2020 in Review

Carol | December 31, 2020 | Featured, Journals | No Comments

A year of fear and uncertainty.

2020 started off great but quickly became a year none of us will forget. The year began with Australia on fire and the World Health Organization announcing news of a deadly coronavirus beginning in Wuhan, China. For the first few months of the year, it didn’t seem like much of a concern for most Americans since it was on the other side of the world, but it quickly spread everywhere, and come March everything was shutting down, classes were moving online, and those that could were being told to work from home. Many places closed and left people out of work. It was a really uncertain and frightening time.

JANUARY-MARCH (Before everything shutdown)

At the beginning of January, my friend Madison moved in to live with us for the first part of the year. I was really excited to have a roomie and really enjoyed having Madison around. During the first few months of the year, I was busy nonstop with various school activities and assignments. For the spring semester I was enrolled in a Surface Design class (pattern design), and a print-making class (linoleum carving). I worked as a graduate assistant for the Houston Cole Library, served on a printmaking faculty search committee, and kept busy as president of the photo club planning meetings and workshops.

In early March I traveled to Houston, TX with a few other students to attend the Society for Photographic Education’s national conference. Madison and I both had work selected by Juror Zackary Druker for inclusion in the SPE Combined Caucus Exhibition which was really exciting. I remember people were beginning to express concerns about COVID but it wasn’t really impacting us yet. That quickly changed a few days after I got home from Texas.

March 12th was the last normal day of life for me and it was a very good day aside from the uncertainty of school shutting down. I had class like usual, followed by a Photo Club meeting, and a headshots fundraiser coordinated with AIGA. We had quite a few people visit us in the lighting studio to have headshots made and we took a lot of fun photos in between. I vaguely remember hearing rumors all day that JSU might be canceling classes due to concerns about the coronavirus and then towards the end of the day that news was confirmed. I am so thankful I got to enjoy such a great day with classmates and friends before the world completely shut down.

MARCH-JULY

The first few months of the pandemic were really frightening. I think the first bit of news that really hit my radar was the news of cruise ships not being allowed to port and brief talk of some of the infected being sent to McClellan. In March everything started to shutdown. Everyone was afraid to leave their homes, supply shortages of things like toilet paper and sanitizer became an issue mainly because of hoarding, and the spread of the coronavirus and the death knoll from it kept rising every day. It seemed especially bad in Asia and Italy. It was crazy. I continued to work on assignments for my surface design class, and on various freelance projects at home. I essentially quit my printmaking class which I had been auditing just for fun because I was too stressed to deal with anything nonessential. Karl worked from home from mid-March to mid-May. Karl did all of our essential shopping so I rarely left the house. I’m a bit of a homebody so I didn’t mind being stuck at home at first but I missed seeing my friends and family.

Life wasn’t completely doom and gloom. In April I was notified that I was the Fine Art & Personal Work Grand Prize winner in PDNedu’s Student Photography Competition. This is the largest competition I’ve ever won and I was both surprised and excited — especially since one of the prizes was a Nikon z6 mirrorless camera. Woohoo! The magazine shut down before my work could be published in the magazine which makes me sad, but I feel fortunate to of been one of the last artists featured online by PDNedu.

In May we bought a new car. Karl and I have both always driven older used cars so we were both super excited to be able to purchase a 2017 Honda CR-V. It’s still a few years old but we don’t believe in buying brand new cars because they depreciate so quickly. It has so many modern features we’ve never had in a car before like a backup camera, heated seats, and Apple car play just to name a few. We love it! We traded in Karl’s 2002 Honda Accord and he’ll be driving our 2006 Camry till we can afford to buy him an upgrade in a few years.

Later in May George Floyd was killed and Black Lives Matter protests and riots broke out everywhere. I think this was the scariest part of the year for me because people were out of control and the rioting around the country seemed to escalate every day. I worried a lot about protests and riots escalating the spread of COVID. Everyone had an opinion about what was going on and the world was very divided for a time.

Our housemate, Madison, moved out in June. I enjoyed her company so I was sad to see her go. At the end of June Karl and I decided to venture to Florida for a much-needed escape. It was really great to get away. We visited St. Augustine and Ormond Beach and spent most of our time driving around and lounging at the beach which was surprisingly not crowded.

