My name is Dr. Miguelina German. I work for Montefiore Health System as a psychologist, and my experience with COVID-19 that I'm gonna share with you today is my personal journey and story, and I just want to acknowledge that as a healthcare worker, many of us have had different stories and journeys with COVID-19. And this is my story, which is a story of hope. So one day, I was at work some time in March of 2020, and I had started to feel some body aches and I started to cough, and I worked pretty late that day, and you know, by the time I got home, and I took my temperature, it had spiked to over 100 degrees. So I immediately suspected that I had COVID-19, and during the week we have a two bedroom, modest apartment with one bathroom in Manhattan, and during the week my fiance's mother stays with us to help us with our two children who are five and 12 years old, and she cooks meals for us, and you know, just is a wonderful support to our family. So she was asleep when I got home, and I immediately went to wake up my fiance, and to tell him that I suspected I had COVID-19 and that I was very, very scared for his mother's health and that we needed to get her out of the apartment immediately. And so by the time we managed to do all of that, it was probably around midnight, and he drove his mother home. She has an apartment in Brooklyn, and over the course of the next week, I was lucky that my symptoms remained mild, but it was also challenging because my fiance also works for Montefiore Health System, and so he had to continue to go to work, because March was really the peak of the crisis for Montefiore Health System. And so I was home with our children and it was really difficult to maintain social distancing rules and the quarantine guidelines suggested by the CDC. That wasn't really feasible or realistic for us in a, you know, modest, two bedroom apartment in Manhattan. And so, I coped with that reality by telling myself that our children were healthy, you know, they didn't have pre-existing conditions, that most of the statistics showed that, you know, children were not being impacted, children who had profiles like them, and I took comfort in that, and then after about 10 days I was cleared to go back to work. And then that week my fiance started to show symptoms, and unfortunately his course of COVID-19 was moderate, and that is what we're learning that COVID-19 is impacting men with more severity than women, on average, and so we had a tough couple of days where he had actually started to develop viral pneumonia. And I remember one night I was checking his vital signs every two to three hours. But his doctors were amazing, and guided us through it, and I really got through that difficult week by leaning on my support system, my friends, my family. I think the challenging part about COVID-19 is if you have family, they wanna support you, but if they're older or in those risk categories, you know, as a healthcare worker, you're not going to let them. And so my friends really were the ones I had to probably lean on the most, and I remember this one day where I was just exhausted, and I realized I didn't have enough groceries in the house, and you know, I have some pride, and it's not always easy for me to ask for help. I think it's easier when people initiate or offer help, but I think asking a friend to go food shopping for me, I had to really swallow my pride, and tell myself that I really needed the help, my family needed the help, and so I asked her if she could go food shopping, and of course she said yes, and you know, without hesitation, and you know, left the bags outside of our door. And so, you know, I think leaning on your social support group and not being too prideful to ask for help is really how we got through it, and then eventually my fiance did get better. He probably took a little over two weeks to recover, and probably was at home for almost three weeks. But he's now back at work at Montefiore Health System, and our children are attending a New York City Department of Education rec center, which is how we're able to continue to go to work, and that's our story, which is really a story of hope. The way I tried to emotionally handle my diagnosis was I asked myself first is this something that I have a lot of control over, you know, the fact that I think I probably have COVID-19? Or is something that I don't have a lot of control over, and I just have to ride it out? So I decided that it was the former. I did not have a lot of control over the fact that I had the symptoms, and I was pretty convinced that when the test came back it was going to be positive. And so, you know, there's a technique I use when I have something very stressful in my life, but I don't have a lot of control over how to fix it, or change it, and what I do is I visualize a box in my mind, and I let my mind just kind of freely flow and any worry thoughts or any images, so for example, maybe a really painful image was me in the hospital, or a really painful thought might have been something like what if my child contracts COVID-19 from me, and so I let all of those images and those thoughts that would really make me very anxious and very scared, I put them in the box. So I let them pop up in my mind, and then I visualize myself putting them in this box, and then I put the cover on the box. So for me, I visualize like a shoe box. I put the cover on nice and tight. I mentally pick up the box, and I put it in a corner of my closet. And then what I do for the rest of the day is I really try to distract myself, and these are techniques that really helped me cope emotionally, and these are techniques that I would suggest to anyone who suspects they have COVID or they do have COVID, because as we all know, it's really your own immune system that needs to combat COVID, as our doctors and scientists work really hard to find effective treatments. But for the most part, it's really your own immune system that has to fight it. And so managing your stress is important, and that's how I personally managed my time with COVID symptoms. I think when my fiance got COVID initially I coped very similarly. I visualized the box, I put my, you know, catastrophic thoughts and images into that box, and I put it in the closet, and I distracted myself, and that was working pretty well, until I realized that his course of COVID-19 was not like mine, that his was more moderate, and we had a couple of very scary days. And so I remember the day, it was a Saturday, we were coming back from urgent care where he had gotten a chest X-ray done, and the doctor called him, and told him that the chest X-ray showed that he had the beginning of viral pneumonia in his lungs. And so, that overwhelmed my coping for a couple of hours, right? In that instance, the shoe box technique was not working anymore, and so what I did is, you know, after I got him, you know, set up in the bedroom, and he had what he needed, and he was resting, and I put a movie on for the kids, I went into the bathroom and I, you know, took a shower, and I let myself cry, and I cried for a long time, probably an hour, and I just let it out, and I gave myself permission to feel as terrified as I needed to feel, to feel, you know, I had all these images in my mind of having to drop him off at the ED and not being able to go with him, of him being in ICU, and you know, I even let my mind go to the worst case scenario. And then I, you know, pulled myself out of that, and I said, okay, you know, no matter what happens, I'm gonna be there for him, I'm gonna be there for my family. I reached out to my immediate support group and I let them know what was going on with him. I let my immediate colleagues know, because in case I did have to take him to the hospital, I knew that I was gonna have to take a few days off from work, so I let everybody know that needed to know, you know, so I was kind of planning ahead for the worst case scenario. And then that didn't happen, thank goodness. That's not our story. But emotionally, I would say that was the toughest part was when he became ill, and I realized that his course wasn't going to be like mine, that it was gonna more moderate, or even severe, because at that point in time I didn't really know how his story was going to end, and I also had guilt, because I'm pretty convinced I got him sick. And you know, I'm just so grateful that he recovered and that our family story is one of survival. We feel very lucky. My best advice if you have been diagnosed with COVID-19 just drawing upon my own personal experience is share it with people that you feel safe and comfortable sharing it with. Don't put a lot of pressure on yourself to tell everybody if you're not ready to do so yet. I think the other piece of advice is really use your support system, and it is not, this is not a moment to be prideful and please don't be afraid to ask for help, and I can share with everyone that there was one day in particular that was I pretty exhausted, and just feeling stretched trying to take care of myself, trying to take care of my children, and I realized we didn't have enough food in the house, and I didn't want to go food shopping, because I was quarantining, and I didn't wanna ask my fiance to go do it, because he was at work. And so I reached out to a friend who lives in our neighborhood and I asked her if she could go food shopping for us, and that was hard, you know? I had to swallow my pride a little bit. I felt a little embarrassed. But I did it, and it was so incredibly helpful. I remember that night I made dinner, and I was only really able to do it because she had gone food shopping for us, and so that's my advice. I think, you know, share the news with who you feel safe sharing the news, draw on your support system, whether that be friends, whether that be family, whether that be your faith. I think in times of crisis leaning on your different supports is critical, and that's how I got through it.