We at KBIA have found strength in our community during the COVID-19 crisis. In our series “Where You’re At,” we’re calling our neighbors to see how they’re coping during the pandemic.
If you want to share your story, email KBIA at news@kbia.org.
Here’s my call with Emergency Room physician and soon-to-be-father Andrew Pelikan in Columbia:
How are you guys doing over there?
Good. I feel like pregnancy is a perfect time for a quarantine because it's like, “oh, I guess we're just going to hang out today and maybe go for a walk and watch a bunch of TV” -- all the good things about nesting, I guess.
You're still working. What's your day to day like?
Yeah. I don't know. My life really hasn't changed at all. I mean I still go to work the same amount. And apart from work, most of the stuff I did outside of it would be going for runs and that really hasn't changed. Work is more or less kind of the same right now. The majority of our patients are not COVID patients. It's more the same stuff we see every day. But then it's still different just having a pregnant wife at home who's not working and wanting someone to hang out with her. And so, she gets lonely.
Do you have any concerns about what you have to do for work in the health field? Is there any concern at all about how that is impacting your health of your home?
Sure. I mean, there is. I think it's something that's always been there to a lesser degree. You know I see sick people a lot. I see sick flu people a lot. And it's this stuff -- even early in pregnancy before all this kind of blew up -- that you didn't want to take home so I'd always try to mitigate the kind of contaminated stuff I would bring home -- like me. The scrubs and backpack and all that sort of stuff. Now, it's been amplified a lot from it. But then there's things I have control over and things you don't have control over. I try to concern myself with the things that I can actually affect. I don't take a backpack into work. All I bring is a cell phone in plastic bag and keys in a plastic bag and strip down in the carport and go right in the shower. You do what you can control.
How are things changing with your parents being involved with the arrival of your baby?
Oh my gosh. My dad is just a nervous, nervous person. And I feel like he thinks that the more he watches the news, maybe the better off it's going to be or something. I think it frustrates him that he doesn't have control over the situation. So he just calls me to let me know how the ERs are in New York right now. And I'm like, "oh that's super helpful." He'll go "oh did you hear like a couple more died today?" Thanks, Dad. I'll talk to you after work.
What are the things that have changed that you had planned to do? You know, like rituals or whatever might be before the baby's born?
Yeah, we don't like super big social things and I think the baby shower we're going to hold off on -- which neither one of us is going to be too destroyed about.
For you and Megan in your house, it seems like you guys are you guys are spending a lot more time together.
Yeah, I think one of her favorite hobbies is rearranging furniture. So it's like, every day I come home, she's like, "how much do you really want this thing?" Or things will just kind of disappear and I'm like, "what happened to that?" and she's like "you didn't need it." I'm like, oh, man.
