I’ve managed to avoid COVID since the pandemic began in 2020. I’ve escaped Melbourne twice – once with only four hours to spare before the border home to Queensland was closed – and managed to lead a relatively normal life in Far North Queensland.
Then as a country we opened up, started moving around again, and my biggest fear – getting COVID from a Tinder date – never came to fruition. Instead I caught it at a party Saturday night with my fabulous girlfriends celebrating the amazing achievements of one of our own in a town I had moved from two months prior. Kiss, kiss, hug, hug … now we all have it. It was an embarrassing message to my Saturday night date (who yes, I met on Tinder) that I had in fact, caught the Rona.
Biggest problem? The party was on Saturday night and I then travelled to Melbourne for work. Tuesday I developed symptoms, was advised Tuesday afternoon three girlfriends were positive. Left the trade floor, grabbed an over priced RAT from a vending machine – yes you read that correctly – there’s more to vending machines than Mars Bars these days – spat on the stick in my hotel room and congratulations – your bundle of joy is COVID!
Now, if you’re expecting horror stories, you won’t get it here. Other than feeling like complete and utter shit, and I mean shit, the past 72 hours have been filled with concern, care, love, service, help and meals I know I couldn’t have been fucked cooking myself if I was isolating at home.
Enter – the Victorian Quarantine Hub.
A purpose built quarantine facility located 40 kilometres north of Melbourne at a cost of $580 million, the hub was designed by public health and infection control experts and encompasses four villages capable of hosting 250 residents per village. Currently, I am housed in the Boronia Village and from my balcony I have seen and waved to a number of other residents. Aside from the coughing and sneezing carry on, the village is peaceful with birds and crickets chirping away and the beginnings of what will be beautiful gardens. It’s a place to rest and recover from this crappy disease.
My cabin has a balcony with table and chair where I sit now and write, and inside I have a bed, bathroom, TV, heating and cooling. This place is state of the art – it has been exceptionally well thought out from a residents point of view. There is a seven day menu offering three choices for lunch and dinner which is taken the day before. Nothing is repeated, and let me tell you, the food is not shit – it’s restaurant quality. It’s considered, varied, flavoursome and there is loads of it. You would never starve.
The staff are fabulous and check on me everyday – even when my mum panicked about not being able to get hold of me (I had my phone on flight mode to get some sleep) and she managed to track down the number of the gatehouse here and speak with the guards, they checked on me again!
In a nutshell, anyone who bitches about having to be here to recover, is an asshole.
The nature of this disease has meant it has taken me three days to write just this post – 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there with a whole lot of lying down in between. I’ve been told COVID behaves like this – you think you feel better, them BAM – on your arse again. My nurse Ms R tells me I need to just rest, rest, rest – hard for someone like me who just wants to DO STUFF.
I want to write, I want to work and do my follow up from the trade show (which I missed half of thank you Rona) and I have even entertained the idea of doing a You Tube Yoga session (those who know me will see this as pure desperation) on the balcony to welcome the sun.
In typical Queenslander language … yeah, nah, that aint happening.
Instead I will polish off my dessert of home made chocolate brownie with whipped cream and crawl back into my bed to cough and sneeze some more.
The SJ ... P Diaries 