pameladean (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pameladean) wrote2020-12-15 10:57 pm
pameladean) wrote2020-12-15 10:57 pm
A packet ot news and no mistake
Hello, all my lovely Dreamwidth readers.
Everybody is fine. Everything turned out all right. I will put the rest behind a cut for people who just don't want to read about the pandemic right now.
That said, whew.
In November Lydy took a thirteen-week contract to work as a sleep technician in Cleveland. She didn't really feel that any of the local outfits would keep her safe but felt the medical facility in Cleveland would do a better job. She really wanted to work, and to not use up the last of her unemployment yet.
She did a mail-in saliva test on November 23rd, out of an abundance of caution. On the 26th we all four had a Thanksgiving dinner of broiled tuna steaks, carrot and cashew curry, homemade French bread, and roasted Brussels sprouts, with a choice of mince, vegan pumpkin, or apple pie for dessert. It was a lovely dinner and a lovely time. We did a Zoom call with my brother and a phone call with my mom afterwards, having scrupulously obeyed guidelines about not gathering outside one's own household.
On Friday Lydy left to drive to Cleveland. At a rest stop partway there, she got an email from the testing outfit saying that her test was positive.
Cue horror, despair, and such quarantine as we could manage. Lydy had an apartment -- with its own entrance, no less -- awaiting her in Cleveland, so she continued on and quarantined herself there. Minnesota Department of Health guidelines seem to assume that only one person in a household will be exposed at any given time. They suggest staying away from the rest of the household and using a separate bathroom "if possible." We have four people, or currently three with Lydy in Cleveland, and two bathrooms. David ended up quarantining in lonely splendor downstairs with three cats, while Raphael and I, who had had less exposure to Lydy, entered upon a massively stressful regimen of hand-washing, distancing, and mask-wearing upstairs, sharing a bathroom and a kitchen and behaving simultaneously as if we might ourselves be infected and as if we might be as yet not so but therefore vulnerable to the other person. We ended up cooking for one another a handful of times, washing everything repeatedly and of course wearing a mask. Seasoning was a bit hit or miss, since there was no way we would take off a mask to taste the food, and in fact I didn't even want to wash my hands AGAIN and visit the kitchen for soy sauce or whatever. This was the least of anybody's problems, but I note it as possibly of interest.
Lydy kept a symptom diary on Dreamwidth, and also when I reported a general absence of symptoms via email, she would report back on her status.
I was keenly aware all the time that ventilation is important and our house is not well ventilated except insofar as the windows and the storm windows are in extremely poor shape and leak like sieves. I did not shut any storms that were not shut already. I could not seem to get it together to order a HEPA air cleaner. There are a couple upstairs already, but I should get another one or two. And maybe a humidifier. We have hot-water heat and the air inside the house gets dry in the winter. But I've read articles on both sides of whether humidity is good or bad for the virus.
If I say that this was probably the most miserable experience of my life it will just demonstrate how lucky I've been. I'm not sure it completely was. But it was uniquely miserable. What with some COVID-19 symptoms mimicking allergy and acid reflux symptoms, it was hard to dismiss anything as irrelevant. David and I communicated by text our apparent lack of symptoms, and Raphael and I did as well, though with an occasional brief distanced, masked conversation. Raphael and I, after trying Hulu's watch party arrangement and finding it untenable -- it gets out of synch almost at once and then you can comment in chat and spoil the other person for some event they have not reached yet -- we went over to Amazon's watch parties, which worked much better. We watched two Shakespeare plays and began "The Durrells in Corfu."
David and I are watching "HInterland" and I didn't want to continue til quarantine was over. It's a good show but grim. We've also been watching the Great British Bakeoff, but that seems to work way better in person.
In the meantime, both upstairs cats arranged to seriously alarm us. Cassie went first, extracting a mask from its paper bag and eating about four inches of elastic from one of the ear loops. I was asleep when this happened. Raphael called a vet who would consult over the phone and was told to watch Cassie for lethargy and vomiting and give her a teaspoon or two of canned pumpkin several times a day. Cassie was blithe and bonny throughout this adventure and came to no harm. But having a cat who might need an emergency vet visit when her humans were quarantined was not the pinnacle of delight.
Saffron, who had been started on medication for hyperthyroidism just before Thanksgiving, lost her appetite and vomited copiously and frequently. I coaxed her with wet food. She stopped vomiting about a week ago, I think -- medication side effect now gone as her body adjusted? that one massive hairball at six a.m.? who knows -- but now refuses all crunchy food and will only eat canned. Still, eating is eating. The veterinary office didn't want us to come in unless we had negative COVID-19 tests. They were also booked into January, but since she's eating and perky I'm not worrying about it. Much.
