Dec 29, 2020
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
I have no problem having everybody know that I had COVID. I don't I don't feel I don't feel that that is a reason for shame. After all, we are literally in the midst of a global pandemic and tens of millions of people have this and often through no fault of their own.
INTRO
Today, we talk about leadership and COVID, how the virus gives us a chance to model a different openness and acceptance-without-judgment and how throw-away comments can trigger cycles of shame and judgment. My guest today is Arwen Widmer-Bobyk, She is Canadian, living in Los Angeles on assignment with the Canadian government as the Consul for Political, Economic, and Public Affairs at the Consulate General in Los Angeles.
I first met Arwen in that most 2020 of ways: over a Zoom call. I was kicking off a year of intentional trainings, teaching about empathy in relation to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the North American Candian MIssions. Arwen was part of an organizing task-force. She was a warm smile and lots of red hair on the other side of the screen. A few weeks later, Arwen was diagnosed with COVID, the first person in her consulate to get the virus.
Her story is one of poor responses, missing email links, uncertainty, and ill-considered comfort. Yet, through it all, Arwen has seen the diagnosis as a tremendous leadership opportunity, to model a different way of engaging the virus. Her perspective has take-aways for leaders everywhere.
But first, a little bit more about Arwen.
- Liesel Mertes
Tell me about the origins of your name and like the Arwen.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Oh, so my name has become legendary even within my organization in which I work, which is Global Affairs Canada. So my name are when comes from the book The Lord of the Rings. When my mom was pregnant back in the mid 70s, she was reading The Lord of the Rings and she kind of had this feeling that she wanted to name her daughter after an elven princess.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And so she chose ah. When the story at work, though, goes that there's a very, very senior manager in my organization who is actually now an adviser to the prime minister. And we were on a work together a few years ago. And he asked me he asked me, ah, when you know such an interesting name, do you have any siblings?
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And I said, Yeah, I have a younger sister. And he's like, Oh, does she have an interesting name, too? And I said, Well, no, I think my parents kind of gave it all to me because her name is Rebecca Sarah. And he just thought that that was the funniest thing I've ever heard. And so he often tells that story like on national stages about how he had this colleague who had this great name and who was just Rebecca.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And my my middle name actually has a very, very funny story, too. So my middle name is Ganessa and Ganessa is spelled G-A-N-E-S-S-A and my mom always said to me, well, you know, so we had an elven princess as your first date. And, you know, your middle name is is the name of a Greek goddess, the remover of obstacles and the goddess of wisdom. And I was like as a young child, I thought that this was just the greatest thing ever.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And when I got older and the Internet became a thing, I kind of tried to, you know, look that up on Ask Jeeves and didn't I didn't come up with anything else. I was like just kind of weird. And then when, when I was a brand new mother. So, I had just given birth to my eldest daughter.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And it was the first time I left the house without her kind of to go on my own after I think she was probably a month and a half old. I left her with my husband to go see a movie. And I saw Eat, Pray, Love. And I don't know if you remember in the movie, but it was really like quite an outsized role for the Hindu God, Ganesh and the remover of of the God of wisdom and the remover of obstacles.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And I just had this, like, crazy epiphany in the movie that my mom just misspelled my middle name and got three completely wrong.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And so I was like, oh, my goodness, that is a huge mistake.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
But I'm really glad my middle name isn't Ganesh. I like I'm kind of attached to Ganessa.
- Liesel Mertes
The the epiphany moment, and I like it because it's resonant with me, I remember using Ask Jeeves and you have to be of a certain age to remember what that was like a player before the ascendancy of Google.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Yeah, I remember asking do use all the answers. Where do he go? Where did he know you?
- Liesel Mertes
He was the little guy that got smashed by the hegemon and just, you know, wandered off.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
He's probably in reformism, but I'm sure he is.
- Liesel Mertes
Well, he's in the hospitality industry, so maybe he's indefinitely furloughed.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Good point.
- Liesel Mertes
Tell us a little bit. I think that you mentioned in your bio that you married your college sweetheart. Is that correct? Or did you meet in the in the consular affairs?
