So today, shielding is paused. Not stopped as it is sometimes reported, but paused and able to restart should the current pandemic get out of control again; at least in Wales. At this point I have been shielding since the 17th of March 2020 with my family. That is 153 days including today and a day short of 5 months.
It has been a very weird time. I have lived through other medical things before, as we all have, and I have even had Swine Flu, but never have I experienced anything like this before.
Making sudden adjustments was disconcerting. It was very difficult to see where we needed to be making changes until I received my shielding letter, because the government seemed to be in absolute disarray. Luckily I’d already taken it upon myself to shield us from the 17th of March and so we were already well underway when the letter arrived a week later.
To cope, we initially changed our shopping habbits and started ordering from Tesco. We decided not to ask for priority support during the whole pandemic with regard to shopping because we were lucky enough to find enough delivery slots spare as we went forward. This was not an ideal move as we have ended up spending orders of magnitude more money on shopping, but we really did not have a choice.
We also had to source a lot more hand sanitiser and disinfectant than ever before; just to be able to keep the house and anything entering it free of CV-19. Some people helped us with this by sending some through the post to help us, while others drove to collect some for us from the Anglesey Distillery (who were making their own to WHO standards – we liked theirs very much).
We had a lot of help directly from friends and volunteers, including help from Steph at the local Gwalchmai Hotel twelve times, as well as the local shop a couple of times. My friend Viv also helped me seven times and another friend Brian helped me over fourteen times. They were able to help with additional shopping, posting letters, take-out food (from the pub) and importantly, medicines from my GP.
We also had support from Menter Môn, Medrwn Môn, the District Nurses, and even the Red Cross. There’s no doubt at all that we could not have managed without the help from many other people giving up their time to support us and by us changing our habbits, which ultimately allowed us to quarantine safely.
The biggest help I have had by far though has been my daughter. She needed to quarantine with me (as did my boy) as she is my carer and while doing so she has gone above and beyond her usual monolithic contributions to our family. She is the one who disinfected every item from every bag of shopping, every burger from the village pub, every medicine packet and every single parcel and letter we received. This is on top of her normal kindness.
There’s no doubt that as a family we have supported one another during this time, both emotionally and with mental health (being stuck inside is not great), but my daughter has outdone us all. If you read this in the future my dear, you have my most heartfelt thanks and admiration.
As the peak seemed to pass, shielding was continued in Wales until today. We have been allowed to start venturing outside for the last few weeks though. This has been a great relief. True we cannot go into buildings and we must remain socially distant (and we will continue this going forward), but being able to be outside has given some relief to the constant uncertainty hanging over us.
We used our freedom to spend a couple of nights out viewing and taking photographs of the stars, planets and comet Neowise. I managed to get a very blurred, but distinct picture of Jupiter and four of her moons. We have flown kites, built robots, written, produced and published music, studied courses, drawn artwork, played games, built websites, walked (well I was wheeled) in Newborough Forest, enjoyed a couple of thunder storms, taken up photography, taken DNA tests and received results and we even managed to get ourselves out just three days ago to RAF Valley to see the Red Arrows rehearsing. Wonderful.
The release has helped us a lot, however we do not in any way think this is over. Winter is coming (no pun intended), and I am vulnerable to even just the flu (I’ll have the annual vaccine of course). With the R number rising and mass groups of people coming to Wales from England, I fear winter will only bring a rise of Covid 19. In addition people will be coughing more, sneezing more, touching their faces to wipe their noses more and I worry that we could all be caught out again.
We will have to stay vigilant. We have masks, and we will carry on with our sanitising regime. Brexit is not going to be the boon that people like to imagine it will be and another wave of CV-19 on top of that could be very bad indeed.
I hope with everything I am that I’m wrong.
Optimistically then, onwards.
Emma