By: Revanche

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (132)

December 12, 2022

Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 3, Day 260: Smol’s third round of fever started last night, coinciding perfectly with my fatigue deepening to the point I didn’t even hear them wake and cry at 4 am. PiC took care of them, but I usually hear and respond to all middle of the night wakings. Getting up felt like a forced swim up through multiple levels of sediment. Heavy and yucky and my ears kept popping.

Working felt the same way today, too. Just a lot of yuck and struggle to get the basics squared away. Pre-holiday hangover?

My arm is still sore from my flu shot which reminds me that yay I finally got my flu shot! It’s been hard to muster any energy or time. No new symptoms from the shot, I just continue to be generally headachy, muscle achy, fatigued and have an on again off again sore throat. Maybe, maybe if I can pull off another night of sleep or ten, I’ll feel better? It doesn’t help that I’m also anticipating with great stress and no joy the upcoming time with family that involves a lot of logistics and problem solving and no help whatsoever.

Year 3, Day 261: Ah yes one of the few days I have meetings scheduled would be following a horrible up constantly with a very sad Smol Acrobat night. It’s not clear what was wrong. They were sad and couldn’t get comfortable, but I didn’t know why. Their fever was down and I had administered Tylenol just for their general discomfort but they just couldn’t deal. They napped at daycare, thankfully, twice even, but were terribly sad at lunch and refused to eat. This was a puzzle and teachers tried to feed them to no avail. According to the doctor, though, this is actually their third virus in the past 2.5 weeks, so we have to take them for another round of COVID and flu tests. Also, it turns out there’s a chance they were exposed to hand foot mouth disease last week, we’re just finding out now. Mega sigh.

For my part, I was 90% zombie today. I’m just so tired. And maybe this contributed to my feeling slightly inadequate. One of my dear friends (#1) was a key player in planning a major inauguration and gala, and she did a magnificent job. I simply cannot imagine wrapping my head around doing anything that immense or that highly visible. Our mutual dear friend (#2, much older than both of us) selected #1 over me to be the executor of her will in this year’s rewrite and #1 is also the designated party planner. #2 doesn’t want a funeral, she wants a big party. Don’t get me wrong, I am not gunning for more jobs, but I admit to a small pang of “well gosh, what am I good for then?” As you know, if I don’t have a use, a job to do, then I don’t know what the point of me is in a friendship.

It’s possible I’ll write the obituary, I wrote her late spouse’s, but that feels like small potatoes. Then again, I’m not sure how I’ll even do that, my heart is in my throat whenever I think about writing it. And yet I feel like I need to prepare raw material now before it’s too late. In any case, I agree with #2s choice of #1 for an executor. It’s practical, her kids are quite a bit older than ours and she’s more intimately familiar with #1’s tastes and preferences because she’s very particular about tastes herself. I’m not that person. I’m a nuts and bolts, behind the scenes person. Pure functionality over form, entirely about getting a job done with zero thought for performance and flair. I’m no good at the latter, I’m uncomfortable with fanfare. I 0% wanted to be the center of attention at my own wedding and only got through that by ignoring people if I wasn’t face to face with them. The choice truly does make sense to me. I just want to be more of service in the event of #2’s passing. If nothing else, to numb the grief, I suppose.

Year 3, Day 262: I really don’t know what’s what with COVID anymore. PiC’s employer has noted higher community transmission rates and moved their company guidance accordingly. But it’s only “masks recommended and limited in person meetings”. Meanwhile everywhere I look, hardly anyone is masked. Half the people at the orthodontist were unmasked, and they actually require masking. One lady had the nerve to tell her kid to REMOVE their mask when they stepped inside. I guess that’s “require” since they didn’t enforce it or chastise it unmasked people.

Smol’s still sick and in a lot of pain. They couldn’t eat all day and PiC and I were racking our brains on how to help them. I’m exhausted from the past two nights of all nighters with them. I had to set aside time to just lay down and rest during the day because it doesn’t look like this will resolve quickly, it’s very probably hand foot mouth disease. They were exposed last week and we only got the notification yesterday about the exposure. Not that we could have done anything about it last week, either.

After I had the brilliant notion of picking up Jamba Juice for them, and it worked! They slurped down a huge amount and were smiling for the first time at a meal in days! They opened their mouth wide saying ah! ah! ah! They suddenly felt good enough to let me take a good look inside and sure enough: herpangina. Sigh. They’re miserable and it’s so sad.

Year 3, Day 263: Not for the first time since I started using them, I’m grateful someone mentioned setting phone alarms for things like appointments. It’s been a huge help for picking up JB from school. I get very deep into my focused work day to day and really need that sharp jerk to pull my brain out of the depths on time.

Especially on days like today, my third day after a sleepless night, and my brain is barely just creaking along, at least I don’t have to also worry that I’ll forget someone somewhere. That’s happened a couple of times, before the alarms, and I know they’re fine but I would just as soon skip that guilt (strongly linked to how I felt when I was constantly left at school), thank you very much.

I thought about cooking with that chicken I defrosted on Monday and haven’t touched. Since I started work at 530, I had some time by the afternoon. But the two and a half brain cells I had left piped up and said maybe don’t wipe yourself out the rest of the way cooking when there are still classes to drive to? Good job, tiny voice.

Year 3, Day 264: Mulling over how, since starting daycare, I’ve gotten a few days a week with chunks of uninterrupted time to work which is REALLY good. But the tradeoff is germs germs germs omg germs. Thankfully so far not COVID, but every other kind of viral fever-inducing thing out there has come home with them. They’re on Virus number 6 in 3 months and this one is absolutely brutal. I thought patting them down 3-5 times a night was bad (and it was). This go-round, they’re absolutely hysterical with discomfort throughout the night, night after night.

Today is an at-home day for Smol, who is still sad and sick, which reminds me just how physically exhausting it is to be ON constantly with an active toddler when I’m super tired, plus have work to do (which I of course cannot even think about while I’m on Smol minding duty). Feels like all the options are bad right now.

Big sighs.

*****

I noticed that my lifelong friend had big smile wrinkles that weren’t there before this year, in pictures she texted me. Then I noticed that I have them. We’re prematurely aging! The long running joke is that this sort of thing doesn’t usually show up on our (Asian) faces for a few more years, and then generally it happens all at once. I guess the pandemic kick-started it.

*****

We donated again to the Child and Family Relief Round 2: Our goal is to provide 500 food packages to families in need in different provinces of Afghanistan. Aseel’s Emergency food Package Emergency Food Package 1 (92 USD per package) feeds a family of 6-8 members for five weeks.

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