Tag: Covid 19

Covid 19

And then I got it…twice.

meanderingthroughmidlife

I made it through the pandemic without getting Covid. I had all the boosters available to me, including one last September. I carried hand sanitizer and wipes. I avoided crowds.

But last October, I had Depeche Mode tickets. DM has provided the soundtrack of my life. I’ve seen them before, three times, albeit twenty-something years ago. But learning about Andy Fletcher’s death made me beg my hubby for tickets. I didn’t care how much they were, because let’s be honest. Memento Mori may very well be their last tour. And tonight is the finale in Cologne, Germany. Gee, I’d give anything to be there. But I digress.

My friend and I hopped on the train to NYC on that exceedingly warm October night. For three hours I stood, sang, and danced with thousands of other fifty-somethings like me. MSG was filled with voices singing each lyric while music pulsed beneath our feet and through our bodies. I hadn’t felt so alive in so long that I didn’t want it to end. The energy was palpable, and I was twenty-three again.

Until three days later when I was suddenly achy. I was a bit nauseous. My throat was sore. So I took one test, then two. The two pink lines showed up before the required fifteen-minute wait time.

I was terrified and ran to Urgent Care. Their rapid test came back negative. I called my GP to let her know about the home tests and ask for Paxlovid. And then came the rapid-fire decisions one makes when having Covid. Where to isolate. Notify work. Let my friends and co-workers I had been in contact with know I could have passed it on. Figure out who would take care of the dog, the cats, our teenager, my hubby. Write work plans. Order groceries and all the other things one does when one feels they are the household CEO. I had to return to Urgent Care for a PCR test for work. That came back positive…

As the CDC suggested, I shut the door on the world for five days. At first, I was restless. Then I was tired. Next, I binged some Netflix series, read a bit, colored in my mandala coloring book, and doom scrolled through the hours. By about day three, I was content. My world had stopped and I could take a breath. I almost didn’t want to come out. Day four was cleaning day. On day five I emerged from my cocoon, happy to be with my family again. Day seven, I tested negative. No more Paxlovid iron taste in the back of my mouth, just the plastic air from the K95 mask.

No one else in my house got Covid.

I figured I had won.

Until our son got it for Christmas. And my hubby got it on Valentine’s Day. And despite spending five days on the living room couch, I got it a second time.

The insurance company denied my request for Paxlovid, despite this time I was wheezing so bad that I could hardly talk. It took two days, some threats, and two hours on the phone to get the script. A work friend suggested I come in masked since I was fever free. I thought they were joking and stayed home, blowing through most of my sick time.

No one seemed to care that I could be contagious.

Who gets Covid twice in four months? I did.

Work is a cesspool of germs. And the protocols once offered don’t exist anymore. There isn’t any hand sanitizer or wipes available in the classrooms. And so many kids come to school sick. Worse, some people admit that they don’t bother testing their kiddos anymore, I mean the pandemic “ended” years ago, right?

Then three weeks after having Covid, my husband had a cardiac event. We spent some time in an emergency room. Did you know that Covid can affect your heart muscle?

But Covid’s over, right?

My favorite track on Memento Mori is “People are Good.” “Keep telling myself that people are good. Whisper it under my breath. So I don’t forget.”

I hope we do a better job of caring for one another. Less “me”, and more “we”.

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Death During Covid

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Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com

It’s funny how when Death comes knocking, time slides to a sludge. Despite the bright blue sky and the warm summer wind, there is a chill at your back, and something has grabbed you by your ankles, slowing you down.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled onto the fact that two older friends, with whom I had lost touch, had passed. One in December, the other in April, and I didn’t know until that Tuesday in July while I was looking for webinars to help me in September.

And that was just the beginning.

My mother-in law passed a week ago. For two weeks, our family has been wading through emotional sludge as we have taken steps to say goodbye. Covid took a back seat to a surreal season of grief.

All the while, famous folk passed away as well from John Lewis to Regis Philbin, Olivia De Havilland, Grant Imahara, Kelly Preston, and the list goes on.

But for us, Death had a more personal impact. It required that we travel out of state and stay in a hotel. We attended a wake, a church service, and ate a meal in a restaurant, all things that we have not done during the pandemic. Even though, I brought my own Clorox wipes, and four masks a piece for each of us for two days, and enough hand santizer to bathe in, Covid fears slid under my grief and greased my nerves with anxiety.

I watched the people around me and found myself backing into corners and offering elbows. I told our son, “Don’t hug anyone.” Our Covid precautions highlighted our otherness. A few understood. A few scoffed. I wanted to scold my husband for hugging family members, but how could I?

