Covid Support Thread
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My shower is still a mess. Progress was made, but… Hopefully, they’ll finish up tomorrow. Again —- Not a huge pain as Charley (who lives a five minute walk away) had to to into the office today so I used his place to shower and as a cafe to work on a script with Clem who is always happy to sit at my side meowing for attention. ?
They’ve reopened outdoor dining. Lets hope things are on the mend.
Hang in there, TheLadyE.
PS —- I miss the desert. Intensely.
My shower is repaired. They bizarrely “patched” it. Meaning it works fine. Is structurally sound —- I think… but looks awful. Just awful.
?
A rather fitting and hilarious metaphor for my life.
On the bright side? Nobody is EVER in my shower but me. Seriously… so why do I care? Everything about my existance feels very fifth rate. And even that may be a real reach…
So sorry that happened to your home @Kate! I do hope you can get the deductible back and that it’s ready to move back into soon.
@LadyE – I hope you recover quickly! Hopefully you are able to get some rest.
@BGM – glad your shower is fixed! At least you can shower at home now.
It’s been a bit stressful here too…we thought we were going to have to put our oldest dog down last Friday(he’s 12). He has really bad arthritis in one knee and both hips and a slight tear in one ACL. He was in so much pain on Friday he quit walking. We’ve got him on pain meds but I don’t think that is or should be a permanent solution. So, I’m not sure of next steps or what to do. The pain meds work wonders…he’s supposed to be resting but it’s been hard to keep him down on the pain meds.
I hope you have a strong recovery @TheLadyE.
I know we are all pretty risk averse here. Guess that’s why I’m posting for support. I don’t want to be morally superior and judgmental. My sister is letting my mon visit today because my mom misses my niece. The numbers are down around here, about 50 new cases a day. My mom wants me to go to her place this weekend for Chinese New Year preparations. I wouldn’t say she’s using my sister as an example but when I told her I wasn’t sure about going over, she responded that she’s going over. The numbers really are way down. I just can’t wrap my head around visiting during this COVID time still. We would wear masks, but this seems “unnecessary”. Sigh.
I feel you, Hfantods. My in laws have basically just shut us out. The last time we saw them, they were coming by to drop off Xmas gifts and came into my house without masks on. We were all wearing masks and my FIL seemed taken aback, like it was an insult to him personally for us to be wearing them.
The sad irony is, he founded a consulting company on workplace safety/OSHA.
So, I got very good at working the various scheduling sites and got my Dad an appointment to get vaccinated this week (first week he was eligible in Ohio) and he griped about how the location was in a bad neighborhood and then griped to my sister about we were making him get vaccinated at all*.
He also brought a date along with him-she was getting vaccinated on the weekend and wanted to see it and so of course they drove in the car together shortly before they were each going to get vaccinated.
*he had it last Spring and had antibodies over the summer, but it’s still unknown how long the protection lasts and he is extremely high risk as a 73 year old diabetic.
ALSO, to go the original genesis of this thread, having failed to avoid getting COVID, the Bride of Fyodor and I sent the Spawn of Fyodor back to school today.* Her teacher thinks that she will benefit from the in person instruction but I will miss having her around. She was not pleased with the decision, not wanting to wear a mask and (understandably) enjoying being able to roll out of bed fifteen minutes before class, but it was going to be an adjustment she’d have to make sooner or later.
*The school had been operating with in-person instruction for some and those families who wanted to operating remotely.
My husband and I got into a low-key argument yesterday about when we think it’ll be safe to travel. My MIL has had her 2nd vaccine dose (HOORAY!!) but others in the family are still waiting to be vaccinated. No one in the family lives closer than 1000 miles away – we’re in Virginia, MIL and most of my husband’s family is in Colorodo, my mom is in New Mexico and my brother in Indiana, so minimum 10-hour drive to visit anyone. My daughter (7) screams in the car that her tummy hurts when we’re just driving 5 minutes to the glass recycling drop-off, and she has thrown up a few times from being carsick in the past. We used to give Dramamine but now she screams that her tummy hurts because the medicine is yucky. We can’t drive across the country for 3 days with incessant screaming, and I’m not getting on a plane with an unvaccinated kid, and we don’t know yet whether/how well the vaccines prevent transmission, so I’m not even sure about the safety of grandmas flying to visit us once they’re vaccinated. But my husband, who has been only slightly less risk-averse than I have been since last March, thinks that it would be fine for us to fly out to see the family. He definitely won’t countenance driving 3+ days in each direction with a screaming child (can’t say I blame him). So of course we’re having this discussion at the dinner table last night in front of the kid…ugh.
Our school district is still entirely remote, but the community spread metrics for reopening are such that I may actually consider sending her for “hybrid” if they actually get to that point. Plus, teachers are being vaccinated here already too! My two neighbors who are teachers and in our outdoor play “pod” have had their first shots.
Just wanted to ask, it seems like you are having to find/book appointments for your older relatives, what is happening to older people without someone to do that for them? Are they on a list somewhere, will they also be vaccinated? Here everyone just gets their turn according to age/need on the NHS, how does it work in America?
In the US it seems like it’s every person for themself. There is no system in place for mass vaccination countrywide, so every state is different, even the counties in each state can be different. There are many stories of rich white people going to poor communities and getting vaccinated ahead of actually eligible people. There are mass vaccination centers in cities, but anti-vaxxers successfully protested and shut one down in LA last week, lines can be miles long and waits can be really long, even if you have an appointment. It’s crazy. I honestly don’t know what older people without help are doing. Probably not getting vaccinated unless they are savvy to the labyrinthian bureaucracy we have in place.
Oh, it’s a hot mess in the US.
Every state is handling distribution by themselves, and it’s a cluster with different states making different decisions about how to distribute once you get past the initial healthcare workers/nursing home residents.
I think Biden is trying to centralize and clarify things, but he’s only been in office a couple of weeks and sounds like Trump left him in quite a hole to dig out of.
And for better or worse, interest groups are pushing to get some groups vaccinated sooner (for instance, teachers unions want to get vaccines before sending their members back into schools, so it some states they are getting priority over certain bands of elderly people).
For instance, my mother lives in Alaska, she’s 69 and she got her second shot weeks ago. Meanwhile, my MIL, a person living in a nursing home, only got her second shot Tuesday. Meanwhile, I have a friend whose 80 year old father wasn’t even *eligible* to get one until this week, because the state of Oregon decided to put teachers at the front of the line. Now he’s eligible, but from a state away she has to figure out how to get him signed up for one.
Even if you are among an eligible group in your state, that doesn’t mean you get a vaccine. I’m part of a big health network, so I’m getting regular updates about who they can offer vaccines and how to schedule an appointment, but if you aren’t part of a big system, I really don’t know what you’re supposed to do. And I’m a tech savvy person in my thirties, I don’t know how elderly people who don’t have tech help or family advocates are figuring out how to get vaccines (they aren’t, I think is the answer). And of course, we’re apparently starting to run low, so even if you are eligible AND you can figure out how to request an appointment, in some places appointments for first doses are being put on hold until supply is replenished.
So, it’s going great.
Numbers are going down at the moment, pretty substantially, and it doesn’t seem like the new variants have quite taken off yet (although they are here) so hopefully we can jump on that lull, get the supply up, streamline, and start getting shots in way more arms before rates start ticking back up. That’s my hope, at least
