Editorial Portrait of two doctors and their family during the pandemic
"As the Coronavirus outbreak began, we quickly realized that life was about to change drastically for us, both at work as medical professionals, and at home as parents to a two and a four-year old. We knew that each of our decisions needed to be rooted in the priorities we set for ourselves during this time: to do what we could to help our community and to keep our home a safe and happy place for our children. We shifted childcare into our home, rather than daycare, and developed methods to mitigate the risk of bringing infection home from work as best we could: changing clothes before leaving clinic or the hospital, entering the house through the basement, and showering before we saw the children. All the time, we have known there is no way to bring our risk to zero. When we are home, we have enjoyed focusing on “us” as a family; a two and a four-year old certainly keep you living in the moment. We relish our long walks together, our son learned to ride his bike, and our kids have become quite the artists. Our silver-lining of the stay home orders has been seeing our son and daughter become the best of friends. However, like many others, we have missed gatherings and sharing our kids’ childhoods with grandparents and our other family. It has been challenging to balance our family and professional lives, and while society slowly phases in “reopening”, we remain uncertain when, or if, our risks of carrying and transmitting COVID-19 will be low enough to gather again with our friends and family. Despite these bumps in the road, we remain grateful to be a part of our Portland medical community and are thankful for how close and strong our core family unit has become during this time. "