Covid Diary #979 - Still Paying Attention?

11/17/2022

Yes, it’s been 979 days since Friday the 13th, March 2020, when everything changed.

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Last Saturday one of our kids visited for several hours with their kids. It was fun though our kid looked tired. They said they’d taken a Covid test that morning and it was negative. They figured it was the wine and rich foods they’d shared the evening before with friends at the end of a very busy week.

Next morning, we were driving the sleepover grandchild back to their house when our kid called and said the Covid test that morning was positive and they were super sorry they had exposed us.

We cancelled things we had planned to do this week with friends. Three hours of close contact, several hugs, sitting two feet away at a chatty dinner – no way we would miss Covid this time around. I looked up the CDC site for quarantine guidelines. When exposed, quarantine for 10 days and/or wear a an N95 mask and don’t take it off.

We are on day #5. We don’t have Covid and I’m almost embarrassed because I ruined some really sweet plans for myself and others.

However, I do have a cold! My nose is so clogged it feels as if it’s been tuck-pointed and I have sneezes so profound they send cats flying. No fever though and I don’t feel run down or very sick. I just definitely have the cold Len had last week.

So even though I didn’t (apparently, there are days to go in this quarantining) save my friends from Covid, I did save them from this dumb cold.

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I looked up “What happens when soldiers get sick right before a battle?” and discovered this interesting theory. It’s likely that General Robert E Lee was leading his army at Gettysburg while still affected by a heart attack he probably had that spring.

In March 1863, Lee suffered “a sudden onset pain in his chest, back, and arms. It affected his ability to ride a horse and he was known to have become anxious and depressed, both common conditions after heart attacks. It is proposed that “his heart disease may have affected his judgement which would explain some of the decisions he ordered that day, namely Pickett’s Charge. As the NIH diagnosis says, the loss at Gettysburg didn’t break Lee’s heart, it was broken when he got there.”  Read the article here. 

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Do you find yourself casually referring to “before Covid” or “when Covid was new” or “I can’t remember how many vaccines and boosters I’ve had, I just know I got all of ‘em.”

It’s still weird, isn’t it? We KNOW this disease is everywhere yet we are going back out to shop and do activities. We know we can still get Covid, or get it again, though with precautions and shots it probably won’t kill us. Probably.

Also, if we are related to people with weakened immune systems (who isn’t?) then we need to think on their behalf as well as our own. Though from what one reads, there are plenty who think acting on behalf of others is a snowflake choice.

But – everyone is out and about. How bad can it be?

No clear answers.

What are you doing? Masking? Not thinking about it?