NJ is a great place to be these days when it comes to Covid 19. Each of the activities we had for the family member’s funeral would not happen the same way in NJ. The state we were in is not on NJ’s must quarantine list, but their rate of infection is higher.

We have decided to stay home this week and self-isolate. It is the responsible thing to do, because honestly, we did not adequately socially distant ourselves. We didn’t even know many of the people we were exposed to, so how would we know if they were Covid safe?

Never before has it been so clear to me that we need a National plan to deal with this pandemic. Local and state plans just aren’t good enough for the whole country. Not when we can travel readily from state to state. Not when some of our fellow citizens continue to believe that the pandemic is fake, or they don’t care about the others who live in their town.

We are all in this together. “United we stand. Divided we fall.”

Namaste

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Day 72: Is it over yet? Or…should we or shouldn’t we?

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Video shows crowded pool party in Missouri

How was your Memorial Day?

Here in NJ, the beaches were open, and Governor Murphy made a last minute decree that groups of twenty-five could gather outside, if the individuals practiced social distancing. And of course, masks are strongly encouraged.

To give some context, we have nine million residents in NJ. There have been a little over 11, 330 deaths. 156, 628 people in the state have had Covid 19. But the number of deaths is dropping, as well as the number of hospitalizations.

You can feel a change. There are more people on the roads. My local grocery store is less crowded, but the Home Depot is more crowded. I have glimpsed gatherings on all sides of us. And we have had our own outdoors social distancing gathering too.

That might shock some.

But the truth is our mental health needed it. And for those few hours, life felt almost “normal”, the way it used to.

This is especially true for my son. Just the other night we spoke about his Covid anxieties, which are largely driven by wearing a mask, and glimpses of news coverage on the television. His eyes had grown dark bags, and his complexion was pale. Too many hours indoors, and too much screen time, for which I kinda blame myself, except…it is the only social interaction he gets. His Tweenish self was often grumpy or downright distraught.

This weekend, that changed. He had a bike ride with a friend. Six feet apart. Another friend came over to swim in our “ghetto pool”, an inflated monstrosity that just allows you to get wet, but you can float in it. He went to another friend’s house to play outside and ride bikes.

And I know that there are those who are thinking “WTF. Are you crazy?” Maybe. But gone are the black bags under his eyes. He slept better over the weekend than he has in months. He is smiling again.

And I did too.

Parenting in the time of Covid may be the hardest. How do you know what is best? Yes, you can keep your munchkin locked up for the next God knows how long, or you can loosen the rules a bit and practice social distancing. With summer camps being canceled, and kids having nothing to do, each of us has to make some tough decisions.

Forget summer. I’ve been thinking a lot about September and what that will look like. One thing is for sure, with our overcrowded schools everyone can’t attend at the same time and practice the social distancing rules. We are going to need more than one mental health expert in our schools. Academics needs to take a back seat. Kids don’t learn when they are stressed. And Covid 19 has stressed many of them to the point of breaking.

In the meantime, I write on our calendar the names of the kids our son has been in contact with. We only allow one kid to come over at a time, and right now, it looks like we might have four possibilities throughout the summer. I cleaned the bathroom after the one child came in and used it. I Clorox wiped the kitchen too…just in case. And I Lysoled the outside furniture enough to scare off the bugs.

My kid has been to Petco once since the pandemic began. Today I took him for ice cream. And that made him twitch.

There were only a handful of new cases in our county today. And as long as this seems to be the trend, we will continue to provide opportunities for him to hang out responsibly with his friends. This necessitates delicate conversations to establish the other families’ comfort. A few have said okay. Some have said “let’s wait”. It’s only May. I hope we will see most of them before the summer ends.

But if things should get bad again. We will lock our doors and pull up the drawbridge to our mote…just kidding. But we will retreat to our rooms and devices and wait, hugging each other until happier days arrive.

Namaste

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Day 36: A Pandemic of Irony

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*This post is strictly my opinion.  Read it as such.

In NJ, Covid 19 began for me with a Monday night when I drove around to eight different stores looking for hand sanitizer.  I couldn’t get any.

And I had bought some five days earlier.

A few days after that, I stopped by a Shop Rite to pick up pasta sauce.  The crowds were frantically pulling staples off the shelf, and I, getting caught up in their energy, grabbed two large cases of toilet paper and paper towel, not because I needed it, but because I was afraid.

A week later there were rumors of closing schools and on Friday, March 13th, an early dismissal was announced, followed by the announcement that we would be closed indefinitely. It was 10:00 a.m.

