Public Health Lab
COVID-19 Stories: Lisa

“My name is Lisa, and I’m the lead metals analyst in the Biological and Emerging Contaminants Group for the Public Health Lab. Our group belongs to the LRNC, which is the Laboratory Response Network for Chemical Threats, a nationwide program that responds to chemical emergencies ranging from spills to incidents to terrorist attacks. I consider my job to be extremely rewarding and extremely important.  

“I was planning chief for the entire 18-month duration of the MDH Public Health Laboratory emergency response to the COVID crisis. Very early on in the pandemic, no one was getting to work from home, so I had to find and bring food to people [in the lab] so they could eat. I don't have any children at home, and so I saw it as my responsibility to work as hard as I could to make sure my coworkers who had children saw their children once in a while.  

“I'm so proud of us. There was pride, there was camaraderie, there was this idea that we were in this together and we were all rowing in the same direction. That was truly amazing. But underneath it all, we were afraid, too. I don't think we've talked much with each other about how we were feeling at that time.  

“I lost everything for the first 18 months of the pandemic, except my husband and my cats. I could not have done what I did if I didn't have my husband. I've been married 35 years. My husband had retired just before the pandemic, and throughout those 18 months he sustained me and held me up.  

“For an hour every day, at 5:00, we convened and ate dinner together. For 18 months he cleaned, he took care of the cats, he fed me, he changed the sheets ... I didn't do any housework for 18 months. There's no way I could have done it without him. That hour every day where we sat down together was a touchstone, and without that I would have gone insane.

“He would remind me of what was important, and he would tell me what was happening with our family members that I wasn't able to speak with. For him, that was his contribution to the pandemic. It was his job, in his mind, to hold me up and support me as I held up the COVID-19 response and supported the people working on it.

“Working at MDH, within my circle of acquaintances, people were reaching out for advice. I was able to make a list of advice like, ‘How to protect yourself,’ and ‘What to be on the alert for best practices and misinformation,’ and I compiled an actual document. People would reach out to me and say, ‘How are things today?’ and while I never shared anything that wasn't already published in the newspaper, I was able to point to what was published, so that people could get an accurate representation of what was happening.

"That felt good, to help people, because when people have information, it gives them actions they can take and reduces their fear and stress. I loved being able to help and the feeling that I was doing something important, because that is how I battle my own anxieties, by action. It was actually amazing working here during this time. I hope I never have to do it again, but if I do, I will.

“One thing that the Minnesota Orchestra did throughout the pandemic was have [televised] concerts every other week or something. My husband and I would watch them. On New Year's Eve, this actually had me crying out of gratitude. They sent us the stupidest thing for their New Year's Eve concert, these stupid plastic champagne cups that light up. I didn't know they were coming, and they came the day before the concert. My husband and I sat down to watch the concert, and we had wine in these stupid cups, and it was truly the best day I'd had in a year."

PHL COVID-19 Stories is a series about the experiences of Public Health Lab employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.