I honestly sometimes don’t understand humanity – there are people living in tents in frigid weather and freezing to death in the streets and our decision makers, a number of whom claim to be Christians, could use their power to try to do…anything…but then they don’t.
Uhm, Merry Christmas everybody?
And then Jesus said unto his disciples: reduce the mil rate by fractions of percents while the sick and destitute watch on in horror. Bolt the tables down to prevent flipping in the temple. And give cops whatever they ask for. pic.twitter.com/koPo3nHIgy
Tea, pop (didn’t have ginger ale so using closest thing I had) and iced coffee. (Not pictured, a giant bottle full of ice water which has been my best friend the past few days!)
My Top Five Least Favourite Covid Symptoms (these change from day to day)
1. My ears constantly feel plugged like I’m in a plane taking off that never levels off
2. Intense dry mouth (especially at night)
3. Fever/sweating
4. Hacking cough (no blood but feels like there should be with the amount of coughing I’ve been doing!)
5. I was going to put diarrhea but that’s gross so I’ll say restless sleep/insomnia instead. 😉
The good old days when I could mock Covid by making a giant “C” out of our family’s negative tests back in January of this year…
…and even earlier in March 2021 which is when Shea was first able to get Covid rapid tests through her work to be used for herself and her family and remembering how excited we were to have a way to know if we had Covid without having to go get a stick jabbed into our brain at some drive-thru testing site at the Exhibition Grounds. (When were they available to the general public? Fall 2021? I can’t remember. Covid must’ve ruined my brain already!)
Shea was deadly ill (said it was sickest she ever felt) a couple weeks ago but never tested positive for Covid. So, when I got sick, I thought I had this…
But tested today and it turns out that both Shea and I have this…
Anger
This is a big one, mostly at society having basically said “Oh, we’re all just going to get it anyhow so we won’t do much to prevent spread” without consideration for the potential short-term impacts on elderly and medically at-risk people, not to mention potential long-term impacts on everyone who gets it. (Someone on Twitter made a good point – definitely don’t listen to politicians about Covid and even take things scientists/doctors say with a grain of salt since this is an ongoing, always evolving situation. But if you really want to know the risks of Covid, pay attention to the insurance industry who are watching life insurance and long-term disability claims skyrocket!)
Sadness
Again, it felt inevitable to catch it at some point. But still a huge feeling a sadness to finally get it after having gone so long without contracting it. Then to end up getting it, especially a week before Christmas? Merry Christmas to us!
Regret
A few thoughts of “Where did I get it? Could I have done anything different to avoid it? I should’ve been more diligent in masking *all the time*, not just in big crowds or at work or whatever.”
Disappointment
Shea and I were very close to being eligible for our next booster (I think Shea was literally ten days away and even got turned down at the hospital when they were going around offering booster shots. I’m also eligible sometime in late December.)
Anxious
Once you have it, of course you can’t go back. But now, I’ll probably worry a lot more about possible long-term issues that Covid might cause for my health as well as Shea and Pace’s (Sasha has been sick this week with me but didn’t test positive…yet and neither did Pace.)
Resignation
Pace had it back in October and we feel like we dodged a bullet when no one else in the family caught it then but it’s felt like an inevitability, perhaps since mask mandates were dropped/daily Covid reporting in Sask was dropped/as the fall of everybody being sick ramped up.
Annoyed
I think anytime I get sick, I’m a bit annoyed – that I can’t go to work or shopping or I might miss things I had planned or whatever. This is particularly acute a week before Christmas – we had most of our shopping done and even had presents ready but I always enjoy the days leading up to Christmas to go into stores and go out for a special Christmas lunch with Shea and stuff like that.
Embarrassed
I don’t think I made a huge deal of it but I did mention it once or three times on this blog that I was proud being part of the ever-shrinking club of people who had never tested positive for Covid. I mean, I literally recorded an exchange in a post earlier this week where I joked about being “one of the seven people in Regina who has not had Covid yet”. I’ve also posted a lot about Covid and much of it very fear-mongery but, in all honesty, I think that was/is my way of saying “If everyone else is going to say everything is perfectly normal in the middle of a pandemic where millions have died or are suffering potentially long-term health implications, I’m going to go the opposite direction.” As always, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. And I don’t believe in karma and will *continue* posting threads about Covid that catch my eye as I do think this is an ongoing serious crisis that many people are pretending doesn’t exist or is over and my catching Covid isn’t going to change that!
Relief
This is a weird emotion but one person I know who was very cautious still got it but said it was almost a relief to get it over with. Another person described finally getting Covid as “ripping the bandaid off”. I don’t know if having it will make me less, more or about the same level of cautiousness (for me, I was probably on the more cautious side but not completely wrapped in bubble wrap either – I wore an N95 at work most of the time but not always; in large crowds most of the time but not always, obviously not when I went to restaurants but also didn’t eat out nearly as much as we used to, mostly when I went into stores but not when I was outside, etc.) Also relieved that I don’t seem to have lost my sense of smell or taste as that’d just be weird!
I definitely know I’m sick but I’ve also been sicker (I remember having a flu at Shea’s parents once and having to crawl to the bathroom as I couldn’t stand up!) so I think I’m obligated to say it’s “pretty mild” (since everybody who has Covid that doesn’t end up in ICU tends to say that – though I do know a couple people who said “Covid beat me up pretty bad” too.)
I guess it’s a lot of rest, a lot of liquids and we’ll see how I’m doing in a few days…
[Caveat: I post tweets that catch my eye but am not asserting that the claims they make are factual or not. You should probably be skeptical of everything you read on the Internet, check who it is posting (a named doctor or an anonymous account), etc.]