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
So my husband is also a foreign service officer.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
But indeed, we did meet the first day of class in our master's program, and it was a tiny little program for total international affairs nerds. We were studying international political economy, which is like, if you know, that has its origins in Marx or something like and there were eight of us in the class. And so I had moved from Vancouver to Ottawa. He had moved from Chicago to Ottawa to do this very niche program.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And I looked across the seminar table at home and I was like, Harvard, you know, interesting guy. And then I saw him later in the tunnels. And Carleton University in Ottawa is famous for its underground tunnels because the the climate is just so inhospitable that they needed to connect all the all the classrooms and all of the buildings, underground tunnels. So I saw him in the tunnel and I was like, yep, that's the one.
- Liesel Mertes
So I knew really I knew that knowing this or did it take him awhile?
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
It took him about twenty-four hours, the longest twenty-four hours of my life.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
But no it was, it was so interesting because we were together and that was so that was twenty, twenty two years ago almost.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And we were together within the first week and all of our classmates just assumed that we had like relocated from different sides of the continent to finally be together.
- Liesel Mertes
Well, you would get settled with one another.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Yeah. So we have been ever since and we've been we've lived many different places in the world and and we continue to to be the ultimate partners.
Arwen has worked for Global Affairs Canada for almost 14 years. Like the US Foreign Service, it is a very rotational job, with moves every few years. She started out in the Privy Council, supporting the Prime Minister, and is now in Los Angeles. She moved ahead of her family to the new posting, before COVID hit.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
For the first 10 months I was actually here on my own, given the kind of issues with travel in the pandemic and my daughter is finishing their their school year. And then we were separated for longer than we had planned. But finally, my family is here in Los Angeles with me.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
We've been working since March remotely. So I have a small team that manages some really key files, political relationship with our territory, which covers Southern California, Arizona and Nevada, economics, security, defense, climate change, environment.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And then a big one for my team is all of our. Full cooperation with Hollywood and the connections between our cultural industries in Canada and and this mega media entertainment epicenter, so that's that's what I do.
- Liesel Mertes
That sounds fascinating. So are you. Is your office like being consulted as they are portraying Canadians in films? Are you fact checking or are you resourcing? I'm intrigued by this.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
So our role when it comes to cultural, cultural connections between the two countries is really to celebrate Canada's achievements in in the cultural industries. So everything from fine art to film to music to television and to make the connections and be a platform for making sure that Canadian artists and creators are able to access who they need to access in in Hollywood in particular.
Arwen particularly looks at her role through the lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion. She has developed curriculum to incorporate women’s voices more robustly.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And the cultural industries, of course, is a target rich environment for expanding access for diverse creators from Canada into Hollywood. And so we're really putting a huge emphasis on highlighting to American producers and buyers the kind of rich tapestry of talent in Canada, which is incredibly diverse and inclusive.
- Liesel Mertes
So I hear when you talk about what this last year has been, I hear a number of disruptive life events that in the language that I use within my consulting, you had a move, you had time without your family. This was all in the midst of being in a new city and in a new pandemic for everyone.
- Liesel Mertes
Tell me about how some of those stresses and upheavals were percolating leading up to what we're going to talk about a little bit later, which was your COVID diagnosis as well.
- Liesel Mertes
But even preceding that, it seemed like there were a lot of ups and downs in your year.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Definitely. It's been it's been a year of of the sense that I've that I've had a lot of the time, both personally and professionally, is just pushing a big boulder up a hill.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And the weight of the responsibility for me to to kind of manage getting my family here, eventually working through my department's H.R. processes and relocation processes and, you know, determining when it was safe to have them come from Ottawa to to Los Angeles and and, you know, trying to maintain connection with my two daughters who were also experiencing the stress of not being in school and going through kind of the newness of what this pandemic meant.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And then, you know, also maintaining connection with my husband, who was single parenting for 10 months while I was here and managing the girls and their.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Their stress and their worry about me being here by myself and, you know, the pandemic situation in Los Angeles has been not great from the very beginning. And so, you know that it was definitely a challenging year.
