Storyteller: Carson Kaeckmeister
In mid-January of 2020, Tina and some friends took a trip to Colorado to go skiing. While at dinner one night, one of her friends brought up the topic of a new virus spreading through China like wildfire. This is when Tina first heard of Covid-19. Luckily, her trip to Colorado was not affected by Covid-19 in any way. However, a few months later in May, her long awaited trip to the Netherlands and France was unfortunately canceled before it even had a chance to begin.
Tina is a 48 year old physical therapist assistant working at a hospital helping people recover from all kinds of injuries. She also works part time as a massage therapist. When the pandemic reached the U.S. her part time job was shut down. Her job at the hospital was deemed essential and she was able to keep working but was left with reduced hours as elective surgeries were not allowed for the time being. Her home life changed as well. Her gym closed along with all the restaurants she liked to go to. She began feeling depressed and lonely as her friends became too scared of the virus to want to make plans and even her husband started to become physically distant due to fear of the virus. She was also sad that her kids, one a senior in high school at the time, wouldn’t get to play sports for the season or even experience prom before their time at high school was up. Tina said that she feels as if she has lost 10 months of her life and 10 months of experiences with her family and friends.
Tina has learned something from this pandemic though. She has learned to accept that life is short and can change just like that. She has also learned just how manipulative the media can be sometimes and how they don’t always tell both sides of the story. As well as how much control the government really has over its people and how easily they can instill fear in the population. Finally, Tina also learned that a surprising amount of people are poorly educated on how germs are spread.
MIPandemicStory 