Quarantined By Adrienne G. Cannon: After a 10 Day Waiting Period, I Test “Negative!”

By Adrienne G. Cannon

It is 5:00PM and time to meet my friend for our evening dinner together in the Cork and Fork. 

I am looking forward to the date as I have not seen my friend for a while and the pub-like restaurant is my favorite restaurant on campus.  The phone rings; I answer as the LCD screen identifies the call with a main Greenspring number.  “Mrs. Cannon?,” asks the caller.  I identify myself, and then she tells me her message: “Through contact tracing, we have identified you as having been in close contact with a person who has Covid symptoms.”

I tell the caller I am sorry to hear that someone is ill, and then freeze, wordless and in shock, when she tells me, “You are in quarantine for 10 days.”

I have to think for a moment.  Okay, I have always followed the rules of masking and social distancing since the pandemic started.  I can handle that.  But wait!  Quarantined means staying within my apartment with no social contact until the medical center can schedule a virus test for me. I have activities on my calendar.  I can’t do any of that?  “No,” she instructs me, “not until you have negative test.”  My mind starts to calculate.   I am dressed for dinner, nobody knows, if I had left a minute earlier, I wouldn’t know.  Shall I go to dinner? 

Good sense prevails and I sit down and try to understand what my life will be for the next few days.  I can swim in an outdoor pool. No! too risky for fellow swimmers.  I can take a walk outside.  No! Not in a community of older friends and neighbors. I see I have a special date on the calendar — the first rehearsal of the concert band that has been shut down for a year.  I play a woodwind instrument and I calculate immediately that I will have to miss that event — I play a “wind” instrument that I translate into “aerosol droplet spread.” 

I have to accept that I am quarantined within my walls for the duration.  I have heard of societies and religions that shun individuals for one reason or another.  When my food is delivered with a knock on the door, my trash bags gathered by a masked and PPE protected person and a clearly marked sign is posted on my door announcing that my visitors are restricted and need an N95 mask, gown and gloves, I am humbled …. and feel shunned.

So I wait until I get tested. It will be my first test ever, a new experience for me. I have no symptoms and hope that the contact was harmless. And throughout, I have a silent mutual connection to the others who were with me at the event that resulted in our being quarantined.  I am separated; but I am not alone.

Epilogue:  After a 10 day waiting period, I test “Negative!” I am free again!

©2021 Adrienne G. Cannon for SeniorWomen.com