Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (222)
September 2, 2024
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 5, Day 138: Starting the week on a low point again. The cumulative effects of the last week, last week, and this weekend were too much. By Sunday mid-morning my body was in shutdown mode. I could feel the fatigue like a sledgehammer hovering over my body. I took a lot more breaks than usual to try and recover enough to take the kids to the part, but it was too late. It was already too late when I woke up, honestly. My body shut down mid-afternoon.
I’m moderately functional today! While not good, I’m MUCH better than yesterday when I was drained to the dregs. I’ve managed to run two loads of laundry and the dishwasher. Update, four loads of laundry and uh, I didn’t realize that the dishes were already clean. š¤¦š»āāļø That and my low score on today’s Duolingo are good indicators that today’s “better” wasn’t back to baseline.
It being our first warm lovely day in a while, the ant colony moved into the kitchen to look for food and water. Took a bit of hunting to find the ant bait we used last time but I dotted the kitchen and crossed my fingers this will take care of them.
This was my first day without massive frustration at work in several months. I’m writing this after I shut down so I couldn’t jinx myself. Here’s hoping it won’t be the only one this week.
Trainer time. It didn’t feel good, just ok, but I was able to break my exercises across the day enough so that I completed all 11 sets without undue fatigue. That’s something!
Year 5, Day 139: If I was going into the negatives on Sunday, which forced the full body shutdown, then I’m hovering at a 2 today. For most of the morning I squeaked by on a trickle of motivation but that just wasn’t going to get me through the day. Finally I remembered I’d been wanting to watch Deadpool, with sound this time, I last watched it in 2017 on a plane without headphones. š¤¦š»āāļø It was very rated-R but it was also what my brain needed to nudge it into gear. Then I remembered the Lego movie existed and that crutch got me the rest of the way through my day.
It wasn’t until the end of the day that I realized I’m likely dragging because yesterday was arm day and maybe I overdid it. This feeling in my shoulders, like mini elephants started nesting in there, finally tipped me off. That ache and fatigue is a direct result of the dozen lateral raises, modified pushups and planks. Better ratchet down the number of reps per set, I can’t keep functioning like a sodden pile of noodles every other day.
We picked a small handful of snap pea tendrils for our salad tonight to encourage them to quit spending energy on tendrils and start making flowers. If it doesn’t work, at least we got to enjoy some part of the plants.
A Happy Thing: we’re still using the nasal spray for the kids when they go to daycare/school. For Smol Acrobat, being too little and uncoordinated to mask on their own, and too young to remember on their own, that’s their only daily protection aside from the vaccine. They were resistant the first month but now they’re a champ at letting me do the spray. These small favors are appreciated.
Year 5, Day 140: Thanks to a recommendation from One Sick Vet, I picked up a set of longer term reuseable over-the-ear masks for everyone from Vogmask (20% off until the end of the month). We have disposables on rotation for the kids, JB has a set of cloth masks that are layered with a filter for school, I use the flomask, and PiC rotates between disposables. Everyone has a flomask but I’m the only one who prefers it over all the other mask options. Occasionally I need something over the ear and less bulky, though, and I want to keep a set of good masks on hand as backups for the family when they forget and leave the house without theirs. We’ll try these out and if we like them well enough, I’ll buy a set for the car.
Unhappily, JB came home with all the gastroenteritis symptoms. I’ve made up their sick bed (they get to camp out on the floor when vomit is involved to try to limit the horrific vomit cleanup that still haunts me to this day. Vomit was specifically written out of my parenting contract when I was pregnant with JB, I’m on wound care!), their sick bag, their assortment of fluids and administered Zofran left over from the last time we were the House of Vomit. Every ounce of me is now focused on hoping that it’s only a touch of the stomach flu and not, say, rotavirus. They don’t have a temperature so it’s promising on that front, at least.
With the two viral infections going on, JB’s and Smol Acrobat’s low fever and congestion, I deemed it the better part of valor not to do my full workout today. It felt like wimping out but not wearing myself down to a shadow is the whole point of working with a trainer.
Year 5, Day 141: JB deliberately stayed burritoed in their sick camp this morning well past the time they should have gotten up. I suspected they were a little better than they were letting on but didn’t press the point since I wanted them to be vomit free for at least a full day before sending them back to school. In some ways it was easier for me to have them home sick (or “sick”) than not: I didn’t have to rush to drop off, or pick up, or run them to self defense. I just had meetings, and attempted to shift a mountain of work, and instructed them to eat bland food at intervals. They did crafts, reading and then finally, in the mid afternoon, asked to watch some TV. Their stomach pain was clearly better by then, but I was too busy to care whether they were doing anything educational or productive.
