Chiropractor Virginia Croke should be living in London, working her dream first job. Instead, she’s been quarantined in a Melbourne hotel, after COVID-19 intervened and forced a rethink of her future.

I graduated at the end of last year but secured this chiropractic job in England while still on my final placement. I just had to sit an exam there in late March to get registered. My boyfriend and I arrived in London on March 10, when COVID-19 was background noise but not being taken too seriously.

Ryan developed classic coronavirus symptoms a week later – fever, headache, fatigue – and I soon became ill, too. It was mild, lasting about five days, and we didn’t get tested but self-isolated. Just as we were ready to venture back outside, London went into lockdown.

My registration exam was initially pushed back to June, which we could manage financially, and we thought Australia would follow a similar COVID path to the UK, so it wasn’t worth returning home. But by late April we were considering leaving and my exam got deferred until September, which was the final straw. I’d also seen a chiropractic job in Victoria advertised that sounded like a great fit for me. I start there in a few weeks.

We flew into Melbourne on May 7 and stepped off the plane to see police everywhere, get handed a mask and paperwork about being detained for two weeks, then taken straight to Crown hotel. The bus driver congratulated us for hitting the jackpot with Crown! It’s a nice place, but we’ve been getting restless. We’ve had two “fresh air breaks”, escorted from our room by security guards to a balcony for 10 minutes.

Leaving London was bittersweet and I’m still grieving a little, but I’ve shifted gears and opened myself up to other opportunities. It’s OK to adjust your goals and quarantine has been a chance to contemplate where 2020 will take us now, instead of London.

Virginia Croke
Chiropractor