By: Revanche

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (279)

October 6, 2025

Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area

Year 6, Day 161: I was looking forward to this day all month. A specific form of stress was scheduled for this month and if I was lucky it was going to be over today. I was determined to be Zen Zen Zen. I probably 70% succeeded? But then layered on top of that, I had one key person on my team out for the first two weeks of the month. When they returned, a second key person on my team was out for a week. All unexpected and unavoidable and exhausting as I covered for all of them. Then I got the news that my friend is in her final days, and then the news that a relative is undergoing a scary surgery soon. Naturally, after making it through the very hard goodbye visit this weekend, walking away from our friend knowing we won’t see her again, SmolAc fell to the latest terrible viral incursion. Their throat was a misery all weekend, complete with fevers and a (thankfully mild) cough. They got no sleep, so I got no sleep. All of which to say: this month has been an absolute ball (draining, long and late nights, a whole lot of fuss, a whole lot of muss). This day that I was looking forward to was a haze of the shakes and flu like symptoms (which happen when I am so exhausted I’m about to slide into PEM). It’s lovely trying to work out whether I feel sick because I’m sick or because I’m so damn tired my body thinks it’s sick. I AM glad that the original form of stress has ended at least. And a few of the other stressors we will be recovering from if I can make it back to near baseline this week. Just. Dang. What a way to open the week. It felt like a week in a day.

Year 6, Day 162: Past me, all the kudos. The kids have turned on the grape acetaminophen flavor and SmolAc’s visible distress every dosing time for that instead of the ibuprofen pushed me over the edge. I planned to run out and buy them name brand Tylenol for the cherry flavor and for them to try the apple flavor. Anything but the now-hated grape. Except when I went on the hunt for some small round bandaids (I still can’t find them), I discovered past me had already anticipated this and loaded up on cherry flavor Tylenol. THANKS, ME.

Also why must my children be opposites in all the most unhelpful ways? JB only ever sustained giant lacerations, 2 inches and bigger. I have loads of giant bandaids and gauze and medical tape. SmolAc? TINIEST injuries requiring the smallest of bandaids. Which I never have because why would we bandage that? Oh, right, because they’ll forget and scratch, rip it open again and come crying to me with the most tragic of faces. I made do with a tiny square of gauze and a square of medical tape. Never let it said I could be defeated in first aid by tiny wounds and scratches.

Year 6, Day 163: My therapist warned me that I’m so burned out that I’m about to break, so I had to set a boundary for someone directly asking me for help that I can’t give. I’m not knowledgeable in that area they need help in and their case is complex. Even knowing that and even recognizing the burnout I didn’t quite recognize how bad it was, and I still felt guilty for not being able to help.

And oh, right, that’s my depression expressed as rage, missed that wee detail. I mean, I’m only sick of everyone and everything all the time, that’s not normal? No, not really. Normal is being light to medium exasperated by everyone and everything. Not so fed up with them that I want to bite off everyone’s heads for existing at me.

I had a really dark suicidal-type thought this morning quickly followed by, well THAT was dark. And then awwww MAN. Therapist was right. I am so tired and burnt out that the “logical” reply to a self-care comment was a suicidal type thought.

Late tonight I realized there was another contributing factor: missing my nightly handful of meds, which include my antidepressant, last night. Welp. Can’t live well without those. Quite literally. Other signs of burnout: I entirely overlooked a payday happened. I haven’t missed checking and recording a payday more than twice in the past 20 years. I love paydays for the money and the endorphins. To be so overwhelmed I miss a major source of endorphins, not great. But I had my meds, I vented with a friend, SmolAc is slowly recovering.

Year 6, Day 164: We’re a month away from being done with Project from Hell #1 (and starting Project from Hell #2 and #3), so that’s kind of a good thing. We are still in the thick of it now but there will be an end in sight.

Total subject change: Five and ten years ago, I was served Apple & Eve Orange tangerine juice after the kids were born and I’ve been wishing to get my mitts on it ever since.

Costco online seemed to have the brand in a large assorted flavors case, but said it wasn’t available at our local stores or online for shipping, so I couldn’t see which flavors it held. That sent me down the rabbitiest of rabbitholes. I gave up after 40 minutes of trying every possible combination of zip codes and locations and settled for buying a variety available at the local store: fruit punch, strawberry watermelon and mixed berry.

Year 6, Day 165: Here’s me ruing the speaking too soon. The Project from Hell #1 is really doing a number on me today. By that I mean the incompetent fools who were responsible for key parts of this did a terrible job of setting it up and the most basic parts of it still don’t work. I’ve got something like 50 hours of work needed for it and 2-4 hours to do it in since I also don’t get to weasel out of all my other responsibilities.

A deep sigh.

And today’s fraught for deeply heavy reasons. My friend @isobelcarr has passed. 💔 It’s hard to grasp that I won’t share dog pictures or stories or political rants with her anymore. It all happened so fast. I exchanged messages with her just two months ago asking whether I could bring her anything for her then-current round of treatment. She’d been fighting cancer so hard for so long and I hoped this latest was just a blip. That we’d have her another 50 years. But we lost her this week and so many who loved her are bereft.