We kept our bubble of people super small for most of 2020. After a while, we started spending time with immediate family and a few select friends, but our social life was mostly video calls, Zoom, and hanging with friends in Discord. Hooray for the internet!

AUGUST-DECEMBER (Catching COVID)

In August I started what should have been my final semester of grad school. I was enrolled in Thesis II and was continuing to work as a graduate assistant for the Houston Cole Library until I caught COVID in September and everything else in life got put on hold. I’m fairly certain I caught it at a wedding I attended as it was one of the few times I actually left my house and was around other people. Some friends were getting married and I desperately wanted to get out of the house and celebrate with them. It’s easy to look back at things and wish you had done things differently, but I don’t regret going to the wedding even though I caught COVID. At some point, life has to continue on and I had reached a point where I needed to be around people again.

My COVID experience began with a dry cough followed by a fever that came and went, and fatigue. I was pretty sure I had COVID after a few days because of the dry cough which was new for me. I was tested on Friday, September 11th, received my positive test result the following Monday and spent another week sick at home taking meds and thinking that my experience wasn’t too bad. On the 18th I began feeling a bit wobbly and a few days later I was struggling to breathe. I went to the ER on the 21st and was later sent home (either by mistake or because they didn’t have any beds available). I spent all of the next day in bed barely able to breathe without help from my CPAP and then went back to the ER on the 23rd and was admitted to the hospital because of my low blood oxygen level. I was diagnosed with both COVID and pneumonia and spent 16 very long and isolated days in the hospital. I was never on a ventilator but it was still a very rough and scary experience. I was on oxygen most of my stay, and I was treated with various vitamins, antibiotics, steroids, and a few other things. Just being on oxygen made me feel a lot better, but I had a bad reaction to the steroids I was on which is part of the reason why I was in the hospital so long.

Karl began to feel ill right before I was admitted to the hospital. He went to the ER the day after I was admitted and was discharged without being prescribed any medication which really frustrated us both. I was so worried about him because he was home alone with no one to check on him. He was eventually prescribed some medicine from CARES which helped, but he felt pretty awful for several weeks and struggled with fatigue for quite a while. He was also a nervous wreck from worrying about me so much. I feel very fortunate to have such a loving and devoted husband.

When I was released from the hospital on October 9th I was still in pretty rough shape physically and mentally. I had nurses visiting me at home 2-3 times a week. Just lifting my arms felt exhausting. I used a walker to get around the house for a few weeks and then graduated to a cane. I’m still a little weak but the nurses said it would take several months for me to recover and I am definitely getting stronger. I have been doing breathing exercises to rebuild my lung capacity. I can’t hold enough air to sing at all which is really frustrating, but hopefully, I’ll be able to sing again eventually. In November I had to go back to the ER because I was experiencing a lot of swelling in my legs. I had to have a heart cath done in November which scared me to death but I don’t remember it so it wasn’t too bad.

I don’t have the words to express how touched and thankful I am for all of the support shown to me and Karl. So many people helped us out in different ways and it was amazing to see our little village pull together as it did. I don’t feel deserving but I do feel very blessed.

Sadly, my mom is currently sick with COVID so I am very worried about her and my dad. Please say a prayer for them or send some good vibes. I didn’t expect COVID to hit me so hard so I’m really worried about how it will affect my parents.

2020 has been a long and stressful year. I’m hopeful that 2021 will be better but I doubt life will be returning to normal any time soon. I hope you all are holding up as best you can, and that you and your loved ones are healthy and COVID free. Happy New Year!

Highlights of 2020

Karl and I both survived COVID
Life before the pandemic
- SPE Houston
- Photo Club & Grad gatherings
- Art Shows
Buying a new car
Paid off a ton of debt

Carol’s 2020 Favorites

TV Shows
- The Witcher
- His Dark Materials
- Dragon Prince
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (S5 finale)
- Tiger King – the first show to really pull me out of my pandemic funk for a bit.
- Anime: Carole & Tuesday
Movies
- Enola Holmes
- Hidden Figures
- Death to 2020
Games
- League of Legends // Silver
- Diablo II – It was fun to revisit this game and feel all the nostalgia.
- Legends of Runeterra