecure. I feel sorry that you don’t have elderly or infant members of your family that you love. I feel sorry that you struggle to feel compassion and empathy. I feel sorry that you may have lost your job. I feel sorry that you don’t have the same access and education that I do. I feel sorry for all of us that we’re going through this at all. Mostly, I feel love for you, and I can do nothing but share my own story and hope yours turns to a more positive light soon.
Page published to Facebook 5/14 –> https://www.facebook.com/madie.mento/posts/2595980557292153
“To the oppressed,
and to those who suffer with them
and fight at their side”
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Dedication (pg. 3)
She created a make-shift desk out of the dining room table, which has also become a “dumping ground” for papers, boxes, school supplies, and other random household items. We call it “Macey’s Domain.”
My home is littered with masks. During my mother’s isolation, we all had to wear one any time we went into the lower level of our home where my mom was residing. Any time she made the three-foot journey from laundry room to bathroom, her mouth was covered.
“All these myths… are presented to [the oppressed] by well-organized propaganda and slogans, via the mass ‘communications’ media—as if such alienation constituted real communication!”
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, pg. 140
My mother’s isolation started on March 23, 2020. I took these photos on March 22, 2020 while she was out shopping for supplies to keep with her in this room. We were lucky that the garage was already floored and painted after being my dad’s “man cave,” and we put in the rug from my college dorm room. The following photos depict the space my mom occupied, alone, for 14 days. When asked, she would describe it as “prison.”
With my mom in the garage, my dad lived in their bedroom alone. Their king-size bed splits in two as one of those motorized beds, so both my parents continue to sleep alone on twin XL size beds to this day. The bed doubles as his desk.
During quarantine, my sister and mom took up making masks for the local nursing homes and care facilities. Central Jersey didn’t get hit nearly as bad as New York, so most of the large hospitals were able to resist a mask shortage, although many nurses were expected to wear the same mask between patients and for up to six days in a row. My mom took to social media as a coping mechanism both in and out of isolation.
I never could have imagined this as our life. Moving forward, my parents have decided that it was too traumatizing to isolate my mom in the garage, so, if she works with COVID patients, we’re going to continue to live amongst each other in the house freely and risk the virus. Writing this today, May 8, 2020, my mom continues to sleep, exercise, and live out of the garage. No one can use her bathroom and we keep the doors closed at all times. When she comes home from the hospital, she enters through the garage door (pictured above), strips her clothes to the washing machine, and showers immediately. Then, she lives freely in the house with the rest of us. We’ve been eating meals together, playing games together, and watching movies together.
We’re taking it day-by-day, crossing our fingers that we can keep ourselves and our extended family healthy, as my grandmother, cousins, and aunt and uncle live on our block. We, just like everyone else, are hoping this ends soon so we can return to our normal lives, but we will be forever changed by this pandemic. I’ll end this essay how I end most internet writing these days: stay home, if not for your family then for mine.
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