- Liesel Mertes
And I know you have a parent, two girls, who are know as the parent of my own children who are close to your ages. I have a 13 year old and an 11 year old. Yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
It can be kind of an all hands on deck time. And to be doing that from a distance and managing, you know, their schedules and people in their own uncertainty. I hear how that could feel really complex in the midst of just a new job and a new city.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Absolutely. And also managing remotely a team for the first time and, you know, keeping their motivation up and transitioning from a very in person type of work that we do, which is creating relationships and networks to a fully virtual maintaining virtual relationships and networks and still having the the pressures to produce and perform and promote and protect Canadian interests, even amidst this pandemic.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
So when you put it that way, Liesel. Yeah, it's it's been a year. It's been a year.
- Liesel Mertes
Tell us a little bit about when you got your COVID diagnosis.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Sure. So just for background, I'm the first person in the consulate to have a positive COVID diagnosis. So I was the the vanguard and the groundbreaker in that it happened the week of the election.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And of course, you can imagine in my position, the election was kind of a big deal. So we had a lot of pressure to do reporting and analysis. And then there was also the the concern about the potential civil unrest, which has been going on really since George Floyd's murder here in Los Angeles on a major urban center.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
So that even more top of mind.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Yeah, so it was that week and it was the Thursday. And I was having a meeting and, you know, typical Zoom meeting. I try to avoid looking at myself in those meetings because it's just so weird. I'm sure that, I'm sure the listeners can relate. It's just very strange to be having a meeting, but also seeing yourself talk. But I did notice out of the corner of my eye that I looked white as a sheet like I did not look well.
Arwen made is through the next important meeting with the Canadian Olympic Committee. But when she shut her laptop, she was exhausted.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And I thought, I hope I don't like the way this feels, just feels very strange, so I immediately texted my boss, the consul general, and I said, you know, I am not feeling well.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
I am going to schedule a COVID test. It's funny how my brain kind of seemed to just tell me that this was not, you know, just tiredness. This was not maybe I you know, I was like, I don't even think that this is like a cold or flu. I'm also a person who who almost never gets sick. So I hadn't taken a sick day before this in well over a year.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
So I, I told my family, you know, I'm not feeling great. I'm going to put myself in in my bedroom and have a rest. And then I had a COVID test the next day.
She was feverish and nauseous through the night.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
So the two of us went to to get a COVID test at Dodgers Stadium. And I have to say that L.A. County really, really knows by this time how to manage large volumes of people getting tested. So is quite, quite efficient.
- Liesel Mertes
Can I interrupt for a second? Are you feeling anxious at this moment? Is there a sense of dread? Are you taking just taking the appropriate steps and kind of on autopilot or like what's what's the swirl for you?
I think that. There was a, there was a sense of almost disbelief that this was happening to me at that time, you know, I had gone, what, nine months of the pandemic without getting sick? You know, we were starting to hear that the vaccine was going to be available relatively imminently. I had felt just maybe a few days prior to that, that, wow, we did it. Nobody in my family got sick. That's fantastic.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And then and then to start getting sick, I was like, wow. So there was a little disbelief that there was concern. And really, right from the beginning, my biggest concern was not myself, but the health of my husband and my girls, particularly my daughters, because.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
My youngest daughter has a lot of food allergies, so her immune system is is kind of wonky to begin with, and then my older daughter has juvenile arthritis. So, again, an autoimmune disorder. And so I was very much mostly concerned about them.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
I'm relatively young, although I did refer to Ask Jeeves, but I'm quite healthy.
- Liesel Mertes
And and so I, too, am relatively young. And I know about ask, do you say you are relatively young.
Exactly. And so and then and then, you know, as a as a parent you start thinking about and your mind goes down these rabbit holes of OK, well if I'm sick and my husband's also sick, who's going to take care of the girls? Actually, I came to the realization very quickly that the girls would be taking care of us and they're very, very OK with that.
Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
But, you know, you do start to to go down those kind of anxiety holes of, you know, what happens if I get really sick. Right.
- Liesel Mertes
And so also the complexity of parents in the midst of a pandemic at whatever stage, I mean, you're both aware of your own health and how it affects your work. But there are these people that you're responsible for and it's it's it's it's own.