Today is April 21st.

The news highlights how essential workers, who are usually working for an hourly wage, and are not making big money such as Wall Street and other corporate executives, are balancing fear of getting sick, and the need to get paid to support themselves and their families.  They are the bus drivers, grocery workers, delivery people, and postal workers who touch our lives daily, if not weekly.

It is a luxury to be able to stay home and work.  I know this. And each time I go out to get food, drop off something at the post office, or get take out, I smile and say “thanks”.

While I appreciate that people need to go back to work, and that our economy is suffering, I can’t help but notice the irony that public parks are closed, yet golf courses will be opened.  You need to have money to play golf.  You don’t need to have money to go to a park.

There is something terribly wrong with large businesses gobbling up the Federal relief money while mom and pop shops can’t get loans.  At least Shake Shack gave back their $10 million.

This pandemic has highlighted the vast gap between the haves and the have nots.  And this divide differs from state to state.

And the effects of the pandemic are not the same either.  NJ and NY are hot spots, with NY being Ground Zero.  And while things are getting better, I’m not sure that things will ever be the same.  NJ had over 300 deaths just today.

It’s hard to see images of people flooding the beaches in Florida and South Carolina.  God, I’d love to go to a beach.

But I’d hate to get sick.

This pandemic is not just making Americans ill, it’s tearing us apart.

 

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Day 32: A Death Close to Home. Six Degrees of Separation

meanderingthroughmidlife

selective focus photography of tombstone
Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com

Each week I have a list of people I think I should check in with.  Some are family.  Some are colleagues.  Many are friends.

Today I was able to speak to Nana.  The caption phone didn’t work for the first fifteen minutes, and I was forever grateful that her aid, who still goes to work with Nana for four hours a day, was willing to help out.  Eventually, the captioning phone kicked in and if I speak slow enough, the words pop up on the phone’s screen so Nana can read them.  This does make for stunted communication, but it is communication. And since Nana is in a NJ nursing home where Covid 19 is making the rounds, every communication is golden.

I also reached out to a co-worker just to chat.  It gave me a sense of normalcy to speak pedagogy.  And it was great to hear that things are well at home. She and her kids are having a bit of fun.

Another call I made was to a friend.  He’s alone right now, and somewhat disconnected from the world.  I’ve always enjoyed our conversations and listening to different viewpoints about books and movies.  But today’s conversation began with him telling me he lost a family member to Covid 19.

I knew this would happen, and that it would only be a matter of time.  It’s like playing six degrees of separation Kevin Bacon style.  You know that someone will know someone affected by the virus.  Unfortunately, this someone passed away from it. It’s horrifying.

I wonder how many other people I know have someone in their lives who is ill, or hospitalized with Covid 19.  There has got to be at least one more.  I do know a couple from church who both have it.  So far they are kicking it.  I have family members working on the front lines who have been exposed, but as far as I know, they aren’t ill.

But it is just a matter of time.  I wonder how close to our front door Covid’s Death will come.  Not to sound morbid, but there is that possibility.

Have you played Degrees of Separation from Covid?

Stay safe dear reader.

 

 

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Day 31: I Stood in Someone Else’s House.

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home real estate
Photo by Binyamin Mellish on Pexels.com

It happened so quick.  I wasn’t even thinking.  And then I crossed the threshold.

So today our governor announced that school buildings will be closed “at least through May 15th.”  This was not unexpected.  And I am not surprised by his announcement, but my mood had been a bit low.  And I have not been as productive as I would like.

It was nearly 3:00 p.m. when the phone rang.  A friend, an older woman, asked if I wanted to walk in a nearby municipal park, one that is still open, a rarity in NJ.  I looked at the books spread out on the kitchen island and the list of notes I had been making.  I still had grading to do, but nothing was happening.  So I said “yes” and agreed to meet her at her home.

When I got there, she came out and waved to me before stating she had to get her keys and her coat.

“Come on in.”

I grabbed my things from my car and walked up the walk to the door.  I hesitated for a moment, wondering if this was a mistake.  But then her cat tried to slip outside and I took a step forward to prevent her furry friend from escaping.

My friend chatted as she moved about the house looking for keys and coat.  I looked around and felt like I had just broken a law.

But there were just two of us.  We were six feet apart.  Neither of us are sick, nor sneezing from the beautiful trees with their pollen.

I know some of my friends would be in shock if I told them what happened.  Some would criticize my decision.  A few would doubt my ability to think clearly.

My friend found her coat and keys then offered to drive.  We rode in her car for about five minutes to the park.  The windows were open.  For that moment, life felt normal.

