Self Isolation challenges.

How has self isolation affected you mentally and physically?

How have you coped with these challenges?

What lessons have you leant from this experience?

Are you still as careful about keeping the Corona virus out of your home?

Five days ago, my son had a cold and we did not think much of it, then two days after that he said he was unable to smell. My husband and I asked him why  he thought he was unable to smell and he said he had not been able to smell his poo that morning. We then decided that he gets tested for Covid19, lo and behold, the test came back positive. As a family we have had to be tested 4 times before and we were so used to getting negative tests. This time we all went into a bit of shock as we did not think it possible as his symptoms were those of a common cold, apart from being unable to smell. We realised at this point that we need to be grateful to the Lord God almighty as he is already recovering without any severe symptoms.

The phrase self-isolation does have a negative effect on my mind, I become very disorganised and I am unable to do the many   jobs around the house that I have always told myself that one day when I get time, I’m going to do those jobs. I wonder if it is my employee mindset  of being accustomed to going to work and working under someone else’s instructions. I wonder if it is because with my own jobs, I have no accountability to anyone else but myself.  As my husband once said, ‘you cannot be slave to your own plans’. I feel this mindset is also hindering my going forward with our side hustles and fire journey.  How do I overcome this mindset when I get locked down? How do I organise myself to get to a place where I embrace what is happening at the time and be grateful for the time and use it wisely. I have realised that if I want to be the person I really want to be, I should be strict with myself and be also accountable to myself.

While we were coming to grips with self-isolation challenge, Boris Johnson announced that schools are not going to open, even though we were already isolating as a family. I suddenly felt as if there were more locks added to the already locked gate to the outside world. We were hoping that soon our little one would be able to go back to school, and be with her friends. Her school has been closed for the past three weeks, so she has been looking forward to seeing   her friends again.  I began to stress about how we are going to cope, then I felt less stress when I thought about   parents who home school their children. During the last lockdown, my husband worked from home and took care of the little one, and when I returned home from work, she wanted to play with me and wanted to jump all over me. To be honest I was always really tired all the time, and found myself snapping at her. In the end we decided that as a child of a key worker she can go to school and so we sent her to school for four days a week but we were still unsure of the risk the virus had on children.

This got me wondering about how parents who home school their children cope. I wondered if it’s something that I could explore, but then I realised that we do not have the proper systems in place to implement this effectively.  Of course, someone may say I need a mindset change shift and embrace that God gave us these children to take care of. Therefore in his own way he will also give us the ways and means to take care of these precious gifts. The challenge is in implementing systems to enable you to keep your children engaged in activities, such that they do not easily get bored. The other challenge is getting all the information to feed my Childs head, because I also feel I have so many gaps in knowledge myself as I am a scientist and do not feel I have enough knowledge to impart in all the other subjects. On looking online, I found that there are many   many websites and resources online that would support this venture if one really wanted to take up this challenge or shall I call it\’ a way of life\’. It seems the most important aspect in correctly implementing this is doing a lot of research and also sticking to schedules. Sticking to a schedule has been difficult, in the past few days, I have there started using a diary which has a day a page, at least on that I can write down all my planned activities for the day the day before.

As for keeping safe, we found that during lockdown, we ended up relying a lot on online shopping. On reflection we realised that we were exposing ourselves by receiving these goods straight into the house, so we implemented a system of, putting on rubber gloves, before touching the parcel, then spraying the parcels with a Dettol disinfectant and placing the parcels in the utility area for a few hours before opening them. We did this with letters too. If someone enters the house from work, we would also spray their outer garments and they remove footwear at the door. However as time went on we started being lazy and sometimes we got too excited and opened the parcel before spraying the parcels. With this new COVID19 variant and my son\’s positive result, the battle must continue. Lets not get tired of protecting our loved ones, lets continue to listen to government guidelines.

How have you been taking care of your selves and what systems do you have in place in your homes to ensure the virus does not rob you of your loved ones and your livelihood?