Member-only story
Positive I had Coronavirus - but refused a test
In March, my husband and I completed 14 days of full self-isolation. This means that we didn’t leave our house once, for fourteen days, not even to walk our frustrated dog. We survived mostly on frozen food, because Ireland does not have a Postmates equivalent, and the country’s supermarkets were under so much pressure at the beginning of “quarantine” that online orders were required two weeks in advance. For that reason, family members were doing our grocery shopping and leaving the bags outside the front door, so we wouldn’t infect them.
We were so gung-ho with our isolation that we didn’t even realize until day 12 (when our country’s published guidelines finally appeared on doorsteps) that we were allowed to go out into our enclosed back garden. We were bored, narky, and restless for fourteen days. We power-cleaned the house, only to create piles of rubbish and bags of clothes that we couldn’t bring anywhere to dispose of or donate. We began to get on each other’s nerves. Slowly but surely, the days began to merge together. We moved from our bed to the couch, back to our bed. We became lethargic. Around day eight, the mountain felt too high to climb. We were halfway there and unsure we could…