- Liesel Mertes
It's not easier, but it's a it's a luxury that parents don't really have to just focus singularly on their own, on their own health parents or just people with partners, other people in the house.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Absolutely. So so that happened. I was pretty much kind of laid out physically and then so that was a Friday, Saturday morning. I get a text from L.A. County and it's actually my husband's results. And I click on the link and it says Negative. And I was like, wow, what an incredible relief. A few minutes later, I so so I guess I would talk to him and I said, you know, you're negative. This is really exciting.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
I'm sure I am, too. You know, I went into that phase of kind of denial, you know, I guess this isn't COVID. I guess I was just kind of jumping to conclusions and, you know, I'm sure I'm fine, too. So, you know, dodged that bullet, so to speak. And then I get another text about five minutes later and the link doesn't work.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
It's it's a broken link. And and so that was just incredibly frustrating to me. So, you know, I emailed their tech support ways to deal with tech support.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Women's rights waited for hours. Finally, they sent me a new one and the result was positive. And at that moment, I remember like my stomach, my stomach just sank. It was when it was then when I was feeling sick and really tired and then realizing that this was not going to be a quick road to recovery, likely that, you know, it kind of just very much hit me. And so I kind of took a few minutes to to let it sink in a little bit.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And then I went into, OK, now I have a whole bunch of things to do.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Being of a foreign diplomat here, I had responsibilities that I had to execute in terms of informing my boss about my diagnosis, but also informing our mission security officer who who deals with all of the kind of emergency management stuff.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And at that point, I was thinking solely about any potential exposure to my colleagues that I may have inadvertently perpetuated.
Luckily, Arwen did most of her work remotely. She would only pop into the office occasionally. Colleagues were notified.
- Liesel Mertes
What what kinds of things were people saying or doing that made you feel well supported in the midst of all of this?
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
So it's very interesting because we plan and we plan and we plan for emergency situations and we think we know how we're going to respond and we know how we should respond.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
But the interesting thing for me was that when you have it all written down on paper, the first thing and no one is not kind of, my goodness, how are you feeling? You know, it is it is kind of going directly into the kind of duty of care. Mode, as I like to call it, and so it's the primary responsibility of duty of care is to make sure everybody is safe, so, so safe from a physical perspective rather than safe from an emotional perspective. For example.
- Liesel Mertes
So step one in the. That makes total sense of just this, the first step is process, not necessarily guidance in how to interact in this potentially very freighted, uncertain person on the other side who are dealing with a really complex, unknown disease. You don't really script out how to meet that person in that moment necessarily.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Precisely, which I hope to change soon. But for me, it was very interesting. So. The first question is always, where do you think you got this, like that's the most important question ever, you know, and I think I read a statistic later on that I think somewhere north of 70 percent of people have no idea where they've actually contracted COVID. For me, I was extremely careful, have been for the previous 10 months all through wearing a mask at all times in public. And I still I still caught it probably in the elevator somewhere with somebody who wasn't wearing a mask, but.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
You know, for me, that question triggered and I and I received that question from almost every single person that I encountered and told the question, triggered shame, like the answer that that was expected was, oh, well, that that one time where I was just, you know, floating all of the rules and and, you know, in an indoor restaurant, breathing in as much virus as I could, you know.
- Liesel Mertes
Some Friday night where I said, screw it, I'm doing whatever I want.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Exactly. You know, so so that was that was interesting. My work was excellent in in kind of putting together the steps that were needed to take to notify anyone who may have been in contact with me. Thankfully, everyone was negative.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
But then I learned a little later on after I talked to the contact tracers in L.A. County that really they're most concerned and really exclusively concerned with only the people who you had been in contact with 48 hours prior to the onset of symptoms.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And for me, that was only my family. So it was kind of out of an abundance of caution that my workplace initially was told, but I very quickly realized that it was an incredible opportunity for leadership, for me to
- Liesel Mertes
Tell me more here.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
So to destigmatize this, I felt very, very severe stigma about this, this diagnosis, and I really wasn't expecting that.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And so I asked my boss to...
- Liesel Mertes
Can I ask you a little bit more about that, because it seems it seems really important. So there, I imagine there's the the shame and the stigma of that first question, that sense of suspicion of like your irresponsibility or what you've done.
- Liesel Mertes
What are some other ways that that stigma was being expressed and perceived by you?
