When COVID appeared and then became exponentially a pandemic, Eileen Castine remembered Niagara Falls virtual events that overwhelmed your business and your life.
Castine and his life and business partner, Ricci Mundy, had to watch helplessly as their 20-year livelihood, Mr. Scruff's Pet Care, plunged from the pandemic's dips into a torrent of problems that included disease, debts and home repairs.
โIt was hell. A blur, โCastine said. โOne thing after another, after another. Things happened with our house; we accumulate credit card debt ... "
The cascade of events began with a sudden blow to the heart of his pet sitting business. People were home during the shutdown, and many remained that way even when work resumed. Business trips and vacations were canceled. Those people no longer needed pet sitters. So 75% of Mr. Scruff's business evaporated overnight.
Then, Castine discovered that she was ill. In March 2020, he was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. That was in addition to another condition, called myotonic muscular dystrophy, a degenerative neuromuscular disease. Even as hospitals canceled elective surgeries to make room for the growing number of COVID patients, Castine was able to undergo surgery for her cancer in April 2020.
Although Castine did not have to undergo chemotherapy or radiation therapy and has a positive prognosis, "it was quite hellish," he recalled, due to neuromuscular problems, including irregular heartbeat and lack of oxygen. Fortunately, she did not contract COVID, although she had neighbors and friends who did, she said.
But business continued at an unsustainable pace. โWe were pretty slow until about March of this year. Suddenly he started to get a little busier. It was pretty tough. But we get a lot of help from clients and friends, โCastine said.
A year and a half later
What a difference just over a year has made. "Now we have done it and I am amazed and grateful," said Castine. The key to survival? Committed friends and a caring community.
โWe also take advantage (the government) mortgage reliefSo we were able to delay the mortgage payments for about six months. โCastine applied for and received federal disability, which began in July 2020.
She is grateful for Mundy. โShe has really been taking over. We work well together. Looking ahead was just terrifying. We only had to take it one day at a time. We have come out of this really supporting each other. "
And Mr. Scruff is as playful as ever. โThe good thing is that we are still here and busy as usual. We have more than enough businesses; We can hardly handle it all now. When people went back to work, we took back our daily people, people who go on a trip ... "
Castine's health has even "stabilized a bit for now". She is in physical therapy; both women have been vaccinated, including booster shots.
While Castine is optimistic about the future, she is still "quite anxious" about the pandemic, which is producing variants and infections around the world.
"I think sometimes it's hard to look back, because it was so scary," he said. โBut I am very grateful. And friends. I found out how we help each other. Our community helped us get through this. "
Celeste Williams is a writer and playwright living in Indianapolis. He was a journalist for more than 25 years, having worked for newspapers in Alabama, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Indiana. He has won national awards, including recognition for reporting on extreme poverty in Tunica, Mississippi. His play, "More Light: Douglass Returns," about abolitionist and speaker Frederick Douglass, was produced in 2017 and 2018 in Indiana.
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