The state recommends getting tested if you've been exposed to the virus, and says not to do it til Day 5. I had a previously-scheduled video visit with my doctor a few days into quarantine, and she was strongly skeptical of the utility of having a test during the incubation at all. She was definitely of the opinion that Day 5 was too early. Since I know people who tested negative on Day 5 and still got sick, this made sense to me. David ended up providing his sample on Day 11 for him (he had one more day of exposure than R and I, since he saw Lydy off on Friday) and Raphael and I did ours on the last day of quarantine. All the tests came back negative.
Doing the tests was surprisingly easy, the health care workers are very patient, and the results came back well within the time frame stated. Go Minnesota, at least in this area.
I feel we have been extraordinarily lucky and it's pretty petty of me to repine because we missed the last days of unseasonably beautiful weather.
We didn't really have enough masks, and a number of the ones that I had are not, as it turns out, really suited to being worn for hours and hours at a time, though fine for short forays, which is all I'd used them for before. Earloop masks are much better for short forays, but the ones with ties are way better for long use, even if I do catch stray hairs in the ties every single time. I ordered a bunch more masks, which naturally arrived as quarantine was ending. Sharon, the silk mask you made me was wonderful and comfortable and didn't get soggy. I don't know how to wash it, though.
It's demoralizing, after months of wearing masks in the outside world and removing them with relief upon arriving home, to wear them at home because home is not safe. It's also demoralizing to realize how little help is available from either state or especially federal government. So many people are going through this, and much, much, much worse -- people in shelters or congregate living facilities, people who get sick and have to worry about infecting their households because they can't separate from them sufficiently; the people who take care of them. I thought repeatedly of how, for much of my childhood and parts of my adolescence, my family of five and later six had only one bathroom.
I will never forgive the Republicans for this. They probably think they can act like people and be received into society, and I'm sure that's the case, but as far as I'm concerned they are murderous untrustworthy ignorant hacks and should go way back and sit down. Permanently.
This is not as eloquent and certainly not as well organized as I would like, but I think I will leave it and post this.
I hope you are holding on and doing as well as possible.
I should add that I didn't get much writing done, but I did have a major breakthrough about how to shut my characters up long enough to actually end this book.
Pamela
Everybody is fine. Everything turned out all right. I will put the rest behind a cut for people who just don't want to read about the pandemic right now.
That said, whew.
In November Lydy took a thirteen-week contract to work as a sleep technician in Cleveland. She didn't really feel that any of the local outfits would keep her safe but felt the medical facility in Cleveland would do a better job. She really wanted to work, and to not use up the last of her unemployment yet.
She did a mail-in saliva test on November 23rd, out of an abundance of caution. On the 26th we all four had a Thanksgiving dinner of broiled tuna steaks, carrot and cashew curry, homemade French bread, and roasted Brussels sprouts, with a choice of mince, vegan pumpkin, or apple pie for dessert. It was a lovely dinner and a lovely time. We did a Zoom call with my brother and a phone call with my mom afterwards, having scrupulously obeyed guidelines about not gathering outside one's own household.
On Friday Lydy left to drive to Cleveland. At a rest stop partway there, she got an email from the testing outfit saying that her test was positive.
Cue horror, despair, and such quarantine as we could manage. Lydy had an apartment -- with its own entrance, no less -- awaiting her in Cleveland, so she continued on and quarantined herself there. Minnesota Department of Health guidelines seem to assume that only one person in a household will be exposed at any given time. They suggest staying away from the rest of the household and using a separate bathroom "if possible." We have four people, or currently three with Lydy in Cleveland, and two bathrooms. David ended up quarantining in lonely splendor downstairs with three cats, while Raphael and I, who had had less exposure to Lydy, entered upon a massively stressful regimen of hand-washing, distancing, and mask-wearing upstairs, sharing a bathroom and a kitchen and behaving simultaneously as if we might ourselves be infected and as if we might be as yet not so but therefore vulnerable to the other person. We ended up cooking for one another a handful of times, washing everything repeatedly and of course wearing a mask. Seasoning was a bit hit or miss, since there was no way we would take off a mask to taste the food, and in fact I didn't even want to wash my hands AGAIN and visit the kitchen for soy sauce or whatever. This was the least of anybody's problems, but I note it as possibly of interest.
Lydy kept a symptom diary on Dreamwidth, and also when I reported a general absence of symptoms via email, she would report back on her status.