Things at work are really hectic in a different way as the end of our fiscal year looms. I’ve got strategy sessions and plans to deploy and people to keep motivated and in relatively decent morale. Blech. I personally have zero motivation and all the annoyance. But I remind myself daily that we can get through this and see how it looks on the other side. I did, however, see a really interesting job listing that didn’t make me scoff and close it immediately. Unfortunately it’s across a bridge and they want hybrid work, “remote for the right candidate” and I’m leery of any job where remote is considered a special accommodation. I know how quickly and easily those can be yanked. It pays more than my current job but the difference would mean nothing if I had to commute even one day a week. I’d have to figure out after school care and things would get complicated fast. It’s not worth it. 100% remote only!
Year 5, Day 142: Early signs that my birthday is approaching – I got another invitation to join AARP. It’s got me wondering, are the discounts worth it? The PTA discounts aren’t worth a plugged nickel so I’m skeptical about these.
Our heat snap is apparently over! Smol Acrobat and I pulled out our cozy bathrobes after our showers to enjoy some Lego movie together while PiC and JB went to their Back to School Night. Smol Acrobat had wanted to go but I didn’t like the sound of their congestion and their fatigue was enough for me to think it’d be far wiser to be curled up in blankets early. They were slightly befuddled by the change in routine, we ALWAYS have all four of us home where did half the family go? But they really wanted to watch the Lego movie so that helped ease the confusion.
Me, I’m still paying the physical price for using up all available energy plus reserves two weekends ago. At best, I replenish at a trickle, so this recharging may take weeks for me to feel like the sole inhabitant of my body again and not like I’m smuggling a mountain in each limb.
My sympathies on the vomiting (something I also CANNOT handle). Personally I’m not sure there’s much to choose between stomach viruses! Now that my kids are older they’re thankfully rarer.
Middle Kid, age 10, threw up neatly in the middle of the night, flushed the toilet, and went back to bed. When I told him he could have come and gotten me, he looked me in the eye and said “I threw up and then I felt all better. What were you gonna do, mom?” Peak middle kid right there.
(He is now 13; this was a few years ago.)
It’s lovely getting your flashbacks as they’re a tiny peek into what we might could expect š
No I suppose not! I guess the only real difference for most is how long they might last?
I tip my hat to Middle Kid š that sounds like something I’d have done.
Any KN95 mask is a lot more effective than a cloth mask with filter FYI
I got annoyed enough by AARP’s mail that I called them and told them to stop. I don’t want them claiming they can represent me with their lobbying efforts, plus they market products that I think are dubious.
Sorry to hear about the sickness. We’re currently in the on-the-mend stage of the annual back-to-school illness. Respiratory this year, so we were comparatively lucky. The only big negative is that it’s coming with a side of irritability that I’m having to Exert Patience to deal with at this point.
I did not know this about the products! I clearly haven’t paid them any real mind.
Is the irritability yours or theirs? Or both š
Oh, it starts as theirs. But if the kid-irritation goes on for long enough (it did last night), my patience does eventually run out.
She gets into these irritation loops which she is absolutely disinclined to let go of, and I don’t know how to get her to get out of them once she starts. It sucks, because I will meet-with-calm, meet-with-calm, meet-with-calm, but eventually I get really annoyed. Both because the irritation loop comes out as an ongoing stream of complaining and sniping comments and also because 95% of the time, the irritation loop is also a way to delay doing something that she has to do and doesn’t want to do.
She is generally a really good kid, but this particular cold is really setting her off. I think the majority of her waking at-home hours with me for the last 4 days have consisted of her being very vocally irritated about things. I am so, so ready for her to be back to normal, but her cough doesn’t sound as if it’s at all on the way out yet.
You know what, both JB and Smol Acrobat are like this. JB, I think it’s more of a phase as it comes and goes based on I have no idea what, but, they’ll do that same endless stream of complaints and snippiness. It gets to be a LOT after a few days.
Smol Acrobat, I check if they’re sick when I notice unreasonable levels of crankiness.
FYI reusable mask test data shows the vog masks are not effective after washing
https://x.com/masknerd/status/1445044628948914177
Reddit masks4all subreddit has lots of mask information including a kids masks section in the wiki. Hopefully you can find disposable masks (KN95 or KF94) that fit your kids- for better protection without sacrificing comfort
https://www.reddit.com/r/Masks4All/wiki/index/#wiki_masks_for_kids
Honestly I wasn’t planning to wash them. Just gently clean the inside and air them out.