Day 11- Saturday

Today, I finally made the move out of self-isolation!! My wife and I made the decision after a couple things. First, we talked about me getting retested to make sure it is all gone for sure. Come to find out, the nurse on the phone told me the CDC does not recommend retesting and therefore, they don’t do it. Another medical professional told me that you can actually test positive for up to 3 months after first being diagnosed, so retesting would be useless for the sake of deciding whether to re-enter the world or not. The only way is to keep an eye on symptoms and go off of that. 

Other than a cough and just tired, we decided it was time. Mind you, I haven’t had any human contact for over 10 days!!! This meant a lot to me!!! I wanted to take a shower before I joined my family, and I was getting ready to do that. All of a sudden, my son was outside my window, yelling “When are you going to come out!!??” I told him through the glass my plans, that after a shower I would come out. He lifted his hands and exclaimed “YAY!! I finally get to hug Daddy!!” 

I didn’t think it would hit me, but it did. I just broke down, trying not to cry, but to no avail. I had longed for the touch of my family for so long, it was finally happening. To see my child rejoice in that just brought it all together. It was a tender moment, one I had to fight so that it could actually happen. It wasn’t a very long shower.

When I came out, the kids were at the table eating, and they all ran and gave me a big hug. It was sweet. Then my wife came out, and we held each other for what seemed like 5 minutes, but was probably only 30 seconds. It was well overdue. And yes, of course there were tears. 

So now that we are together, we have decided to stay quarantined together for the next several days as I regain my energy. My cough is getting better and I feel like my energy is coming back as well. It's a long, weird road to recovery, but at least, it is together with my family.

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