Long story short...
We're bringing Tess home. At least for this year.
The backstory begins and ends with Covid-19. Stupid, dumb, scary, life altering, life threatening covid-19.
The Morrison Center opened their school up this week to students again. They operate all year long due to the high needs of their students and they're a very small school so can more easily put into practice CDC guidelines for maintaining health and safety for their students. And it was my intention to send Tess this week when they opened back up.
Then Tess and I had a tele-health visit with her pulmonologist who works at Maine Med and just so happens to also be working with covid patients. When I mentioned to him that Tess's school was reopening, his facial reaction betrayed him before he could even say anything. I could tell he was very surprised to hear this (not a good surprise) and when I went on to ask if he thought it was okay for Tess to return to school if all the CDC guidelines were in place, his immediate response was a very emphatic, NO.
NO, it was not a good idea to have Tess return to school. NO, there was no way to make it safe enough for her and NO, he will most likely not be supporting her returning to school any time in the near future...including in the Fall.
He went on to show me statistics and charts of how covid is trending in the country, in the state, and even in each county and what he expected to come given what information he had.
Honestly, I had become a little numb to the covid fear and had even convinced myself that Tess should return to school so she could have some normalcy in her life again. This "safer at home" lifestyle is not really new to us, but the level it has reached is, and Tess has had some negative effects from it. Increased anxiety and increased severity of seizure activity to name a couple. Not to mention she's not getting in person therapies; it's all done by us now with online guidance from her therapists. For those reasons, I had convinced myself that maybe it would be okay to send her and that the benefits might outweigh the risks given heightened safety measures the school was taking.
Speaking with the doctor was basically the same as having cold water splashed on my face. It woke me up. I was no longer numb to the fear. It became crystal clear that Tess's risk for getting covid was so high that there was no way that the benefits of going back to school outweighed the risks.
I thought about continuing distance learning and realized that I could also do that from home and not just here in Scarborough, so I asked the doctor if he thought I should just keep on keeping on here until it was safe for her to finally get back to school in person and where she is close to the hospital and all of her medical care, or, if I should take her home to Vinalhaven where the likelihood of her catching the virus would drop dramatically but she was farther from the major medical help she sometimes requires. Honestly, I was expecting him to say stay in Scarborough.
He didn't.
He said he thought we should take her home to Vinalhaven and get her out of Cumberland County where her risk for covid is comparatively so much higher. I then asked him about Tess catching the virus on the island vs. catching it in Scarborough where I could immediately get her to Maine Med. He said that this virus would most likely be so devastating to Tess that he felt very sure it wouldn't make any difference where she caught it, the outcome would be the same no matter what... and that outcome would be terrible. He felt like Tess's best chance to survive the virus would be to take her where we can keep her more isolated and safe. "Take her home" were is exact words.
He wasn't filled with alarm or fear or being dramatic in the slightest. In fact, he was very calm and even laughed and told me that if he could take his two healthy boys and go to VH, he'd be gone. He was only sort of joking. And that's what got me the most. His calmness and basically just, stating the facts ma'm, attitude.
Like I said, cold water on my face but the wakeup call I needed.
I talked to her home health nurses and another one of her specialists who all agreed that taking her out of Cumberland County and home to Vinalhaven was the best thing we could do for her given the information we have.
I've cried and prayed and gone back and forth and agonized about what the "right" decision is for Tess. She loses so much by not returning to school in person, and technically speaking, this is her Senior year and I wanted it to look a lot different for her. But, alas, I am not Queen of the Universe and cannot control a worldwide pandemic, so I will do the thing I always do when it comes to Tess, try to make the best choice for her and pray I don't make the wrong one.
Home Sweet Home it is then.
I've spoken with the Vinalhaven school and told them our plans. Tess will still be a student at Morrison but will continue with distance learning until we, and her doctors, feel like it's appropriate to return. And right now, there's no way to know when that will be.
Given that, even though we didn't have to, we've opted to terminate our lease early and give up our rental in Scarborough. Sometimes, just because you can do something, in this case having the VH school continue to pay rent until we can come back with Tess, doesn't mean you should do it. You've got to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and know that what you're doing is something your conscience can live with. In this instance, ours couldn't live with continuing to have the school pay rent while we're on the island with no idea of when it will be safe to return to Scarborough.
My heart hurts for Tess and everything this move forces her to lose, but today, during her zoom speech therapy, her therapist asked her if she was excited to be going back home to Vinalhaven and she immediately used her talker to say, "Yeah" multiple times which makes my heart hurt a little less.
And given how unbelievably homesick I've been the past few years, if you asked me if I was excited to be going home to Vinalhaven I would say, "Yeah!" multiple times as well.
I don't know what Tess's future holds but we'll do what we always do and take it day by day and continue to hope that the decisions we are making for her are the "right" ones...even when it feels like there's no "right" one to be made.
In the meantime, look out VH, we're comin' home!
