ICU Doctor Back Home After Year Living in Driveway

Dr. Tiffany Osborn credits the coronavirus vaccine
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 23, 2021 8:34 AM CDT

A St. Louis doctor is finally back living with her family after a year of camping in her driveway. Dr. Tiffany Osborn's family was planning to put an addition on their home when the coronavirus pandemic hit. Instead, they bought an RV that has been Osborn's home for the past year. "I wasn't thinking I was going to be in [the RV] for a year—that's for sure," the professor of surgery and emergency medicine at Washington University, who also works in the ER and ICU of St. Louis' Barnes-Jewish Hospital, tells CNN. But "I had the same concerns every health care provider had, which was one, am I gonna infect myself? But more importantly, am I going to infect my family?" she adds, per KMOV. And so Osborn would return to the RV parked in her driveway after each shift, only visiting with her husband and two kids, aged 19 and 15, at a distance outside.

There were days of relief here and there. Per KMOV, Osborn opted to work for three weeks straight—a schedule that would allow her to isolate in the RV and get tested for coronavirus before seeing her family for brief stints. But that changed after Osborn was vaccinated and their community saw a drop in COVID-19 cases in February. "We felt like the combination of the vaccine, plus continuing to take precautions, that this risk to my family would be low," Osborn tells CNN. And so she sold the RV and moved permanently back inside, where she showers after each shift. "We feel very blessed that I am back home with my family," Osborn says, noting "many people did not make it home to theirs." Osborn's 19-year-old daughter, Ashley, is certainly grateful. "I took on her roles around the house," she tells CNN. And "I have to be honest; I did not realize how much she did until she left." (More uplifting news stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X