This year has really been hard.

This month has been one of the worst months of my life. Since June 11th when I first started showing signs of the coronavirus and then testing positive for it a few days later, I lost my taste and smell for 5 days, had fever for 2 nights. I lost 6 pounds because of the loss of taste and smell.

I had to file unemployment for the 2 weeks I had to stay home from work due to having the coronavirus, which I still haven’t heard anything from them on if I’m getting money or not. The wait time is 6 weeks here in Arkansas now because the coronavirus and more and more people losing their jobs or having to quarantine and more people just filing unemployment in general right now.

I am a registered nurse and I was working for a home health company for 3 years. Until I caught the virus.

The mother of the patient that I worked for these past 3 years, told me this Monday that she didn’t want me to work at her home anymore because I caught the coronavirus. And she was upset because I didn’t ask how she was doing while I was quarantining. Which is complete bullshit. Because she has 2 other nurses who come and go out of her house throughout the week, and she had a coronavirus scare with one of the nurses, but that nurse still got to keep her job at her house. But I couldn’t? Yeah, that’s not fair at all. The mother of the patient I worked for, called my employer last Friday and said she didn’t want me working at her house anymore. But did my employer or the mother of the patient let me know this? No. I called my work this Monday that just passed, when I finally got released from quarantine by state officials, because I wanted to ask when I was set to go back to work, just for them to tell me all this bullshit the mother of the patient said.

So, my employer didn’t have any other homes for me to work in near the town I live in. My only option was to drive to a place that was a 2 hour drive from where I live, work a 16 hour shift and then drive 2 hours to get back home. That wasn’t going to work out. I’m almost 32 weeks pregnant. And even if I wasn’t pregnant, that is the shittiest option they could have given me.

So, I quit. But before I quit on Wednesday, I had to make sure I could get on husbands insurance. Because if I quit my job, I would lose my insurance and I need insurance due to this pregnancy. We thought I couldn’t get on his insurance and I was upset. Then we found out I could. Then I had to get all this paperwork done before the first, because I had to enroll by the first of this month in order to have insurance for the month of July. That’s just how his work does it. I finally got all the paperwork done, but now $206 is coming out of my husbands check each pay period (bi weekly) since I got on his insurance. He was just paying $56 for himself every pay period. But we had no other choice. He was only bringing home $822 every 2 weeks anyway, and now it’s gonna be a whole lot less since I got on his insurance. He only makes $29k a year.

Basically, what I’m saying is that we are poor again. Cause I was bringing in most of the money and we were able to just save his checks so we could save a lot of money fast. But now, we can’t save at all. We have a spending limit of $175 (maybe) a week after bills, and that’s it.

I’m going to apply for RN jobs while I’m pregnant and after pregnancy during maternity leave, but I highly doubt anybody will hire me at 7 months pregnant. I know they aren’t supposed to discriminate against pregnant women, but let’s get real. They don’t want to hire a heavily pregnant woman cause we are a liability at this point. I’m not trying to be pessimistic, but I’m just saying that even though I’m still going to apply for jobs no matter what, I know the reality is that I probably won’t get hired while I’m pregnant. So now I’m basically gonna be out of a job for at least 4 months. 2 months due to the rest of my pregnancy and 2 months due to maternity leave. I’ll apply like crazy but that’s all I can do at this point. All I can do is hope for the best.

I was able to still have insurance for the remainder of my pregnancy thanks to my husbands job, and I was able to get WIC, so those are the plus sides to this entire shitty situation. I used my WIC card for the first time today and got some nutritious food, so that’s cool.

I just feel so weird not having a job. I had one for the past 3 years. I was making $50k a year. And now I’m making nothing. It just feels weird. And it was all out of my control.

My employer and the woman I worked for did me fucking dirty. I didn’t expect to not have my job after I got out of quarantine from COVID-19, but it is what it is.

COVID-19 really fucked my life up. I recovered, but my husband also lost money cause he had to stay home due to me being positive at one point. He goes back to work on Tuesday. But this check he will be getting next week is gonna be so small. He tested negative 2 times but he still had to stay home and quarantine because I tested positive. Thankfully he has a good job but I’m just so upset that I lost mine due to reasons that were out of my control.

And this entire year, there hasn’t been many RN jobs pop up on Indeed or Facebook marketplace where you can search jobs. I’m not sure if it’s due to Covid-19, but it scares me. I’ve actually been looking for a different job for nearly 2 years, because my job didn’t offer any benefits except for really expensive health insurance. I’m hoping I will find a job fast enough, but I’m not gonna get my hopes up.

This year has been so bad. I just wish things would get better.