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
So on the personal level. My I. I soon found out that my daughter had my oldest daughter had told her friends at school that I was positive. So within the first 48 hours they all knew. And of course, as a mom of a teenager, we thought, you know, how quickly word can get can get around. So I received an email from the parent of one of one of the girls. And remember, these are very, very new relationships for our family.
We had just moved to L.A. The girls had just started virtual school in September. And so very much brand new relationships and still establishing, you know, trust and and familiarity, I guess.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And so the the email I received was just a visceral reaction to potentially having exposed. The family of this girl to COVID now, I had not been in contact with them for over two weeks and Grace hadn't been in contact with them for 10 days. And so it never even occurred to me to notify all of the families that, you know, I had seen in the previous three months, you know, but I really quickly learned that the reaction was very much based in fear, in the unknown of this disease, but also the unknown of the timeline.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
I mean, teenagers are not really precise when it comes to kind of delineating the exact timeline of, you know, when their parents get sick.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And so I just remember feeling intense kind of sorrow and shame and regret for not having informed these families, even though I was very sick at the time, I felt. Regret for not having thought through all of the potential people who may be afraid of my diagnosis, which seems very strange to me to say now, but it was it was just kind of a gut punch, so to speak. The email had used words like betrayal of trust, of, you know, putting our lives in danger.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And so it was quite dramatic email, to be totally honest. But but I knew that it was just all very much fear based. And so I put my my mind I put myself into her shoes. And I could very much imagine, you know, a mother's instinct to protect her family. And and so I repaired the relationship. I wrote back and I and I and I copied all of the parents of the the very small study pod of four girls.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
But I just kind of explained and I and the first sentence of my email, so you'd be proud of me was I can imagine how scary this is for you. Let me walk you through the timeline to reassure you.
- Liesel Mertes
I am proud of you, not my pride. You know, it is the delineating factor, but, you know, one of the reasons that I really wanted when I first heard your story and just the high level of it to have you as a guest, because I just want to step back.
- Liesel Mertes
That takes so much choosing towards empathy and choosing towards and I want to circle back. You began to say, you know, a leadership opportunity because, I mean, how how complex and hard is that like you were you're very sick at that moment. Like you feel terrible.
- Liesel Mertes
It's this new relationship like there you're you know, the parents of your daughter, you know, that's just complex of like it's not like things are well known relationships.
- Liesel Mertes
And you could feel attacked, you could feel defensive. You could feel like lashing out and saying, hey, you're not caring for me at all.
- Liesel Mertes
Like I'm feverish and in bed. But to be able to process those things and still respond in a way that sees another person's emotion. Yeah, there's a lot of steps to actually executing on that maturity. To get to that point.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
It was really valuable. And I kept thinking about it. And, you know, I'm I'm one of those cheer, Cheryl. So I guess you could say in that I always look for a silver lining and no one does that apply to more than the situations that I find myself in. So you'll never hear me saying, at least to anyone, except for maybe myself. And so I was looking for the silver linings to this. And personal growth has certainly been one of those intentionality as well in the relationships that I have professionally, personally.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Another excellent silver lining. And keep going. Sorry. No, no, it's OK. So, you know, through through that very open, authentic and essentially raw message to to the other parents, I think that I, I there was leapfrogging happening. I was able to establish more trust than, you know, just 10 months of, you know, banal dialogue, you know, normal parental dialogue. Could have could have possibly established.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
We’ll return to Arwen’s interview in a moment. This episode is sponsored by Handle with Care Consulting, my company. The world went sideways in 2020 and it is hard to know if your people are feeling supported and engaged amidst all the challenges. Empathy is THE leadership skill for our times, and Handle with Care Consulting can help build this skill into your people and processes. Contact Handle with Care Consulting for coaching, keynotes, and certificate programs to create cultures of care. And now, back to Arwen…
MUSICAL TRANSITION
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
I have no problem having everybody know that I had COVID. I don't I don't feel I don't feel that that is a reason for shame.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
After all, we are literally in the midst of a global pandemic and tens of millions of people have this and often through no fault of their own.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah, there's the shame and fear. Response cycles, though, are so powerful. You know, it just it puts us in such a defensive crouch. And you know what? What a true awareness that you're able to have of looking and seeing all these people are in their own fear cycle that is just causing them to act so defensively. And it's it's a good thing to tuck away to to be aware, like, oh, yes, I could suddenly be triggered to feel very concerned just about my own safety and things like that.
