COVID and Me by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

If you haven’t heard already, I have COVID. Or at least I am still COVID positive. I feel fine. In fact, I am starting to feel like my old self, even if I am still in isolation because I haven’t as yet received a negative result when tested.

So, the timeline for all this is that on the evening of June 29^th, I had heartburn so bad I was coughing. On the morning of June 30^th, I considered calling in sick because I was coughing so much, but by the time I needed to leave for work, I had everything in control, and I figured it was fine.

Wrong!

By the end of my shift, I went home and took some cough syrup. By Friday morning, July 1^st, I knew I was sick. I had to call my friend at the visitors’ center and tell her I couldn’t make it. By Saturday morning, my oxygen levels were dropping and temp rising.

Now keep in mind this was a holiday weekend. I did try to contact some friends for help, but all I got was voice mail. I finally decided to drive myself to the emergency room.

I let the staff know what I did know about my condition, from my oxygen levels and temp to the fact that I was coughing up phlegm. (Having a nurse for a stepmother, I know that anything other than clear spelled a problem.)

I had hoped at this point, that it was just a chest cold, after all, I got all the vaccines and I’d been COVID-free all this time. At one point, Konnie panicked because for a while there my humble little hometown was the hotbed of COVID activity in the area.

I kept reassuring her that all my friends avoided me when they were sick. They are fully aware I’m high risk. My age, my heart condition, and my asthma individually put me there. To be honest, I’m lucky I’ve lasted this long. I have a friend who has suffered through three different variants.

So, I took myself to the hospital, tested positive, and was admitted.

Great. I have a cat. A cat that needed to be fed. And I hadn’t as yet managed to contact anyone for assistance.

Then there was the problem of informing my two closest family members, both of whom tend to panic. Konnie is at least sensible enough that I could call her directly and let her know. Her panic was mild in comparison to my sister-in-law. I knew I couldn’t call her. I called our shared home health aide.

Bre is a good kid, and very nice. She told Shirley, and she also retrieved my spare keys from my neighbor and fed Patches, on her own time mind you. Great kid actually, because tending my cat is something she isn’t supposed to do. But she wasn’t on the clock, and she volunteered.

She also managed to calm Shirley down which is the best part of contacting her.

The worst part was because of all the vulnerable clients she has, she can’t come back here until I’m COVID negative.

It didn’t help any all this happened just days before my 60^th birthday. Okay, yeah, mine and Konnie’s. The difference being, even if she were COVID positive at that time (which she wasn’t), she’d still have been at home with most of her family for company.

I, on the other, have Patches.

I’ve had some pretty bad birthdays over the years, but I’d have to say this one was the worst. I was miserable. I was still miserable a week later.

I kept trying to get back to work, but all my test kept coming back positive. I retest this Friday yet again, and I hope I’ll finally be negative since I finally feel like my old self.

But at this point, I’ve missed a ton of work.

And the missed pay aside, I couldn’t have fallen sick at a worse time, right when quarterly reports are due. My boss had been looking forward to getting them done promptly for once now that she had me to help. Best laid plans and all. Life can throw some curveballs.

She on the other hand worried about me missing pay more than how far she was getting behind without me to help.

Last Friday, she decided to look into the possibility of me working from home. It took some doing and talking with her higher-ups, let alone setting up my computer with the right program but yesterday we finally got me set up to work from home. Hopefully, it will just be for this week.

Anyway, I now have plenty of fodder for a pandemic story.

Happy writing everyone!

Appologies by Konnie Enos

 

I'm sorry, but I've been unable to write a post this week because I'm not feeling well (possibly COVID again since I was exposed in the last week or so). This also means that all the homework assignments I should have gotten done yesterday, and are due today, haven't been done yet. So, instead of writing something here, I'm writing my assignments. Hopefully, I'll feel better by next week. 

Nano and Covid by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Nano (National Novel Writers Month) is finally here, and I finally have a brand-new computer! Yeah!

And I’m sure Konnie is cheering too. I can post this week for a change.

I can also access my notes and get to work on my Nano writing, which is even better. I have been stir-crazy this last week or so because I couldn’t so much as edit my sci-fi let alone prepare for Nano.

I might have been able to work on something, if I had hardcopy notes, but guess what, I didn’t. It’s way easier to type than to write longhand.

I’m so glad I finally have my new computer.

I just wish we could gather in person! I’m tired of only meeting on Zoom.

In-person is a lot more fun, but I guess I can put up with one more year of keeping my distance. After all, I do know Covid is real. I’ve lost family to it. The most recent was a week ago when an uncle of ours, and his wife both died of Covid.

Konnie called to let me know while I was shall we say, “otherwise occupied.”

When I noticed I missed a call from her, I called her and asked her why she was calling me so early in the morning.

Honestly, I should have realized it wasn’t good news.

Because of that call, I was running late for work, and then when I was finally on the road, I looked ahead to see a train blocking my path. For nearly a year I was working at DI (Deseret Industries) and I crossed those tracks every working day of that time both going to work and returning home. Never had I seen a train in all that time and now on the day I was running late, there’s a train!

I was thinking I’d have to call in and let them know how close I was (Close as in about a block away on the wrong side of the tracks.) and why I was going to be late when the train finally came to an end.

And the only reason I managed to clock in on time is that they give you a three-minute leeway. It was precisely 10:03 when I finally clocked in. My usual is to be three minutes early.

Not a good start.

At one point during the day, one of the other supervisors came into the area where I worked, and he didn’t seem all that happy, so I asked him how he was. He answered he was fine, then asked me how I was.

I let him know I wasn’t having a good day and even mentioned my uncle and aunt who had died the night before.

The supervisor immediately asked if they were from Pocatello, which they were, and he asked because a couple in the ward of one of the other supervisors had died of Covid the day before, just like my relatives.

Well, I have seen them on occasion, but I’ve never been to their place, I didn’t know what part of town they lived in. He asked me their names and went to find out who the other supervisor had lost.

Turns out, it was my uncle and aunt.

The other supervisor came by asking how I was related and asking about their kids and if they had grandkids, and I hadn’t seen the kids with spouses or children when I last saw them at our older aunt’s funeral.

But it gets worse, my supervisor came up to me after hearing about my loss and said, “He didn’t seem that old to me.”

Yeah, she knew him.

So, I spent most of the day talking to the bosses about my uncle and his wife, and about the fact that he was only five when Konnie and I were born.

Though this time it didn’t come up that he went to school with my husband, a fact which someone once remarked, “I thought he was quite a bit older than you.”

Excuse me? I’ve seen larger age gaps, so not even four years doesn’t seem all that much to me. I know couples who had ten or more years of age gaps. Starting with our father, whose second wife was ten years younger than him, and ten years older than Konnie and me.

And now I need to get going on my writing my Nano project! Are you doing Nano? What is your project? Mine is a romance, again. My usual.

Look me up on the Nano site. I am FaithfullSpirit2 on there.

Happy writing everyone and good luck with Nano!