Hey, so you’re doing a quarantine, too! Let me help you.

As luck (heh!) would have it, my husband’s 100-day medical quarantine managed to end right when a pandemic was gathering steam, so we have this isolation and social distancing thing down pat. My husband’s quarantine was necessitated by an October bone marrow transplant that left him with a very suppressed immune system and required all kinds of extra considerations that I am pretty sure the average person with or avoiding COVID-19 won’t have to deal with — washing towels after every use, changing the bed sheets every other day, no fresh fruit due to bacterial concerns, no food prepared outside the home, etc. — but it is still a headache, right? The end of John’s medical quarantine didn’t mean we could run to Disney World and share popsicles with strangers, but it did mean a gradual lifting of the most onerous aspects (the laundry — dear lord, the daily laundry) so we have found ourselves back to square one of seeing other people and every surface as vectors of doom crawling with germs, grocery carts as Satan’ own delivery system. No biggy! This is old hat at this point.

I think the tips on not exposing yourself to or spreading germs are pretty well-covered at this point but here’s some guidance from one seasoned pro on social isolation to you on the emotional aspects of finding strength and stability during a quarantine.