- Liesel Mertes
But how will that actually inhibit my response? And and that comes through to someone you're talking to, like, oh, you, you know, are only thinking about yourself right now instead of having any care for me, which I imagine, as you said, is a tremendous opportunity, as you were the first within your organization to get this diagnosis.
- Liesel Mertes
Tell me some about you mentioned using it as a leadership opportunity and wanting to cultivate and model something different. What things are you pulling forward that you're wanting to incorporate in kind of a different way of approaching people who get covered?
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
So I think like most large organizations, medical information, of course, is generally very confidential in a work setting. And so one of the initial first reactions of my organization was we must keep this super confidential. We have to keep your identity confidential. We can't tell anybody it was you.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
For me, that just felt totally wrong because I felt that that that lack of transparency, even if it was well-meaning and meant to protect me, would possibly lead to even more fear.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
For example, imagine I was one of the workers who who had been in the office and I was told that someone has COVID and that you may have been in contact with them and therefore you should get tested. I can imagine the amount of fear.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
That that would instill in someone, because you don't there's no certainty, right, you don't know if you don't know who this person was, maybe I actually only saw one person in the office when I went. And so the other 12 that or eight that would have been told to go get tested where I know we're at no risk whatsoever.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And so I asked, I asked my my boss to include in his message to all staff that it was me that was diagnosed and that I felt provided an opportunity.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
To show that it is absolutely OK to disclose your diagnosis in the workplace in order to keep your colleagues safe in order, there's no reprisal. I wasn't sent home to Canada because I got COVID, which was something I was actually worried about.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And we can talk about that as well. But for me, it was an opportunity to destigmatize the diagnosis, to take away the shame, to not hide something that really, really didn't need to be hidden. Right.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah, I hear that that that's a powerful signaling in that way. You mentioned an apprehension that you had. Tell me a little bit more about that.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Sure. So, you know, on the back end of things, we have a giant organization of of 15,000 or so employees spread across the world. So the background is that about a thousand of them, I think, were repatriated home to Canada due to their own health risks or the particular health infrastructure of the countries to which they were accredited. So that happened in the spring.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And when, when I was diagnosed, I texted a very, very dear colleague of mine who is still based in Ottawa and told him about my diagnosis. And he said he was somebody who still works in the in my former team in the North America Advocacy Division. And he said, ah, what can I tell the rest of the team? And I said, absolutely, 100 percent. And so he did. And then I got an email from my former director, so my former boss.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And he said, OK, well, there are some official things we need to do now are when I need to inform officially the medical infrastructure of global affairs. And so he's very sweet. He said they're very well meaning are when they're there, they can be. I've heard that they can be a little intense, but they're extremely well meaning.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And so I was I hadn't even really thought at that point. Of what the potential implications were for the duration of my posting, the duration of my assignment here is should I have gotten really sick? And so I kind of sat in that fear for. A little while, I would say about 15 minutes, talk to my husband, I was asking questions like, well, what if I recalled what if I get really, really sick? And, you know, health care here in the United States is very expensive.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
What if they'd rather treat me in Canada? What happens if I go home and you guys stay here? And so there are all of these questions in my mind as I waited for that official notification of of you have now been assigned a file, so to speak.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And that notification came. A lot of people were copied on it. And the wonderful thing was that employee assistance program was copied on it. They reached out to me separately after and said, if you need any support, if your family needs any support, if you have questions, if you have concerns, reach out.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
But also the kind of the chief medical officer of global affairs was copied and he was the one who then continued to follow me and to be in dialogue with me on a daily basis for the for the next month and. That having that support and that expertise and that person who I could ask medical questions of was was very, very helpful. I'm kind of a medical nerd myself. So if it wasn't political science, I probably would have been a surgeon.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And so I very quickly kind of got up to speed about what I needed to do to give him the information he needed to assess my condition. And so I ordered myself an oximeter the next day and started measuring my my my blood oxygen levels. And that's kind of key for COVID. And that was something that helped him monitor my situation. At one point, and COVID is, of course, different for everyone, and I know that some of your listeners are dealing with diagnoses themselves, perhaps, or those of their family or friends.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And it's very different for everyone.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
For me, it really went in waves. And so. I would feel terrible for a few days and then I would rest and I would start to feel better and then I would overexert myself and then I would feel terrible again.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And at one point, my my oxygen levels were really, really not good. And the chief medical officer said, you know, Arwen, if if you don't rest and if you don't really, really take this seriously, I'm going to be ordering a medevac for you and you're going to be coming home to Canada.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And that was really the thing that scared me into. Resting, taking it seriously, and the realization that if I didn't, this could be a condition that I would have to deal with for a lot longer than I would have liked.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah, I hear I hear so many threads in the midst of that that are important, I hear the communication and the cooperation, whether that was from the medical staff or the EAP, of being able to really reach out to you on a couple of different fronts, to put it to deal with some of the fears that might come up to have information going back and forth here, the importance of rest.