I was keenly aware all the time that ventilation is important and our house is not well ventilated except insofar as the windows and the storm windows are in extremely poor shape and leak like sieves. I did not shut any storms that were not shut already. I could not seem to get it together to order a HEPA air cleaner. There are a couple upstairs already, but I should get another one or two. And maybe a humidifier. We have hot-water heat and the air inside the house gets dry in the winter. But I've read articles on both sides of whether humidity is good or bad for the virus.
If I say that this was probably the most miserable experience of my life it will just demonstrate how lucky I've been. I'm not sure it completely was. But it was uniquely miserable. What with some COVID-19 symptoms mimicking allergy and acid reflux symptoms, it was hard to dismiss anything as irrelevant. David and I communicated by text our apparent lack of symptoms, and Raphael and I did as well, though with an occasional brief distanced, masked conversation. Raphael and I, after trying Hulu's watch party arrangement and finding it untenable -- it gets out of synch almost at once and then you can comment in chat and spoil the other person for some event they have not reached yet -- we went over to Amazon's watch parties, which worked much better. We watched two Shakespeare plays and began "The Durrells in Corfu."
David and I are watching "HInterland" and I didn't want to continue til quarantine was over. It's a good show but grim. We've also been watching the Great British Bakeoff, but that seems to work way better in person.
In the meantime, both upstairs cats arranged to seriously alarm us. Cassie went first, extracting a mask from its paper bag and eating about four inches of elastic from one of the ear loops. I was asleep when this happened. Raphael called a vet who would consult over the phone and was told to watch Cassie for lethargy and vomiting and give her a teaspoon or two of canned pumpkin several times a day. Cassie was blithe and bonny throughout this adventure and came to no harm. But having a cat who might need an emergency vet visit when her humans were quarantined was not the pinnacle of delight.
Saffron, who had been started on medication for hyperthyroidism just before Thanksgiving, lost her appetite and vomited copiously and frequently. I coaxed her with wet food. She stopped vomiting about a week ago, I think -- medication side effect now gone as her body adjusted? that one massive hairball at six a.m.? who knows -- but now refuses all crunchy food and will only eat canned. Still, eating is eating. The veterinary office didn't want us to come in unless we had negative COVID-19 tests. They were also booked into January, but since she's eating and perky I'm not worrying about it. Much.
The state recommends getting tested if you've been exposed to the virus, and says not to do it til Day 5. I had a previously-scheduled video visit with my doctor a few days into quarantine, and she was strongly skeptical of the utility of having a test during the incubation at all. She was definitely of the opinion that Day 5 was too early. Since I know people who tested negative on Day 5 and still got sick, this made sense to me. David ended up providing his sample on Day 11 for him (he had one more day of exposure than R and I, since he saw Lydy off on Friday) and Raphael and I did ours on the last day of quarantine. All the tests came back negative.
Doing the tests was surprisingly easy, the health care workers are very patient, and the results came back well within the time frame stated. Go Minnesota, at least in this area.
I feel we have been extraordinarily lucky and it's pretty petty of me to repine because we missed the last days of unseasonably beautiful weather.
We didn't really have enough masks, and a number of the ones that I had are not, as it turns out, really suited to being worn for hours and hours at a time, though fine for short forays, which is all I'd used them for before. Earloop masks are much better for short forays, but the ones with ties are way better for long use, even if I do catch stray hairs in the ties every single time. I ordered a bunch more masks, which naturally arrived as quarantine was ending. Sharon, the silk mask you made me was wonderful and comfortable and didn't get soggy. I don't know how to wash it, though.
It's demoralizing, after months of wearing masks in the outside world and removing them with relief upon arriving home, to wear them at home because home is not safe. It's also demoralizing to realize how little help is available from either state or especially federal government. So many people are going through this, and much, much, much worse -- people in shelters or congregate living facilities, people who get sick and have to worry about infecting their households because they can't separate from them sufficiently; the people who take care of them. I thought repeatedly of how, for much of my childhood and parts of my adolescence, my family of five and later six had only one bathroom.
I will never forgive the Republicans for this. They probably think they can act like people and be received into society, and I'm sure that's the case, but as far as I'm concerned they are murderous untrustworthy ignorant hacks and should go way back and sit down. Permanently.
This is not as eloquent and certainly not as well organized as I would like, but I think I will leave it and post this.
I hope you are holding on and doing as well as possible.
I should add that I didn't get much writing done, but I did have a major breakthrough about how to shut my characters up long enough to actually end this book.
Pamela