Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (118)
September 5, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 164: I’m really glad that I’ve been putting some distance between myself and the family member I’d been helping out for years. After doing so much for so long, it started feeling less like family and more like being stuck on a hamster wheel of constant crises. I took some much needed time and some emotional space to decompress from that relationship and that was good.
Naturally, the other shoe dropped. They got in touch to share some news that I was not at all surprised by. I feel it was a terrible decision. But it’s done, it’s not my life, and it’s not my life’s purpose to rescue them (or anyone) from repeating past mistakes.
It’s good that because of the distancing, I didn’t witness the decision unfold in real time. I would have felt some duty to intervene but this way it’s much clearer to my sense of guilt that it’s not my business. Also, I hope I’m wrong that this wasn’t a terrible decision because they all deserve some good to happen.
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Frustrating COVID related chicken and egg situation: How does it make sense that the people I know who are most callous and most ignorant about COVID (of the “I took ivermectin and got better!” sort) are the ones who did get better? How does it make sense that the people I know who have taken all possible precautions (masking, vaccinated, boosted) get sick and can’t recover from Long COVID?
They all took their respective stances at the start of the pandemic, before they got sick, so I don’t think that they only based their assumptions on their own personal experiences. But I do think that their experiences bolstered their opinions / views. I don’t get it. It doesn’t seem fair or right. I don’t want anyone to get sick but if people are, then why is it frequently so much worse for the people who are trying really hard to mitigate harm?
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I had a long talk with JB about their classmates who don’t treat them kindly and I struggled deeply with feeling like a failure for not having done better to impart these self protective instincts to them. But as I discussed with a friend, I learned the hard way very young because my sibling was manipulative and unkind. He was able to act that way because my parents were both working all day, every day, and they didn’t have the ability to parent more hands on when we were worse off than paycheck to paycheck financially.
JB hasn’t had any need to learn this lesson before now, they’re still naive and it’s going to be painful for all of us as they navigate it but it’s not entirely a failure to be laid at my doorstep.
Year 3, Day 165: So, this sucks. We’ve been working with Smol, teaching them to wear a mask, and it’s been going well! We just found out that the daycare won’t allow the under-2 kids to wear masks for “health and safety reasons”. Is COVID not a health and safety reason???
This also sucks: This is Day 8 of my stomach hating all food. I’m HUNGRY. Except when I eat, I get the massive thousands of knives in the belly attack. I hate this.
*****
This tweet thread hit me very close to home. Not because I’m secretly 100 years old. Just that bit about no one is left who knew you from before. There’s no one left from my nuclear family that can remember my childhood. There’s no one to remember the summer nights playing and getting into trouble. There’s no one to remember the favorite holiday dishes, or gambling with the uncles and aunties for pennies and nickels, or our last family Christmas when I was ten. No one knows what my first words were, or what my first day of school was like, or when I lost my first tooth. It’s not like I remember all those things about my own kids either but we have lots and lots of their memories recorded and shared.
There’s no one to share any early memories with me at all.
1/
You walk every single day and tend to your own garden. You do for yourself and keep your mind sharp through crossword puzzles and math problems.Yup.
These are the things that, in your opinion, have helped you to live so long.
One hundred years, to be exact. pic.twitter.com/f7lGaDXvJ8
ā Kimberly D. Manning, MD (@gradydoctor) August 31, 2022
Year 3, Day 166: Ways in which my brain failed me today:
Does anyone wake up knowing what day it is on a regular basis? Am I the only one perpetually confused about reality as consciousness bludgeons me?
I read “Svalbard” and thought “in Norwegia! Wait… That’s not right…”
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Our Weee! delivery arrived and Smol kept running to the office to get the letter opener to open the boxes but forgetting what they were looking for every time they got there. I’d go in and find them standing by my desk, puzzled or distracted.
Ended up just getting it myself.
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We’re due for a massive heat wave through Labor Day but our neighborhood is always cold. Even during past heat waves it rarely went over 80 degrees. The last time we saw 90 was 2017. I’m curious how our weekend will look.
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Did you know you could rock out to Beethoven’s 9th? I didn’t. Smol taught me better.
Speaking of teaching moments: JB was wiggling their tooth so aggressively it was starting to bleed. I warned them to stop messing with it. They mildly sassed me, so I walked away.
PiC warned them to stop messing with it, 20 minutes later. They sassed him with an “it’s my tooth, I can mess with it if I want.”
Ok fine, you want to learn the hard way, go ahead.
20 minutes later they came sobbing and wailing about how much it hurts now “even though I’m not messing with it anymore!”
Welcome to the consequences of your actions, kiddo. We tried.
Year 3, Day 167: What a DAY. We were running from morning to night. School drop off, and then Smol’s first day at daycare, and as we’re trying to get out the door, we get a link to online forms for Smol’s daycare “all forms have to be filled out before your child starts”. Y’all. 28 forms that took me 4 hours to complete in hard copy the first time. And you send that to me at 8 am when I’m getting the kids out the door?????
š¤Æ
I thought I could just fill in updates on the most important forms but it wanted everything filled out in a specific order. My head exploded. Then I put my foot down and refused. They want this info on Sept 1? They can send it to me a month ago.
Dropoff was HARD. Smol’s distress crying ššššš They’ve never been in anyone else’s care, they’ve never been left with anyone they weren’t comfortable with or used to, we’ve never left them alone with anyone else. This was a whole boatload of new and unfamiliar.
