Dear Wendy
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Congrats on the promotion, Kate!
I just returned home yesterday from a long weekend in Montreal celebrating a friend’s 50th bday. It was a nightmare getting home (got on a plane only to sit on the tarmac for two hours before the flight was cancelled bc of storms in nyc, and I had to spend the night in Montreal and fly out the next day. Three-hour customs line. SO many sick-sounding people on the plane and in the airport). Made it home and found out that three people in my group tested positive when they got home so I took a test and it was positive. Jackson tested positive on Monday and drew tested positive last night.
I’m now more certain than ever that I had Covid in spring 2020 bc it felt like how I feel right now except much much worse. Currently, I am deeply fatigued, have slight congestion, some shortness of breath, a little cough, and when I lie flat on my back it feels like there’s a weight on my chest. Jackson is asymptomatic (he was only tested as a precaution Monday morning before going to camp). Drew feels lousy and has bad chest pains. He’s immunocompromised and qualifies for antivirals so I’m going to help him get those today. I think I’ll be fine without meds.
When my great aunt, who never had kids and was really in to genealogy, died at 103 a few years back, I inherited a box of research, photos, and memorabilia of our family tree that she’d collected over the years. The most fascinating/disturbing thing in it was an original copy of a “contract” written up in the 1870s by my great-great grandfather (my great aunt’s grandfather) relinquishing him of any responsibility to a baby he conceived out of wedlock with a teenage girl. He paid the girl $50 to be released of any obligation and they both signed the contract. Apparently, shortly afterwards, the girl died, and her parents brought the baby to my gg-grandfather, who refused responsibility and left the baby on her mothers grave (!!!). His parents, my ggg-grandparents, hearing of all this and, I imagine, horrified by their sons behavior, took the baby and raised her as their own (and from the research I was able to find, that baby grew up to have a fascinating and dramatic life).
Just catching up on the forums and see you had a recent visit to nyc, KT. Hope you had a great time! What did you end up doing?
I think symptoms have to last at least four weeks after recovery (testing negative on a rapid, for example) before it’s considered long covid. I hope you make a complete recovery asap, E!
Joanie is back at school today after a week at home. She’s been testing negative since Thursday morning and the rest of us never got it, so I am happy we avoided household spread (we made a big effort to do this!) and wish the school would have made even half the effort we did to avoid getting these kids sick. Joanie had minimal symptoms during active covid but now, post-covid, she has a really swollen, sore, chapped upper life and says the inside of her mouth down to the back of her throat is very sore (like a burning sensation). I really hope it passes quickly. I’m so mad on her behalf!
Thanks, guys. Sucks about your niece’s missed prom and graduation!!
The way we’ve been doing it is to live life pretty normally when transmission is low or moderate – but still wearing masks in stores, on public transport, etc. We’ll often opt to dine outdoors instead of inside but occasionally do dune indoors. I’ll wear masks at the hair salon and stuff like that. But with friends and family, I’m back to normal. And then when we have an event or vacation or seeing someone at high risk, we limit activities in the week leading up to it – do as little in public as reasonably possible. The big thing I can’t control is the school exposure. Drew works from home, so we’ve not had work exposure to deal with (I actually started a part-time job, totally unrelated to writing or blogging, but I don’t interact with many people so exposure risk is low). Some families, of course, have work exposure and school exposure and then it’s just nearly impossible to avoid infection. It shouldn’t have to be that way but it is.
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Joanie had som minor symptoms on Sunday morning and since she’s had so much exposure at school, I tested her. She’s positive. The rest of us are negative so far. She almost surely got it at school (she hadn’t been anywhere else indoors in the past week except one subway ride home from school). She’s had multiple classmates out with Covid – as much as 1/3 the class has been absent on any given day this month, and masks are optional, students only have to quarantine for 5 days (if they even report their cases) and no requirement to test negative to return. So, it was expected but no less enraging that my kids would bring Covid home.
Drew and I had tickets to a gala Thursday night we were really looking forward to but I cancelled with the babysitter and we’ll have to skip it. My sister, whom we haven’t seen in 2 1/2 years, is supposed to come visit next week but if it takes two weeks for the Covid to run through our family, we’ll have to cancel that. And, of course, there’s the risk of long Covid and longterm damage to internal organs that no one wants to think about. It’s infuriating that schools have been turned into mass infection sites.
TheLadyE, so sorry to hear you got it and are so symptomatic. My unsolicited advice is to rest more and longer than you think you need. Ease back into things as slowly as you can get away with. Doing too much too soon can increase the chances of the symptoms lingering longer. Also, if you’re taking Paxlovid, be aware that relapses are possible several days after finishing the regimen. If you start to feel symptomatic again, assume it’s a relapse and isolate and test (this is what Colbert is currently doing after he had a post-paxlovid relapse this week). Good luck!
It really is exhausting! I keep thinking, “Ok, I can get it this week and it wouldn’t disrupt anything, but if it took two weeks to cycle through the four of us, that could disrupt this plan or that plan. I can’t get it next week when I’m doing this thing or that thing. And let’s hope none of the family gets it before this vacation or that wedding or this event we’ve been looking forward to for months” etc etc. And we’re gonna just go through this 3-4 times a year??? Seems like any immunity you might get with infection lasts about three months, when the the next wave comes. I want off this merry-go-round!!
Oh yeah, nearly everyone I know who escaped omicron in the winter wave, has covid right now (or had it in the past couple weeks). Somehow, we (my family of four) still haven’t tested positive despite countless cases at the kids’ school and living life pretty normally now (still masking in stores and on public trans, but otherwise life as normal). Drew has cold symptoms today though so after a negative rapid test this morning, he got a PCR test and I went along and got one too (brain jab, omg). Results in 2-3 days. I feel fine though and don’t have any symptoms and imagine Drew probably just has a cold or allergies.
Glad you’re still negative, Kate! It’s one thing to get covid doing something you want to be doing and where you’ve been able to adequately calculate your risk; it’s another to get it at work from a reckless colleague, or from your kids bringing it home from school. Hope you continue to stay well!
Just a head’s up that I’ve moved this thread from “chat” to “advice.”
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This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by
