We are like any other family...watching the news, popping on our social media every morning to see what's new with this evil virus.
I have gone through a wide range of emotions. I still continue to vacillate from one extreme to the other. Here are some facts about our family that come into play when dealing with the coronavirus.
We have a child who is immunocompromised.
As most of you know, our oldest son, Eli, received a kidney transplant in 2018. In order to keep his body from rejecting the new kidney, he needs to be on immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of his life. This puts him at risk for developing several things, cornonavirus included.
Just last year he was diagnosed with lymphoma as a result of his suppressed immune system. But, praise God, two weeks ago Eli concluded his very last chemo treatment. There are no signs of cancer anywhere in his body! We have learned to celebrate sweet victories like these while anticipating the next hurdle. We know that although we have cleared the hurdle of cancer, Eli’s suppressed immune system still puts him at risk for sicknesses and diseases.
We are a blended family.
My two boys from my previous marriage spend every other week with us. I am not going to lie. This makes it hard on my momma heart because I want to be able to control their potential exposure to this evil virus. Plus, I just want all my peeps near me. I get into protective mom mode. But we can't live in fear. We just need to be smart and make wise decisions.
We are trying to explain to our three boys the seriousness of this while still trying to figure out the seriousness ourselves. Everything is happening so fast and new information is coming out every day. Yesterday it might have been okay to go out to eat with your friends to help a local restaurant. Today, not so much! I don't know about you, but I feel a little bipolar in my parenting today!
There's a doctor in the house.
Not only am I having to let go of my mommy control. I am having to let go of my wifey control. I sent Craig off to work this morning with a kiss and prayer. One of my sweet mentors would always tell me when I was feeling anxious about my peeps to "pray the blood of Jesus over them." So that is what I did this morning.
A lot of you can identify. You may be someone or have someone in your family getting up everyday to head into the hospital. They are vulnerable to the virus themselves as well as posing a risk of bringing the virus home to loved ones.
Craig is an Ob-gyn doc. He specializes in women's health and delivering those sweet babies. When I asked him about his plan for the next 2-4 weeks, his response was, "the babies still have to be delivered."
As we talked about it more, we realized that the stark reality is that me and the boys might need to be quarantined from Craig if this thing spreads like wildfire here in Knoxville. This makes my wifey heart hurt even worse. The thought of him being vulnerable AND away from us is too much to bear. We can’t turn a blind eye to the fact that we have a son who is immunocompromised and we can't risk him getting exposed to this beast of a virus. Only time will tell what hard decisions we will need to make.
The reality is, everyone is having to make decisions. Some of those decisions our made by our Government. No matter what our opinions are on the coronavirus, let‘s commit to social-distancing and washing our hands. And for the love, let us look NOT to our own interests but to the interests of others.
This is not about you. It’s about the world as we know it. I am not an alarmists but let’s just go down that road for a bit. What if we didn’t take this seriously? What if the virus continued to spread at a rapid rate and we began to see our hospitals begin to turn people away because of limited beds, equipment and workers? What if our nation was in such a crisis that even the grocery stores, pharmacies, and gas stations shut down? What if we went through an economic downturn as a result of the Coronavirus spreading throughout the country?
These are the things we can avoid if we all did our part to starve this virus. That means social-distancing and staying in as much as you can. If we all go out and continue to live life as usual, we are giving this virus an opportunity to live and continue spreading.
You may get the coronavirus and do well. But unless we starve this beast, we are ALL vulnerable to the effects of it.
Stay home and be still. This is our greatest weapon.
“The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still.” - Exodus 14:14
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