- Liesel Mertes
I also hear just harkening back to as you're dealing with like emails from your daughter's friend group, I'm thinking there's always so much going on that we don't know, you know, behind the scenes. Like they don't know that you're not only sick, but you're dealing with apprehensions as to whether or not you're going to have to be taken back to a different country. And how is this going to affect the continuity of your posting and all of your family situation?
- Liesel Mertes
And that's just your particular complexity. But everybody's story has their own complexity as to how the diagnosis is playing out with their financial situation or their health care plan or their partner or their aging parents. And I I hope that it gives people more of a sense of pause before they just rush into an interaction. So there could be like there's the stress I know, which is a sickness. And then there are probably a dozen ancillary stresses that are attached to this that I don't know about.
- Liesel Mertes
And I want to tread graciously and carefully because there could be a lot going on that I have no idea about.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Exactly. And it's just kind of layer upon layer. And then I have so much empathy for. People who are going through this and who are also, you know, high functioning professionals or in fact even, you know, like a grocery store clerk, the people who who can't take the time they need to get better because of financial considerations or professional considerations or family considerations. And I mean, you know, I'm very lucky that I had plenty of sick leave thanked.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
But at the same time, this is an incredibly busy time for my for my program. And so prioritizing my health over the hundreds of emails that were flooding my inbox on a daily basis was really, really, really hard. And I was my worst enemy. I mean, I had a lot of support from my boss to to to disconnect, but I you know, I don't have any backup at work either. So it's it is it is not easy.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And and if you see someone who's just kind of. Struggling with it know that there are many, many angles of pressure happening at any given time.
- Liesel Mertes
You mentioned, you know, needing to quarantine within your house burns that loomed large about the health of your children or your husband.
- Liesel Mertes
What what is that like, the isolation or the uncertainty within your home? Are you having to have people bring you food? Like what is the life of quarantining within your house look like?
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
So absolutely. I was kind of at the at the whim of my my family to bring me food. Thankfully, they're very good at that after having been doing that for 10 months on their own anyway in Canada. But I was kind of isolated in my bedroom with a bathroom attached. I didn't leave that room at all. My husband generally would be the one to put the plate by the door. We'd all have masks on. He'd leave, I'd go get the plate, I'd eat, put the plate back.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
It was kind of like a bit like being in prison, actually in your own house. Yeah.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Yes, a bit like a prison, but maybe friendlier people that come by your door each day and better bathrooms.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
But I definitely went through many series on Netflix and I am fully caught up on the Queen's Gambit and what I would recommend highly recommend to anyone. It's a great, great piece of television. But there were there were times when when I felt really, really ill that.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
I just kind of felt miserable, and I think the isolation made it a bit worse. And then there were the times that I felt more energetic and that was also really frustrating to, I think, one of the most heartbreaking moments for me, though, of over those two weeks of being isolated was just seeing my youngest daughter's face 12 feet away from me and and just knowing how much she just wanted to hug me. I think in follow up conversations after, you know, we've all been cleared and healthy talking to my girls about.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Their feelings when I was sick has been very illuminating for me because they were very worried. They were worried that I would get sicker and sicker and they were probably even worried about my mortality at times because this is an unpredictable disease that attacks all sorts of different systems within our bodies.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And so and and honestly, I think this is the first time I've ever been confronted with my mortality from a kind of a sickness perspective. And so it's it's hard on it's hard on those who love us to.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah. You you've mentioned it throughout the episode, but just to keep you up to make sure we didn't miss anything. What would you say to someone who's listening and perhaps over the next couple of weeks they are going to interact with someone, whether that's in their family or their friend group who had a COVID diagnosis? I always ask on this podcast,
- Liesel Mertes
What are things that you would say, don't do this like this, don't do this. This will be bad.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
So the number one thing that I think I alluded to it before is don't let your first question be. Where do you think you got it? Because rarely is that actually a meaningful question, I would suggest instead that your first response be how are you feeling?
