Hello, my name is Elisabeth Lauren Winfield, but I go by Elsie. I was born and raised in Denver, Colorado, until 2008, when my family moved to Lexington, Kentucky. The picture included is with my family. I am second from the right. I am a white female from a middle-class family and have been lucky to have a relatively smooth sailing life.
Being that this is a diary on the SARS-CoV2 pandemic, let's jump into why I used the word "relatively" in the past sentence and how this pandemic has affected my family's life in a different way than most. The week before Thanksgiving in 2018, my Dad had a seizure, and we discovered he had a brain tumor. He decided to get treated in Houston, Texas, and it turned out the tumor was a result of stage four brain cancer known as Glioblastoma. He had surgery, received radiation treatments, and has been on chemotherapy for the past year. Due to my Dad's compromised immune system from these treatments when SARS-CoV2 became an increasing worry in the United States, I took it more serious than my other college friends because even in the early stages we had been warned about COVID-19's effects on the elderly and immune-compromised such as my Dad.
While since the beginning it has weighed heavily on my mind, I had not felt the immediate effect of COVID-19 until beginning classes in August 2020 when my boyfriend who lives in a fraternity house on UK's campus lost his taste and smell leading me, my roommate and the select others we had all been in contact with to think of how we will handle having COVID-19. My roommate and I quarantined immediately, and luckily I had not seen my parents or anyone else. On the other hand, my boyfriend experienced a less enjoyable experience because of the University of Kentucky and his fraternity. When a resident of the fraternity house tested positive he remained in the house and it took them many days to test the house after announcing they would. When they did test them, it was out of the back of a car with all the boys in one area. While I had not experienced this first hand, I was astonished to hear of someone I care about experiencing something he could have avoided if they would allowed the residents of this Fraternity house to get out of their leases easier. Especially, because they had signed the lease the fall of 2019 before COVID-19 existed so prevalent in our lives.
These experiences are some I have never experienced in my short life of twenty years, but I have noticed it has been a growing experience especially for us who don't want to compromise our loved one's lives and put their health and safety above our wants as a young adult.
