Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (314)
June 8, 2026
Year 7 of COVID in the Bay Area
Year 7, Day 34: I’ve had an intermittent sore throat for three weeks. Four weeks? I expect that’s the stress expressing itself in immune insufficiency – my body’s so tired and strained under the stresses that it’s trying to fall sick to any virus that comes along.
Kameron Hurley nailed it: “Flooded with cortisol, your body coursing with adrenaline, you’re expected to sit quietly and walk quietly and speak quietly and smile and smile and be a villain. While I certainly have drug assists for these things, a number of stressors hit all at once these last two months, and it’s made it feel like I’m being chased by wolves AND bears while my family is simultanerously on fire and there is… nothing truly physical I can do with all that energy. My body wants to fight it, to outrun it, but the actual way to deal with these challenges is just…writing more fucking emails and moderating my speech during difficult conversations. Afterwards, you just want to run around the street screaming about how ridiculous it all is.”
I’m taking my antivirals every day in hopes it’ll be enough to fend them off. I’m taking my antidepressants every night to help me survive another day. We discussed adding an anti-anxiety med but my doc advised that it should be expected to take some time, on the order of 6 weeks or months, to work right. Given my huge spike in anxiety is caused by the layoff and the whole mess is presumably going to be over in less than 6 months, it seemed like overkill. But maybe it’s not. Maybe the state of the world – horrible as it currently is – has me on edge enough that it might actually be worthwhile to consider starting anxiety meds to help because I’m only ever half a step back from the cliff’s edge these days.
Year 7, Day 35: I’m so irritated by almost everyone these days. People not bothering to show up for meetings that were only held for their personal benefit and then wanting a special catch-up (have neither the time nor the patience for that), or arguing with me about the meaning of the words that I said – I think I’ll be the boss of the actual meaning of my words thank you very much. It was actually more irritating because another person in the exact same conversation understood precisely what I meant.
I’m generally irascible but these things feel like they cut to the bone a bit more than they ought to.
Year 7, Day 36: Filed under the “The worst they can do is say no (and in doing so, deeply irritate me but I’ll be MORE irritable if I don’t ask)” heading, in order of worst to least worst irritation:
A) I’ve got negotiations going about the exact text and severance amount for our separation contracts (that will deeply irritate me when they argue with me because they definitely will);
B) a Vision Plan claim for my glasses for going out of network;
C) and a warranty claim for a 5 year old pencil sharpener that is trying to work but can’t. The last one is really an at least I tried before spending new money on a replacement thing but honestly every penny always counts for one reason or another.
Oh look, it’s basically my current boss! Not the one who told me I don’t have a job anymore, the one who I directly report to but couldn’t be bothered to say a word about that since it happened.
Anyway. If I still reported to him I’d have to be stressed about his utter lack of engagement but now I can just shrug.
Year 7, Day 37: On the one hand: The job and the company have been 100% horrible and I have hated everything about working for them outside of the paycheck, so big picture, leaving is good for my health and my family.
On the other hand: The timing is harder to make peace with. I wanted to make it to next bonus season and invest that; I wanted another year of a 401K. So the timing is not horrible but not good.
I’m neutral on it not being on my own terms. Leaving on my own terms would likely have looked like holding on until I couldn’t anymore and then going to a new job, probably without much time in between to decompress. This way means I continue to be paid for months after I stop working, it buys me time off for decompression.
So I’m not panicked for the short term, we can cover the bills through next year. But the long term – that I have concerns about. We have enough to do the bare minimum for a long time but not to live comfortably long term. This is one variation on my nightmares: My husband’s care costs have reached £65,000 – we’ve had to sell our flat.
We can handle a layoff and even two for a while. But a long term or terminal illness means not only are we out of the sick person’s income but also we likely don’t have the caregiver’s income either. Stack on top of that: possibly we’ll have then lost our healthcare coverage either due to increased costs or lack of access. Then you’re eating up your resources in huge chunks.
For example, PiC’s subsidized employer provided healthcare is about $400 a month. Paying for COBRA for that same healthcare plan, which only lasts 18 months, would cost 6x as much: about $2500. That’s more than our mortgage. Oh and we’d still need to pay for our mortgage and property tax, utilities, eating.
A friend says that my financial planning is trauma-informed and they’re not wrong about that. But it’s also lived experience informed. I remember what happened when my parents sold their business and my mom got sick and suddenly the money was gone with no more coming in. I remember what it was like to suddenly have to carry the weight of the whole family alone. I won’t be alone this time but the numbers going very bad, very quickly? That’s a very familiar scenario.
Year 7, Day 38: Kicking myself. There was 2% cashback on the thank you gifts that I ordered. I’d been dithering over putting in the order for a few days waiting to see if it would go up but it didn’t and I have a pretty strict timeline to make sure these go out on time. Finally clicked that submit button, felt like I’d accomplished something. The next day I find the cashback went up to 10%! ARGH. That’s significant with the order this size ($800). I know I couldn’t have known but I’m still irritated and kicking rocks a little bit.
Therapeutic otters