This opinion piece originally featured in ABC News, here.
The red wristband, an indication I have an allergy, has creased and dulled to a pastel pink, almost white in some places. My name, medical record number, and date of birth are as faded as I feel after entering my eighth week in hospital.
This follows six months of recurring blood infections, six admissions, and an episode of septicaemia and septic shock which have required near constant antibiotics and the insertion of multiple drains in my liver. Almost a year ago, I had a liver transplant, before which I was bound to my room for 12 months around short stays in hospital as my liver failed.
I have not been to a restaurant in nearly two years. The flowers next to my bed are as close to a garden as I've been able to get since January. Sometimes I press my face between the gaps in glass barriers on the small balcony at the back of the ward, to catch something resembling a natural breeze.
I wore shoes for the first time in eight weeks the other day, but I've been living almost exclusively in pyjamas or sweatpants. I feel like I'm suspended in a lazy parody of my normal routine.
One of my parents visits me every day, and I'm grateful for that. My brother stops by after work when he's able.
For the first time in 23 years, I can't see my family
I've struggled with my health since I was three, and through every challenge and setback my family has been there to share in my experience. My chronic illnesses are in many ways as much theirs as they are mine.
But my brother, a retail worker, has just been identified as a close contact of the Bondi COVID cluster, despite his best attempts to keep safe. He and I both live at home with our parents, so they are now considered high-risk contacts, too. As a precaution, he will have to isolate for 14 days, despite returning a negative test, as will my parents.
After almost eight weeks my health has become stable enough that we could consider discharging me so I can wait for a second liver transplant in the comfort of my own home.
But now I will remain here for another fortnight as it is too risky for someone who is severely immune-compromised to live with people who are self-isolating.
I can do another two weeks in here. What comes as a blow is knowing that, for the first time in 23 years, my family can't be by my bedside.
I pride myself on being resilient, or at least stubborn enough to have made it this far, and am capable of keeping my mind focused through pain and discomfort. I run my own business, am fortunate to have had the chance to travel, and don't consider myself at a loss despite having missed out on significant parts of my childhood — a side effect of having grown up too fast.
Even so, the time I spend in the company of my family while they visit each day has been one of the few things I look forward to when I wake.
I fear we're becoming complacent
COVID has dominated public discussions about health and hospitals over the past 18 months, and rightly so. The effect it's having on our communities may have been smaller in scale than in some other countries, but many of the challenges are shared.
Victoria, and in particular Melbourne has borne the brunt of the social disruption wrought by multiple lockdowns and restrictions on movement and travel.
Consider the toll that being confined to your own home has taken, on yourself or your relationships. Now imagine the comfort of home, your own bed, your pets, family, access to your kitchen and meals you choose and prepare yourself — and abandon them. The ability to even choose whether the light in your room is on or off is one I've lost.
Right now, being visited by family and close friends is all I have, and have had for the past eight weeks. Nothing extravagant, just my mother or father bringing a cup of coffee to my bedside and us talking for a few hours.
The fact that until two weeks ago I was in too much pain to walk seems more distant. I feel a little more normal, and for a short while the non-stop noise and always-too-bright ward environment are less of a strain on my senses.
I fear we are becoming complacent about our COVID reality, with testing numbers that have been worryingly low considering the rate the current growing across NSW. Fuelled by a painfully slow, and frankly confusing and convoluted national vaccine roll-out we also seem to be becoming too comfortable with the substandard approach to governing our political representatives are taking.
I have a simple request. I'd ask you to be patient in your attempts to book in for the jab and to persevere despite vaccine hesitancy, or the desire to return to something closer to life as we once knew it. Until then, please be cautious, and eager to be tested.
The way we behave, our attention to practicing even simple measures like social distancing and wearing masks can have significant consequences far beyond what we might realise. I don't assign blame — we find ourselves in unprecedented times.
But I challenge and implore you to consider that the difference between a point of transmission and friends, family, or strangers may have been made more unlikely or even avoided by a vaccination or by practicing COVID-safe measures.
In this case, that link means that, for now, I cannot return home safely and will remain in hospital, unable to be visited by the people I love.