Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Of Immune Systems and Sickness by Konnie Enos


 In the last few weeks, we discovered that Tony has a pretty strong immune system but Royce’s isn’t that strong.

You see it’s flu season and apparently not only is covid and the flu going around again but RSV is too. On top of that Royce started earlier this month as an Amazon seasonal employee.

Now Amazon can be a great place to work and one of the first things Royce found out when he started there was they have rooms set aside for their employees with Autism to go to have time to calm down from a meltdown.

Yes, you read that right. Amazon understands people with Autism enough to accommodate their needs. Royce had at least two fellow employees tell him that they were personally close to someone with Autism, as in a family member or close friend.

So Royce is feeling pretty good about the job, right up until he comes down with a cold. At that point, he’d only been working a week and was too sick to go in. And figuring out how to report that and get the time off was stressing him so bad he actually went and applied for a different job. (Unfortunately, they turned him down.) But, Royce is figuring out how to navigate the system. Mostly he has learned that they have people hired to help employees navigate the time off system. Still stressful, but he’s handling it, even though he’s had to get time off a second time in the less than a month he’s worked there.

But all that brings us to the main issue.

I don’t know why, but every time Royce gets sick I get it from him and only sometimes does anyone else in the family get it.

The first time he got sick. I got it, though not as bad.

Now this time? So far Jerry and Tony are the only ones not affected.

Which is bad.

Melinda and I do most of the housework and we both are so sick we both saw doctors yesterday.

Yes, both of us were prescribed antibiotics.

This brings me to my issue.

It’s my turn to post and I’ve been under the weather since at least Saturday. I’ve even been crashing for the night before, or very shortly after, 10 p.m. I finally let Bonnie know that I hadn’t written my post yet and I wasn’t going to be able to write it any time soon. Like possibly not at all.

Due to taking Melinda to quick care and making sure Tony got to and from work, Jerry couldn’t take me to quick care until later in the day. (I have slightly different insurance than my kids and the nearest quick care won’t take my primary insurance.) Needless to say, both places were pretty busy and it wasn’t quick at all.

The only reason I didn’t go straight to bed when I got back from the quick care last night was that I hadn’t had dinner yet. And the only other thing I managed was to let Bonnie know I was sick before I crashed for the night.

Needless to say, my post did not get written. And Bonnie wasn’t able to get one done because, unlike me, she has a job and other responsibilities.

I’d rather still be asleep, but the sun is coming up and I’m somehow awake at this hour, and since there was nothing posted yet, I thought I’d at least attempt to get something written as to why I didn’t do this sooner.

Oh, and Royce has decided that whether or not he likes them, he will wear his mask at work from now on. He even said he was going to get him a hazmat suit. Though for now, he’s making full use of all the hand sanitizer Amazon has available for their employees to use. That and wearing his mask of course.

So that is my week so far.

I’m also falling back to sleep so I’m going to end this post.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

No comments:

Post a Comment