I felt twitchy.  Was riding in a friend’s car a really bad idea?  Here I was again, breaking the rules.

This could be considered an “unnecessary trip”, except my sanity may be at stake. Week five in the house is worse than one, two, and three.  My friend and I walked about six feet apart.  We both had masks, albeit they were in our pockets.  It was fun to catch up and chat as we walked two miles.

Since when does walking feel so much like a crime? Maybe it wasn’t the walking, it was being with someone else other than the two I live with that felt like a crime.  It felt like cheating, cheating the game of Covid 19.

There are fellow citizens in our country that feel that their freedoms are being taken away by the government when social distancing measures are put into place.  There were upheavals in Ohio and Michigan this week where people protested against their leaders’ decisions to shut down their economies to practice social distancing. A friend sent me an article from The Washington Times asserting that the number of Covid 19 deaths don’t warrant an economic shutdown and more people have died from the flu.

But I live in a hot spot where there are trucks filled with the dead, and M.A.S.H. units set up in parks or in parking lots.  12000 have died in NY alone.  NJ has 3,518 dead as of today.

I’m not sure I will stand in another’s home for the next month.  I made a mistake.

Stay safe reader.

Namaste

 

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Day 30: It’s a Mind Game

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photo of head bust print artwork
Photo by meo on Pexels.com

Today was the first day I resigned myself to the possibility that we may not be going back to school this year.  But what shook me was the when our governor suggested that NJ may not be loosening social distancing restrictions until June…or July.  It was then that I had to consider something more than just the end of the school year.  I have to consider the possibility we will be locked down through the summer.

We’ve prepaid for a summer pool, a few weeks of camp for our son, and our annual trip to Cape Cod.  The pool has already returned our money.

I can’t begin to wrap my head around the possibility.

It’s not that I haven’t experienced tough times before.  In 1996, I lost both my parents within a six month period.  The aftermath was horrendous.  So I’ve been trying to remember how I dealt with that time period.  I worked a lot.  I watched THE THING and ALIENS over and over with Diet Coke and popcorn.  I don’t think that I worried about future vacations, or summer fun (I wasn’t teaching at that time).  What I know is that I did get through that time period, which means I can get through this one.

It’s just a mind game.

We’ve gotta allow ourselves to be distracted.  I gotta find a book I really like, the kind I can slip into for hours and forget myself.  I will probably look for something I read when I was younger.  It might be time to start binge watching series.  Maybe I should try knitting or macrame. It’s time to get serious about practicing some yoga.

It’s time to let myself be me for a while, or at least, figure out me, for the almost fifty me is a bit different from the younger me.  I’ve spent so much time working, and juggling multiple responsibilities that I haven’t spent much time just being me.

Maybe that’s the blessing of Covid 19: time. Time to rediscover yourself.

Namaste

 

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Day 29: I Don’t Wanna Get Outta Bed

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20200411_114419

This is Hudson, hiding under a pillow.

I felt the same way today.

The weather shifted last night and I woke up with a migraine.  I sat down to work with a huge mug of coffee, but it wasn’t enough. My migraine meds make me tired and grumpy.  Being grumpy at work is not a good thing.

NJ has started week five of social distancing.  Today the news announced that NY may have had 10,000 deaths.  NJ has 2800.  There seems to be no end to this.  Some articles predict that we are in for 18 months of various degrees of social distancing.  And then there is the looming economic fallout.

There is some good news.  In NJ, a new saliva test will be used, one that is processed more quickly.  People are stepping up and helping those who need it.  Celebrities are donating money and time to lift our spirits. Antibody tests are starting in CA.

But for me, this is becoming more real, real in that this may not be over by Memorial Day, or early summer. We may have restrictions lifted for a while, but only to have them imposed later.  The uncertainty of it all is stressing me out.

I am grateful that we can stay home as a family.

Hopefully a better night sleep will make the world seem a bit brighter tomorrow.

Take care of yourself reader.

Namaste

 

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Day 28: How’s your kid? Are you sure?

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focus photo of super mario luigi and yoshi figurines
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

It was back to work for me today.  I pulled my school bag, textbooks, laptop, pens, novels, notebooks etc.. back to the kitchen island and set up shop.  Outside the wind was howling and the rain pelted the house.  All I wanted to do was to go back to bed.

DH was working too.

But my munchkin had the day off.  He gobbled some raisins and grabbed his Ipad and controller.  Off he went to join some friends in a Mine Craft world.

