Hi, all! I’m sorry it’s been so long since I checked in here. I’ve been posting in some coronavirus threads since it took over my free time for awhile. DH is an MD/PhD, infectious disease specialist and virology researcher. So, he’s been working 24/7 since the middle of February. He sees hospitalized patients all day and then works on infection control, clinical trials and education at night. The rest of the family is supporting him and holding down the fort. My hat is off to single parents more than ever because DH is completely focused on the virus (as he should be).
It is really hard to think beyond the next few weeks without getting anxious. Too much uncertainty and no one has a crystal ball. I’m much happier if I try to stay in the moment. Of our three kids, D21 is handling this the best. She, D19 and S24 walk the dogs, work out in the family room, play board games and help around the house a LOT more than usual. These are things I wished for back when we were over-scheduled and D21 was under so much pressure. She does have a hard time worrying about DH. He just took an FDA approved antibody test, and he has not had the virus despite countless hours in the ICU, so we are trying to take that as good news that his infection control measures are working.
D21 and I had a phone meeting with her guidance counselor, and it felt like the Twilight Zone because the GC basically pretended that everything is normal. I know she has no insight into what will happen with the process for class of 2021, which is not her fault, but it was surreal.
On the positive side, DH learns something more about how to treat the virus every day. We are in metro-NYC, and he saw about 50 patients a day for a month, a number that is finally dropping (for now). I very much hope that by August, we will have even better treatments, and good data to narrow down who is at risk of a bad outcome, other than the elderly. Then, we would be better able to protect that subset of the population from infection. And, fingers- crossed, colleges might be able to open for a fall semester on campus. Too many variables to predict, but I can hope.
@3SailAway Thank you to your DH for being on the front lines fighting this pandemic. I also appreciate all the sacrifices that the family of health care workers are making during this time.
Your DH has S21s dream job. He wants to become an MD/PHD infectious disease specialist.
I’ve been thinking that a silver lining to this might be that kids get interested in studying infectious disease. We do not have anywhere near the numbers we need. Only about 60% of ID fellowship slots fill. Yet it is fascinating, complex, crucial work. Although it is exhausting and tragic right now, DH feels like this is what he trained for. The insight immunology and virology give to clinical practice and vice-versa is why it is great that we train MD/PhD’s.
In SC, Boys State was cancelled even before apps were due, so S21 quit working on his. A week later his GC asked him to complete it - the committee said they would still go through the evaluation process so boys could at least say they were nominated. S was very reluctant to bother, but he did, and now he can can say “selected for Boys State.” Disappointed that it won’t really happen, since he is very involved in politics.
Also got a call from a state election official wondering if he is still available to work at a polling station in June. I gave a qualified yes, pending info on protective measures.
D23’s interests shifted dramatically into infectious disease knowledge over the past four weeks. I gave her my copy of Laurie Garrett’s The Coming Plague and she is finding it fascinating (and she keeps up with the latest COVID-19 research).
Hi Parents! My DD is part of the class of 2021 and we are in the thick of it all. We live in Northern NJ right outside NYC and trying to do some online visits. My older kids graduated from Johns Hopkins and American and I’m still traumatized by their application process 6 yrs ago lol! I’m not ready for this all over again!
Luckily my daughter got the chance to visit a few schools and take her SATs before everything shut down so she has a good handle on the process.
I am very curious as to how COVID-19 will affect the ED process.
Welcome @Teacher3, I think the college search/application process for our 21’s will be quite a bit different than it was 6 years ago! Having good test scores in hand is definitely a plus. We are also likely looking at ED and paying attention closely.
Congratulations to all who were nominated for Boys and Girls State. Being able to say “selected for” will absolutely still hold weight on applications, though missing the experience is a great loss. I participated in Girls State in 1991 and it was a pivotal experience for me .
My DD is in a major funk. I sent her CG a message and she just called me and we chatted for a while, which was good for me. She’s going to start checking in with DD weekly. They have a good relationship, so I hope having an outside the home adult talking with her will help. It’s so hard to see her so depressed over losing everything she worked so hard to achieve for this spring and summer, and add on all the stress over future uncertainty.
