CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A nurse practitioner, who works primarily in the emergency room at Doctor's Regional Hospital, has moved out of his family's home to reduce the chances of infecting his immunocompromised son with COVID 19.
“My wife and I decided, because he’s mildly to moderately immunocompromised, for him to get the disease -- if I got it and gave it to him -- he could get really sick, and that would be a concern for us,” David Hadden said.
Those concerns led to Hadden moving into his parents' house, where he lives isolated from his father who's over the age of 60. Hadden's mother moved into his house along with his wife, son, and his wife's mother.
While it does protect his family, the living arrangement also has some some obvious drawbacks.
“So it sucks, and it sucks a lot," Hadden said. "You don’t get to pick up your kid. You don’t get to hug and kiss your wife. You can’t hug and kiss your child. I mean you want to kiss them. You want to hold your kid. You can’t, and you really miss that aspect. You really appreciate being able to touch and hold your kid."
Hadden does visit his family, but he takes precautionary measures when he does so. Sometimes he talks to them through windows. There are also family walks with Hadden practicing extreme social distancing of staying ten to 15 feet away from his wife and son.
“When I can, I see them through a window or I FaceTime," he said. "They brought me dinner one day, and I saw him through the car window. I could play with my kid through the window."
Hadden isn't sure when it will be safe for him to move home again, but he's optimistic that it will be sooner rather than later.
“At some point we all have to go back to work," he said. "We all have to get back to our lives. I’m not one to want to risk lives, but I just don't think we will have to be this closed off for much much longer.”
