Louise Troh and the three other people in her household have spent much of their time in isolation on laptops and mobile phones, playing video games, tossing a football, speaking to relatives and reading the Bible.
The activities have been welcome diversions for Troh, her son and two young men she considers family -- "the boys," as she refers to her housemates. She’s the girlfriend of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to die in the U.S. from Ebola.
In statement on Sunday, a day before her 21-day quarantine ended, Troh said she and her family have not "shown any sign of illness."
When they are released from their state-ordered quarantine Monday, they face an uncertain future in Dallas, owing to continued fears about their closeness to the deadly virus. A new-apartment deal busted up after Troh had already made a deposit, and Dallas’s top county official and Troh’s pastor say people are reluctant to rent to someone who was so close to Ebola.
"We have lost so much, but we have our lives," Troh said in the statement issued through her church.
Securing a home, maintaining a job and re-entering society will be challenges. Details of the Troh household’s quarantine and transition preparations were described to Bloomberg by the county official and the pastor, who visit them frequently.
Hot Zone
"It’s a pretty dramatic time, considering someone has died and they can’t really see their family," Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, who has been helping lead the city’s Ebola response effort, said in a telephone interview.
Since Duncan’s death, two nurses that treated him have tested positive for Ebola, and the trepidation about the contagion within the Dallas community and beyond has persisted.
In addition to Duncan and the nurses, 166 people in Texas have been in contact or possible contact with Ebola, 149 of them still under surveillance or self-monitoring, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today. Jenkins said this weekend was a "critical" one for some of those who had direct contact with Duncan, because they were in the period when they were most likely to develop symptoms of the disease.
"We are right in the middle of a hot zone," Jenkins said.
That Troh, who perhaps had the closest contact with Duncan before he was hospitalized, has not gotten sick is a good sign for many of the others who continue to be monitored, Ashish Jha, professor of health policy at Harvard’s School of Public Health in Boston, said in a telephone interview.
Apartment Deposit
If she and those staying with her emerge from quarantine symptom-free, there’s more reason to hope for a positive outcome for the circle nearest Duncan before his death.
"It is a really good reminder of how it is that Ebola spreads and really what the risks are," Jha said. "When someone is really, really sick and in the ICU," or intensive- care unit, "they are extremely infectious. When someone is at home, even with a low-grade fever, they are not as much at risk."
Troh had put a deposit down on a new apartment prior to Duncan’s Ebola diagnosis at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, according to Jenkins. She hoped to move there after the end of her quarantine, ordered because of her contact with Duncan.
That plan has been nixed, and officials who have been helping her have had difficulty getting a commitment about where Troh and the three others will be able to move. The owner of their current home has agreed to let them stay there for a while longer, according to Mark Wingfield, associate pastor at Wilshire Baptist Church, where Troh was baptized in June.
Zero Risk
"It is something that Louise and her pastor, George Mason, and the mayor and I are still working on," Jenkins said Friday. "There is a lot of concern and fear out there in the rental property community. We are working through that so people can understand that at 21 days after an Ebola contact with a sick person, there is zero risk of having Ebola. There’s no reason to not welcome a person."
Jenkins, who has been working out of the Dallas hospital some days virtually around the clock eating three squares of "delicious cold hospital food," said one thing he knows for sure is Troh won’t be moving back to the Ivy Apartments, where she was staying with Duncan when he fell ill.
Mason, pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church, said in a series of e-mails responding to questions that the situation was "getting complicated near the end" as he, Jenkins and others aiding Troh encountered "transition issues."
Blood Transfusion
"They are physically well, but we are working feverishly, no pun intended, on their transition," Mason said. "It has been difficult to find a place willing to rent to her. We are still searching, and we are making plans for an interim location yet to be determined."
Beyond her housing dilemma, Troh also has had difficulty dealing with the intense global media attention the Dallas Ebola scare has generated. Mason said Troh is trying to figure out how she will communicate her feelings.
"She wants the story told in a book, and we are working on nailing that down now," Mason said.
Troh was filled with sadness and anger when she learned Duncan, who traveled from Liberia to Dallas to marry her, died. Josephus Weeks, who describes himself as Duncan’s nephew, said the family begged the hospital to do more, and asked the medical staff to give him a blood transfusion from a recovered Ebola patient. Weeks told Bloomberg the hospital said it was too late. After his death, the hospital said no donor with a compatible blood type could be located.
Softened Tone
Troh initially called for an investigation of the hospital, and a state health agency said it was considering a probe. Since then, her tone softened.
In a statement Oct. 16, released by her church, Troh said she received a call from an executive at the hospital who apologized to her for Duncan’s death and expressed regret the medical staff could not save his life.
"Because of my faith in God and because of my belief in what the Bible teaches, it is my position that God is the judge of others and their actions, and vengeance is not mine to demand," Troh said. "God is the judge, and God will take care of me."
That faith has helped Troh and the three people with her endure the lengthy quarantine, Mason said.
Greens, Rice
Jenkins said they each have their own Bibles, which they have used frequently to pray, including when they learned Duncan had died. They have also been reading on their laptops, using a PlayStation video console to play the Special Ops action game that a first responder gave them, and tossing a football and basketball at the home donated by another church member where they have been staying, Jenkins said. Troh has been listening to gospel music.
They have been roaming the four-bedroom ranch-style home’s big yard, though they have not been allowed away from the property, which is in a camp-like setting and has a security gate, according to Mason. Their temperatures have been checked twice daily by public health officials who visit the home and keep a log of the readings, Wingfield said in a telephone interview.
They have received regular food deliveries from members of the local community. Requests have included some of the African fare they enjoy -- lots of greens, rice, pork and chicken.
Mason described the house as spartan but comfortable, "not in a luxury neighborhood," with a worn carpet, old shades, and bed linen on one window serving as drapes.
Troh and the others in the quarantined household are expected to travel together to their new home, Jenkins said. One of the trio living with Troh is her middle-school aged son, and the others she considers as close as nephews or cousins based on cultural ties, but may not be blood relatives, Wingfield said. One is 19, and the the other is in his early 20s, according to Wingfield.
"I think it will be a good day for Louise to finally get out and be in the community again," Jenkins said.
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