@Meddy I think she’s being optimistic and they can plan for what a return will look like, but this year will be tumultuous no matter what. I honestly think it’s way too early for schools to say they will definitely be back - the wording now always seems to be “planning” to be back which means what? Are they already setting dorms up for social distancing? Are they getting apps ready for contact tracing? Putting temp stations outside each building? Are they contacting kids and saying we need to change your housing so everyone has a single?
These blanket “we plan to be open” interviews are misleading the students because we aren’t in a place in any state where we’ve moved past social distancing and, in most states, we are still “stay at home”.
Here is a better letter - from Cornell. It makes a lot more sense to be sending out messages like this
@Momof3B That’s irresponsible. How do they know they can go back? Are they now contacting every other student who has campus housing to let them know they will try to find somewhere else for them to live? Can’t have doubles. Definitely cannot have triples. Are the cafeterias planning on just take out?
I think one little detail in that press release is important - the part about how only some kids might get face to face classes. So it will be online in the dorms? These schools just know that not having kids in dorms will be too big of a hit financially so they say they are moving forward with doing it because the option of having kids stay home will be detrimental to the school.
If we aren’t leaving our houses, businesses are not open, people are not flying or moving between states, then how on earth does a campus know they can have kids on campus in August? See the Cornell letter above - that wording is appropriate. The Texas AM University letter is not.
I also have not checked in for a long time… I have a D21 and D23; my husband and I are both primary care docs, NOT in a hotspot, but my practice does testing and I spent most of the last 5 weeks changing our entire practice model and searching for PPE any time I was not working. DH has a more elderly population , he is in a mostly-well clinic for now (plans in place to transition docs to sicker clinics then to hospital medicine if needed --neither of us have done hospital medicine since residency). But, it seems to be slowing a little here as we pass the first wave–a lowish one in this area. I have had many positive cases in my clinic–it is indeed overall a dangerous and unusual virus, but in the over-1 and under-30, death and serious disease is very rare(per all the data–and all I seem do is read and attend virtual webinars in the evenings to stay up to date on this thing).
So, our kids have basically been home alone most days (they are lucky to have a great HS that prepared at the end of Feb and moved to online better/sooner than most–though it is definitely not ideal even when done well). They both are coping very well and though there definitely have been sad days with disappointment (NO French -immersion trip this summer, potentially D21’s summer job/EC will not happen), they seem to both see the bigger picture due to our jobs and have a healthy perspective about it all, or at least try to.
D21 has toured 13 schools with one or both of us, including 4 in the Boston area at the start of spring break early march–2 of the 4 shut down within days after the tour!!
She loved 2, liked one, hated one.
She has a group of favorites starting to emerge and they all seem to share a similar size (3-7k undergrads), either liberal arts within a bigger university or LAC. Time will tell where she actually applies in the fall, and at this point she may not even apply to the state flagship (we think she should, to at least have the option…it is a great school, so we will see).
She missed the March SAT(canceled the night before, here. ), then of course jumped on May to have it canceled, and then subject tests in June canceled. Soooo she will have to try again Aug/Sept, or hope that they take a PSAT score maybe?! LOL, I bet not!!! But she did very well, and looks as though her score will likely be good enough for NMSF in every state but the 6 that always have high cutoffs–of which ours is one! We are lucky to not be chasing merit, so we don’t “need” it, but missing it by 1-2 points will be a little annoying.
My brother-in-law is a radiologist. Same concern that if things get really bad he is working in the hospital. His advice? Seriously, wash your hands and stop touching your face. You do NOT want to be intubated by a radiologist.
@dadof4kids I just think colleges should be more realistic in their press releases. Students see some of these and think - back to school! Yahoo! When, in reality, if they are back it will be very different and I think much of the fun won’t be there.
S18 lived in a dorm this fall that indeed had all takeout for the cafeteria. The only cafeteria on his campus (Big U with split campus) was under construction that didn’t get finished until after Thanksgiving break. They set up a makeshift cafeteria in the common room in his dorm. Limited choices and limited hours. On Thursday evening he had a class 5 minutes away from the dorm, but the cafeteria literally opened and closed while he was in the same class.
It also really limited the social aspect, which was unfortunate because he was a transfer student so he really missed having that dining hall time. Of course, that inconvenience is the least of the concerns now. I do think that especially for freshmen, the social distancing will make it harder to find and make friends.