- My 21-year old son has an intellectual disability. He was recently diagnosed with COVID in the Omicron Wave.
- We have tried to protect him against COVID-19 for two years. He finally tested positive.
- His communication skills don’t allow him to tell us when something is wrong. This is scary.
J is my son. I refer to him by his first initial, for privacy reasons. Has a severe intellectual handicap. Although he is 21 years old, tests show that his mental age is comparable to that of a kindergartener. His communication abilities may also be lower than that.
When we were in lockdown in 2020, we could control who came into contact with J — no one.
Last year, despite sending him to school with KF94 Masks and pulling him out four days prior to the holiday break to ensure safety, the second pink line of his COVID-19 test felt like an ethical failing.
He doesn’t want to tell us what he feels.
Because we’ve cared for him this long, including during stints in the pediatric intensive-care unit, our apartment is a bunker supplied with various tools — a digital no-touch thermometer, a
Pulse oximeter
Broad-spectrum pain relievers and portable oxygen.
But because of the nature of his intellectual disability, he can’t tell me whether he has a headache or a sore throat — or that he’s lashing out simply because he’s bored or disappointed.
I must be healthy and well-respected to be able care for him.
His fever rose to more than 100 the first night he had COVID-19. This was the same reading that my cousin’s husband had back in March 2020 when he had to be intubated. I spent the entire night outside his bedroom door, trying to hear rustles and want to check on him while also wanting him to sleep unassisted.
J is now out of quarantine. It took 11 days and a Jenga stack of rapid andPCR tests. COVID-19 continues to be a threat.
We decided to keep him at home, but now I’m back at work
A few of my friends have had COVID-19 at least three times. It is a mystery to me why J hasn’t planned for his first day back at school. There are no masks or vaccinations required.
My university stated that it would be distant for at most the first two week back. We didn’t have much choice but to send him in. He will need some form of immunity. But, it is unknown how long.
J’s teacher was positive. J was exposed again at least twice more by the teacher who serves as the backup driver. My husband took J to school with him on the subway. He reported disturbing crowding and lack of masks.
My work began to pile up. The circuit breaker in my brain tripped when we received an email about another anonymous school exposure. The cumulative risks were too high. He was too much of a risk to me so I decided to keep him home. It didn’t make sense but it worked. Not You also make sense. His teacher taught me lessons that I could use at home with him. We also do enrichment activities.
In the meantime, my inbox was stuffed with nudges by editors: “Just a reminder, the piece is scheduled to run on Wednesday.”I connected everything I could to the dike and hoped it would hold.
I want to be a good father You are a great writer. I refused to stop working, no matter how slow. COVID-19 is always back, no matter how slow we think we are. “done,”I don’t want to speculate about how long my next novel will take.
I can only continue to move forward and do everything in my power to keep my child safe.
Marie Myung-Ok Lee’s novel “The Evening Hero”It took her 18 years to complete. Columbia University where she is a writer in residency, she teaches fiction.