- Liesel Mertes
And on the positive side, what were things that you experienced that you would say this was so meaningful, whether it was in support of you or people who supported your wider family in the midst of that, what would you recommend to people who want to show care?
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Well, interestingly, I've never been a fan of sending or receiving flowers. I find them so temporal and yet so expensive at the same time that it's never been my go to. But I have to say, being stuck in a room by yourself, having a beautiful bouquet of flowers or forms of flowers was just this wonderful visual kind of place. I could rest my eyes and concentrate on some beauty. And so interestingly, I would suggest flowers. I totally lost my taste buds for four weeks, so food would have been completely wasted on me.
- Liesel Mertes
So no chocolates does make you more accepting of anyone who has to cook for you, though. You can just be thankful for whatever you gave me. Absolutely.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Normally I love hot dogs, but this one didn't taste like anything but from an emotional standpoint.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
The daily check ins, I received text messages from dozens of people a day checking in on me, and even if I didn't respond back right away, I would get another one the next day checking in on me. And that was very, very impactful for me. It meant to me that people were thinking about me, that they were wishing me well. I took a lot of the energy and I I accepted the responsibility of finally resting enough to get better because a lot of people were really concerned across the whole world.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
And and that was very, very impactful and very special. So it only takes, what, 10 seconds to send a text to somebody, but it can really make a big difference. Yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
Is there anything else that you would like to add that you didn't get a chance to say in the course of the interview?
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
I think that, ironically, I'm really, really, really happy that it was me that got COVID in my social and professional network because I. I wouldn't have wanted anyone who didn't have the kind of agency that I have to have faced the shame and stigma of being that first person, and for me, not only has it been an opportunity for leadership, but.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
An incredible opportunity for her personal growth for me, and I'm I'm just very, very thankful and well
- Liesel Mertes
And I I hear that something that touches on a note that we discussed earlier in the podcast, especially as COVID, is disproportionately affecting, you know, black and brown communities. And, you know, as as so many people from those communities are frontline workers and, you know, are disproportionately at risk that, you know, things that are already unfortunately and baked into so many interactions of like shame or blame or judgment or feeling like there's a power dynamic, that things that were inadvertently doing just unthinkingly as we respond to people with COVID could really reinforce some pretty toxic interaction cycles of people who have who tend to have less agency within the dynamics, whether that's interpersonally or at work.
- Liesel Mertes
So, yeah, I hear I hear that aspect of what you're saying.
- Arwen Widmer-Bobyk
Yeah, it's very that's very important to to think before we talk. Always
- Liesel Mertes
They tried that in kindergarten and it remains an important lesson decades later.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
Here are three key take-aways from my conversation with Arwen…
- Leaders, consider the unintended consequences of your policy about confidentiality in COVID cases.There can be many good and important reasons to protect privacy, but what are you inadvertently communicating with the shroud of secrecy? What are ways that you as a leader can be proactive in dismantling stigma around COVID? For Arwen, this was sharing the news of her own diagnosis. What steps will you take?
- Go gently with people who have gotten sick.Remember that you always know only a portion of someone’s story. Arwen was coping with concerns about having to leave the country, worries about her daughter’s health conditions, and a number of large projects that needed her attention…all of this on top of her COVID diagnosis. The moms who sent frantic, shaming emails had no idea of this cascade of pressures.
- When you hear that someone has gotten COVID, do not let your first response be “Where did you get it?”Most of the time, people do not know. But on a deeper level, this shows a self-interested posture that fails to truly pay attention to the person who is sick. Instead, try something like, “I am so sorry. Can I send you a DoorDash or GrubHub gift certificate?
OUTRO