We knew that they would be FINE and the pros would take good care of them. But it was hard. We made ourselves walk away quickly to let them get into acclimation and (mentally) held our breaths until the first of two phone call updates confirmed how their day was going. I suspected the teachers were far too chipper in those calls to calm our nerves (and our teacher friend spilled the beans about how the day honestly went so I felt a lot better about knowing the truth).
The real test came at the end of the day when we went to pick them up. They were calm and happy playing with the teacher, and barely could be bothered to come say hi to us! That was the true balm for my soul. It told me that they adapted enough throughout the day. Some kids cry the entire day, but Smol rallied. They did cry a couple times but that’s normal anyway, so all in all, this went well.
We also had JB’s swim lesson and the PTA meeting on Zoom. Thank goodness we still have those by Zoom, we would never attend otherwise.
Related: having a four hour consecutive block of time to work was revelatory. I can’t remember the last time I was able to work that long uninterrupted. Wait, January 2020 was the last time. This I got a fair bit of my work done PLUS helped out junior staff who were falling behind, huzzah me. But wow is there so much other stuff to do.
Having a school age kid and a toddler makes for an extra hustle bustle life.
Year 3, Day 168: Smol had their first eye exam today. They should have had it 12 months ago but it took this long to get myself on the right track to getting them scheduled and all that. It occurs to me that I needed 2-3 years to get my brain back after JB was born too. Ugh.
They weren’t pleased by the exam, there was a bit of crying, but they mostly cooperated. Then we roamed our former produce shop. Prices are WAY up. The basket that would have cost under $20 in the before times cost $34 today. Though, we did get some dried mango and that throws my data points off a little. Mission healthier snacks is underway: we have bell peppers, persian cucumbers, apples, dried mango, and bananas.
AND I managed to plan three dinners on the fly. I wish I’d done more but that’s a start and a start is good.
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To top off the night I ordered red envelopes for this seasons’ gifts to an endless parade of niblings and organized my large gift bin to make space for upcoming holiday gifts. I wanted to get cute red envelopes from Etsy but my search was fruitless so I made the smart choice of not throwing good time after bad.
Still on my list: gifts for a handful of adults.
As you know, I figure now that I am a parent, all of my helping energy goes to my kids (and in healthy ways, to mentoring people in my job). That has to be my priority. But I can’t lie and say not constantly worrying about people who always seem to have drama in their lives isn’t an improvement, because it is. And I kind of think that those people’s lives maybe get better without me in them? At least they seem to have from the outside. So maybe for the better?
If it helps, the people whose deaths I had to write sympathy cards for are all of the anti-vax/ivermectin/not careful types. And I think there’s a lot of under-reporting of long covid, especially among people whose brains aren’t their #1 defining feature. Like, as a teacher, I notice that some people aren’t what they used to be mentally, but they just think the class got harder.
That’s crazy that daycare won’t allow under 2s to mask! Maybe they’re worried about choking? Kids that age often put things in their mouths that shouldn’t be there. :/
If you ever do a jetpens order– they have an envelope template that you could use to make your own adorable red envelopes (in several different sizes) if you have nice paper. It’s super (surprisingly) easy to use once you get the hang of it.
I think removing myself from this particular family member’s day to day life has felt odd BUT good. It’s definitely improved my own day to day mood as I don’t have to take in YET ANOTHER (daily, I swear) THING. And it’s not like I think they deliberately generate it but I do think that they miss a lot of opportunity to avoid or minimize it. However, I am also a control freak who does a LOT in my own life to minimize precursors to drama so I’m ill-equipped to go with the flow with people who aren’t at all like me. I have no idea if they are better off without me being so present. We still have a relationship on multiple levels, even with the distance, but it probably will seem like they’re doing better simply because I’m not hearing about the constant flood of issues. I’ll sacrifice some of that closeness for my sanity.
I bet you’re right that there’s likely a lot more Long COVID than we know about. I don’t know that it makes me feel BETTER knowing that the demographics of the people who died are flipped in your experience but it feels less infuriating? I don’t know. It’s not like I want *anyone* to die from it or be permanently ill / disabled. It just seems so unfair that in the particular cohort I’m thinking of, the folks who were willing to take the risk were totally unscathed as far as any of us can tell, going by their gleeful reports. I think that’s what’s getting my goat – not only were they super glib before getting sick, their experience added to their flippancy and disregard for the people whose experiences were so much worse.
Yeah I assume they’re concerned about choking hazards. :/ I’m still unhappy about it.
jetpens / templates — ooh that’s right! We have experimented with making big envelopes for JB to send bigger things through the mail but I hadn’t considered making them for Christmas red envelopes. Probably because I assume the kids will take the money and pitch the envelope anyway. But for the recipients who might appreciate it, that could be worthwhile fun.
My hypothesis is that people who already HAVE health issues, who tend to get very sick from minor things, who have to regularly rely on medical advice just to stay functional -> were more likely to take Covid seriously but -> due to those health issues still tended to get hit harder when they did eventually catch Covid. People who have robust immune systems, who rarely deal with health complications, who have few health conditions or syndromes -> tended to mock Covid precautions -> but frustratingly enough their rock solid health meant they bounced back from Covid just fine. So unfair.
I think you’re exactly right. :/