I watched him, sipped some coffee, and opened my email.  The first one was from a student who has Covid 19.  His family has it too.  The next one was from a student who is “not feeling well” and emotionally drained.  A little later, I got one saying she couldn’t do her paper two weeks ago because her mom has breast cancer.

I teach juniors.  They should be worrying about SATs and maybe prom.  Instead, they are at home alone.  For some, it is devastating.

Today I spent hours making fun looking slide shows and adding what I hope my Ss will think are cool videos.  I agonized over what I was asking them to do.  Is it too little?  Is it too much?  What about “the curriculum”?

Tonight, emotionally drained, I opened an email from Munchkin’s district.  It is clear that the focus for him will be his health.  The superintendent spelled it out. This made me smile.

But then I thought about Munchkin’s friends’ parents who have complained that their kid is “falling behind” and maybe they should consider private school.  Some wonder why school isn’t taking seven hours a day.  Or why is the teacher not teaching during their regular period via zoom.

Munchkin is eleven, going on twelve.  He is a sixth grader.  Each night since this started,  he asks that I tuck him in and stay a bit.

“Don’t you want to go back to school?” I asked tonight.

“No, Mom.  The kids are jerks.”

“So you’re happy you’re home.”  I said.

He nodded his head.

“Does this whole thing still make you nervous?”

He turned and looked at me. “Yes.  My stomach gets upset.”

I share this with you dear reader, because I didn’t know how much the pandemic was affecting him.  He seemed okay during the day.  There was only one night he complained of nightmares, and I thought it was because he had been playing video games too late.  I was taken aback as I looked in his eyes and saw FEAR.  Real FEAR.

So I stayed a little longer and counted aloud our blessings.  And then I hugged him tight.

We are living in the upsidedowninsideout.  Check in with your own kids.  Maybe things seem fine, and then they might surprise you.  We are in our fifth week at home in NJ.  This isn’t fun or novel anymore.  Desperation is leaking into our shored up lives.  Hug your kid, no matter how old.

They probably need it, and so do you.

Namaste

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Day 26: Keeping the Faith

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It’s the night before Easter and all through the house…wait, wrong holiday, or is it?  It wasn’t until I was older that I grew to understand that Easter is truly more important than Christmas.  Mind you, growing up, I was a Christer, a Christian who went to church mostly on Christmas and Easter.  That is unless my mom dropped me off at  church with Nana so she could get the grocery shopping done.  Now, I not only go regularly, but I am involved in ways I never would have thought if you told me this was going to happen twenty years ago.

Easter is about resurrection.  It’s interesting when you break down the word.  Surrection relates to geology, typically meaning upheaval, such as when mountains come up through tectonic plates.  The suffix -ion denotes an action, or condition.  It is a noun suffix.  And the prefix RE means again.  So in a way, resurrection refers to the act of creating an upheaval again, a rising up of something from the earth.

Maybe Covid 19 is the catalyst for such a resurrection.  We needed to sit down in order to be raised up, raised up enough to understand the value of caring for one another. Raised up in order to recognize life’s priorities.

I love the news stories where they highlight people who have gone out of their way to care for those who are frightened, alone, or in need.  Some companies are donating money to food banks.  Some people are buying groceries for their neighbors who are now shut in.  And thanks to technology, such as Google Hangouts and Zoom, we can connect with friends and loved ones we have not seen in a while.

Being forced to slow down our pace of life coerces one to contemplate. It’s hard sometimes to look in the mirror and see not just the made up parts of ourselves, but the cracks that are beginning to show underneath.  Our priorities become etched in ourselves during trying times like these.

It is not easy to remain faithful and hopeful right now. I have been disheartened hearing, or reading the news.  I was hoping NJ would be able to lighten restrictions by the end of May.  Now there seems little hope that will happen.  Our governor speaks of the peak being in mid May, which means we would be at home through June at least.  I worry for the economy.  I worry about our income.  I worry about a family member passing away and not being able to say goodbye.  I worry a lot these days.  It’s hard not to.

I cling to my faith not because I expect God to fix everything, but because I hope for the strength to endure this trial.  But practicing your faith on your own is much different.  It is especially difficult when you can’t physically gather and engage in those rituals that mark tomorrow, such as Easter hats, egg hunts, special greetings.  But the faithful are finding new ways, whether they are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Buddhist.  We have to.

So dear Reader, if you are celebrating tomorrow, Happy Easter.  If you celebrated Passover, I hope your virtual seder went well.  And good luck to you who are about to embark on Ramadan’s month long prayer and fasting.

And if you don’t ascribe to any faith, please stay hopeful.

Namaste