Somewhat Isolated.

I think I was more distressed at the beginning of all of this. In February and March, people around me were still travelling when the government was urging us to reconsider. People were returning home from overseas and not undertaking the 14 day self isolation that our government was requesting of us. As a retail worker, I was so angry at the number of parents and children and elderly people I witnessed in shopping centres for what definitely was not essential shopping.

The restrictions imposed by our governments definitely brought with it a massive sense of relief in getting people to take this situation more seriously. Closing our borders was absolutely the best thing our leaders could have done. Mark McGowan has done a brilliant job with state and intrastate border closures here in WA, and I think it’s absolutely laughable to suggest that it is safe to reopen state borders.

Being an essential worker, I’ve still been going into work throughout all of this. My employer did provide us with the option of taking leave if we didn’t want to be at work, although I never really felt that I couldn’t go to work. By far, the best thing about this has been seeing and talking to my friends at work each day – from a healthy 1.5 metre distance.

My day to day hasn’t changed all that much. Having that workday routine has meant that my diabetes management and blood sugars haven’t been significantly impacted by the situation at hand. I’ve only had to deal with issues related to cooler weather in recent weeks. Although, I would love to be able to find some of this free time that everyone seems to be realising!

Staying at home hasn’t been all that hard for me. I’m far from being someone who doesn’t know how to keep myself occupied at home. Evenings and weekends are often filled with uni work, anyhow. Although I must admit that I am feeling a bit of cabin fever, especially with my sister working from home in the room behind mine and my brother often walking in and booming in his loud voice. There have been times where I have desperately wanted to escape to the uni library or a cafe to get some work done. There have been people I’ve been wanting to catch up with, but haven’t been able to.

The biggest challenge that I’m still dealing with is a loss of routine. I’ve lost the structure and organisation that I like to have in my life. I’m distracted. But I’m happy to allow that distraction, to a degree, for the sake of looking after my mindset. That means being easier on myself if I don’t feel like studying, or being as productive as I usually would.

Getting outside has always been a way that I look after my mindset, but I’ve definitely been making more of a conscious effort to do so. I live in a suburb that actually has character, and one of my great pleasures is just taking in people’s houses and front yards. I live relatively close to the coast, and I’ve been making more of an effort to get down to Trigg Beach at least once a week. As well as mixing up my trails in general.

In terms of diabetes, peer support is always relatively easy to find. YADC meetings and conversations are continuing through Zoom and our Facebook group chat. The DOC can always be found on social media. I withdrew earlier on, for the sake of avoiding the editorial and looking after my mindset. But lately, I’m definitely feeling the desire to jump in more often than I have been.

It’s hard to feel uncomfortable here in WA, where I daresay that we’ve demonstrated the greatest success of containing the virus.

In terms of restrictions being eased, I think that people generally are taking this a lot more seriously than they were in March.

State border closures will keep me in my comfort zone for the time being, and thankfully it doesn’t look like they’ll be lifted for quite some time.