2024, Family, Health, home, Mysteries, TV

Verily’s Pity Party

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The last time I said “I think I’m the only person left in America who hasn’t had covid” I should have knocked on wood.

Went to a party on a Saturday night 10 days ago and had a great time, met up with some current and former neighbors for a 70th birthday celebration for a friend.  Good food, drink, company.  Had a wonderful time.

On Tuesday morning as I was starting to get ready to go to the art museum, one of my Saturday night friends texted a group of us saying that she had covid and was pretty sick.  Even though I felt fine I thought it would be the responsible thing to do to test before I went on a tour at the museum.  And there it was… a big pink “T” line.  I’ve taken a lot of tests since the beginning of pandemic and I’ve never gotten the “T” line before.  Shocking.  The good news is that I am still asymptomatic so all those jabs did pay off.

The bad news is that I’m feeling sorry for myself – although I’m not sure why.  Except for cancelling my museum tour with my friend at the last minute, I haven’t really done anything differently the last week.  Thank goodness for the Target pick-up, the Aldis pick-up, the post office drive through and the library drop box.  I did send YA to the library to pick up a book for me on Friday so I wouldn’t have to go in.  YA is avoiding me like… dare I say “the plague” and seems fine so far.  I’ve done stuff around the house, read a lot, worked in my studio, labored on a 1000-piece jigsaw of a dragon in a “dragon forge cave” (it’s a doozy) and binge-watched the Colombo marathon on Sunday.  I’m not sure why I’m feeling weird about this… but it does feel like the first couple of weeks of pandemic when I remember feeling trapped in the house.

As of yesterday, still positive but the “T” line was very faint so I expect in the next 48 hours I’ll be clear and free to break out and roam the neighborhood again.  I’ll have to shut the pity party down.

Ridiculous, right?

16 thoughts on “Verily’s Pity Party”

  1. The CDC says that asymptomatic Covid sufferers should isolate for at least five days after the first positive test. You can continue to test positive for weeks but you will no longer be contagious.

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  2. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    Not ridiculous. COVID is a weird disease that disrupted my life, and the life of all of us on the planet a lot. I am still not over the whole thing. It so disrupted my recovery from my knee and hip replacement that I lost physical stamina. Now I am in physical therapy (again) just to regain stamina so I can travel again. Poor everyone.

    My great aunts used to tell us a story about the 1918 Swine Flu that affected their family of 11 so much. Their father had already died at a young age and their mom was on her own to run the family farm with the assistance of Roy, the oldest son. Uncle Willie,son #2, was away serving in WWI, and returned home to Iowa with a case of “the nerves” (PTSD). My grandmother was teaching in a country school. Uncle Roy would load up the wagon on Fridays and go fetch her from the school or home in which she stayed during the week and bring her home, then return her to the next family’s home on Sunday evening. They followed this routine on a Sunday evening, but he did not feel well on the trip back to the farm. He was very ill by the next morning with Swine Flu and died during the week. 

    The family had to move to town because there was no man to handle the heavy work of caring for horses. Uncle Willie arrived back home from the war, unable to handle the stress of the farm. When my grandmother found out she never got over it, feeling it was her fault, according to my aunts, that Roy died and they all had to move. These aunts are the ones who would tour the Nevada (Iowa) Cemetery, decorating graves while telling us stories of their family. But when we would come to Uncle Roy’s grave, they would not leave a posey of flowers saying, “Well, we have to stop somewhere.” They were still mad at him for dying so inconveniently.

    These little germs pack big emotions when they travel world-wide and disrupt everything. Not ridiculous.

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  3. You may still be “grieving” the loss of the story you had going – that you were the one person who wasn’t going to get this…

    One of our board members keeps getting it – just got over another bout. The mantra now is ”we all know someone with Covid.” Our Frozen River Film Festival has just started – I think we’ll attend the online version this time.

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  4. I have managed to elude Covid, as far as I know. There currently is a rather virulent non-covid respiratory virus among the staff at my agency that I am waiting to catch as everyone seems to be hacking and coughing all around me at meetings.

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  5. I managed to avoid Covid for just over three years. The day after returning from an Alaskan trip last July, I received an email from one of my fellow travelers who said she had just tested positive. I had no symptoms but tested any way and was surprised to see the faint pink line. I canceled a couple of planned activities and quarantined for the required 5 days. I never did develop symptoms (thank you, vaccinations). On my upcoming trip (leave this coming Sunday!) I do plan to wear a mask for the lengthy flights.

    Ankle update: I have been out of the boot since 1/27 and just wear a brace when out and about. I am really glad to be back behind the wheel of my car. The ankle is still quite stiff – especially flexion, but I can walk without using a cane. It will take time before I can walk at my usual fast pace. I’ve had 3 PT sessions and 1 acupuncture session so far with 2 more PTs and 1 more acupuncture before my trip. I am beyond thrilled that I don’t need to bring the boot – the last thing my ankle needs is to be immobilized again. Some swelling is still present – with the brace I have one pair of tennis type hiking shoes and one pair of Easy Spirit clogs that fit over it. So those will travel with me along with the cane (just in case….).

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  6. I have gotten COVID twice – both at inconvenient times (first time lined up with Daughter’s grad open house – though I don’t think I passed it on to anyone it meant I missed her orientatiaon, second time was right before I was supposed to go to visit her at college last fall…). Both times I had a fine pity part for myself even though symptoms were mild (especially the second time – I have had colds that felt worse), especially because it meant I couldn’t do things I felt I should be there for with Daughter. Any sore throat, any sinus headache means I test – I don’t want to be responsible for passing it on to my 89 year old mother, who has yet to have it. Heck, when I did some traveling in December, I tried to isolate for a couple of days just to be sure I hadn’t picked up something at the airport or while traveling… I will be traveling for work in a couple of weeks. Hoping jabs and prior infections will keep me seeing a single linen on my tests post-travel.

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  7. Pity party update. Confirmed the whole “5-day quarantine after first testing positive” on the CDC site. Since it’s been 8 days, I took myself out today! Short trip to Aldi’s and the co-op and then got Burger King at the drive through! Impossible burger and fries. My outlook on life has much improved@

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  8. I am feeling sorry for myself tonight because the 4-6 inches of snow they promised me has diminished to rain and ice. I wanted a snow day at home.

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  9. During the early days of the pandemic, a lot of people felt confined when there were a lot of businesses shut down, because they couldn’t go out to bars and restaurants and social events. I heard some political types rant on TV about being under “house arrest”. I didn’t have that feeling – quite the opposite, in fact. Although there were places I wasn’t allowed to go, I freely wandered about in public spaces like Lilydale Regional Park, where I took on a personal mission to combat invasive garlic mustard; in cemeteries where I sought out gravesites of people on my family tree; in my own neighborhood where I took notice of the comings and going of people and their pets; and in my own yard, where I nurtured a nest of wrens while they fledged. Forme,it was a time of feeling liberated.

    I was struck by a passage in Louise Erdrich’s book <i>The Sentence</i>, where Tookie comments that she feels the quiet world of the early pandemic was the world she had been waiting for.

    Go out, see the sights, just wear a mask and don’t breathe on anyone till you’re in the clear.

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  10. I still have not had Covid. I have a healthy respect for viruses. So much is unknown about Covid. No one knows if it’s like other viruses that come back to haunt you years later. I’ve gotten all the vaccinations I am eligible for.

    I’m worried about getting it for the first time on our trip to Ireland in April. I plan to wear a mask on the flights.

    I hope you feel better soon. Take this time to rest!

    ~Krista

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