Pointing out a contraction of anti-mask “logic”…
This year y’all are saying masks caused immunity debt & last year you said mask didn’t work to protect against diseases…PICK A SIDE.
Let me tell you what likely happened, the COVID you allowed to run rampant by refusing masks impaired people’s immune system. Children included.
Fast-mutating variants of the Omicron COVID-19 strain have made rapid tests for the virus much less accurate and liable to provide an inaccurate diagnosis in four out of 10 cases.
Doctors say the development is a major health dilemma.
Neuroimaging study reveals significant brain changes in areas associated with language comprehension, cognition, and circadian rhythm control six months after COVID-19 infection.
Catching the virus elevates your risk of memory problems by 77%. It elevates your risk of stroke by 55%. It elevates your risk of seizures by 80%. That’s because Covid attacks the lining of your blood vessels, and it attacks your brain cells. https://t.co/KW80r9gkMN
I'm old enough and uninfected enough to remember when we were told that Omicron (and the BA.2 mentioned here is omicron) was mild. Apoptosis? That's programmed cell death. https://t.co/AWX25uhGFepic.twitter.com/yta6f9ndoY
I’m home with a sick kid today (plus had ice cream for breakfast as I have a sore throat myself!) so a rough couple of months in terms of family health continues…
Ironically, we only dealt with Covid once (Pace for a week in early October) and, knock on wood, no one else in the family tested positive then or since (though I’m constantly debating whether we’ve had it and just not tested positive or if it just missed us? But based on a week of testing three people with no positives plus all the other bugs going around, a public health nurse at a clinic I helped organize at the library said she was certain the rest of us *didn’t* have Covid. With that said, I will continue saying “I haven’t tested positive for Covid” as who really knows???)
(Oh, and had a funny exchange on that subject recently – a speaker at an event I organized came in and saw me wearing an N95. “Do I have to wear a mask?” “No, your choice” I replied “But I just happen to be one of the seven people left in Regina who’s never tested positive for Covid so still trying to mask as much as I can!”)
Anyhow, back to the family health tribulations…
Sasha’s been sick off and on for a couple months with a couple different issues and visits to a few different docs, I was sick for a couple weeks, Shea was as sick as she’s probably ever been a week ago (which is what I worry my sore throat is turning into), I recently had a minor operation that kept me at home and off my feet for a couple days, my mom was in hospital for a week so I took time off to support her and dad. Really insane in a way how this has all come at once and pretty much the definition of the “sandwich generation“…except in our case, the meat in the middle is pretty sickly these days too!
My work’s payroll system allows you to see how much sick time you’ve taken so I looked back:
2022 (so far – year’s not over – and the vast majority in the past couple months)
Personal Sick – 20 incidences (meaning that may be full or partial days if I left early or Sasha’s school called that she was sick and I went to pick her up or whatever)
Family Sick – 8
2021
Personal Sick – 2
Family Sick – 1
2020 (To be fair, everyone was at home for a big part of this year. But still…)
Personal Sick – 4
Family Sick – 0
2019
Personal Sick – 0
Family Sick – 4
2018
Personal Sick – 23 (this is the year I broke my wrist and had surgery on it. Otherwise, likely would’ve been zero as I had no other sick days other than time off after breaking my wrist and having surgery on it.)
Family Sick – 3
2017 Personal Sick – 2
Family Sick – 2
2016 Personal Sick – 11 (had elbow infection followed by serious reaction to an antibiotic followed by a “lancing” that was just as fun as it sounds!)
Family Sick – 1
2015 Personal Sick – 3
Family Sick – 0
2014 (Shea home on maternity leave)
Personal Sick – 2
Family Sick – 1
So anyhow, this post is probably as much to reassure myself that I don’t overuse or abuse sick time (generally pretty healthy, often schedule appointments for days off if possible, etc.) But the guilt about having been off so much in the past couple months does weigh on a person – even when it shouldn’t.
We have sick time for a reason, I’m fortunate to have been working for long enough that I have decent banks of time accumulated (I always feel sorry for new employees who don’t have much sick time or people in places where they don’t earn a lot) and of course, there’a always the risk of people coming to work when sick (and I should know better – my boss sent me home *twice* in one week when I stupidly kept trying to “tough it out”) then spreading it to others – something that’s especially relevant as Covid and RSV and the flu are *ripping* through workplaces these days.
Not to mention the fact that being a parent multiplies your odds of getting sick too – your kids are in classrooms that are *germ factories* so they often bring things home. (We were lucky when Pace had Covid that he could pretty much isolate by himself for a week – I know parents who have gotten Covid from their younger children simply because they couldn’t fully isolate their kids.)
[Edit: Two other thoughts about sick time – I’ve increasing had people talking about their mental health and I’ve even argued with some managers who feel like they can define what is “appropriate” mental health time and what isn’t. You sometimes get the sense that some think that a person working on their mental health has to stay in a dark room with the lights off, moaning under the covers. But I know for a fact that someone who was on a stress leave was told specifically by their doctor *not* to do that – and to get outside and spend time in the sun and doing things they enjoyed. In some ways, mental health is the ultimate “hidden” illness as its not usually visible to those around you but its impacts can be crippling if not fatal.
My other thought is how sick time can be divided if you’re a parent. I know one couple where one partner works on the frontlines of the library so a bit harder for them to take sick time since they know that impacts coworkers if they’re not available to work on the desk or whatever. Their partner has a desk job in an office so tends to take the majority of the sick time with their kids. Shea and I are the opposite – she’s very short-staffed in her work and if she misses work, there is an actual possibility that her clients could end up in hospital or worse. The work I do is important but I often joke that the biggest risk if I’m not there is someone gets their John Grisham hold late!
