So I’m testing negative this morning. I still feel a glob of phlegm in the back of my nose/top of my throat. It’s not very mobile, it’s quite sticky, so I’m trying to drink water to loosen it up. If you hold this test up to the light, there is ever so slight of a line – but I’m taking this as not being very contagious which is good because we are done with our spring break – it’s back to work and school now. Edda has a bunch of appointments this week.
Jeremy is having a terrible time. Each time he has a viral infection and it resolves, then he’s hit with a course of hives. This one is pretty bad, he’s been waking up in the middle of the night with itchy/swollen hands. His face is swollen, there are hives all over his body. He’s gone through Benadryl, Claritin and now Allegra. I think Benadryl works the best, but it just knocks him out and he doesn’t like that. This is going to be more than 2 weeks of feeling bad for Jeremy. Poor guy. I think as he gets older, this weird reaction is getting worse.
Jeremy tested negative (finally) last night. I’m still testing positive today – honestly, I’m a bit bummed…if I use Jeremy’s timeline for myself, I won’t test negative until the 22nd. Maryland freed me from isolation on the 14th or so – but I still felt pretty sick then – that might have been the worst day. I feel good physically, I worked most of the day on Friday – though kind of slowly. No running yet for me. I will be well just in time to go back to the hospital for a shift. I know, I know – lots of people have lots of big issues and these are small issues compared to those, but we missed spring break, we are going to miss family Eastover dinner. We are both going to lose 2 weeks worth of training for our big races and it’s not just losing the training, but we’ve both detrained a lot. oh well. What is there to do? Honestly, I’m most happy that it seems that Bob and Kiki did not catch it from us for their one overnight stay. And our vacation rental was used the whole time by people we love.
The week was not an entire wash. I managed to correspond with our estate lawyer to make progress on our will (this has taken over a year because we are lame and who wants to think about death? no one.). We filed for guardianship for Edda this week with the Circuit Court. I got an appointment with the Social Security office in a couple of weeks (this involved 2 hours on the phone, mostly waiting). I’m grateful all these offices are less than 3 miles from the house. Edda has a new (old) iPhone, new iPad (birthday), new email address, new phone number. For this modern age, Edda needs all those for accounts, logins, etc. I cleared off a desk of old paperwork/bills and I managed to quilt a bit.
This is the scene from my spot in the bed. That TV was Vickey’s she bought 17 years ago for some enormous sum of money and she gave it to me when she upgraded many years ago. It bit the dust sometime last week and when I told Vickey – she said that the salesman said it would last at least 5 years, so it outlived his estimate by a long, long time. We don’t watch TV a lot (Edda is the main TV watcher in the family), but we do usually watch a single youtube video at about 9:00 pm (see the time? I’m missing a working TV right now) for about 15-20 minutes. Usually something silly, a cooking one or a travel one or a woodworking one or an animal one. But it’s when we’ve both put away our phones and discuss a little fun thing to watch. When Vince is at home, we often invite him over to crawl into the bed and choose with us – meaning he gets to decide and introduce us to some weird kid thing. At first, we weren’t going to replace the TV because I didn’t want to spend the $ for 15 minutes everyday. We were like – we can watch on a laptop – or one of our phones. But I missed it each night. So we are going to buy a TV for that spot and say goodbye to Vickey’s old TV (I did ask Vickey if she was ready to upgrade her TVs right now again (she has good taste in TVs) and she said – no, I’m good. lol.)
Jeremy is feeling well enough to do some light workouts. This is what his test looked like today.
I spent most of yesterday resting and sleeping and I feel pretty good today. This is my test result this morning (disregard the dirty rug pls):
Someone asked if I was sicker getting Covid or sicker from the vaccine. For Jeremy, no question, was sicker from getting Covid. For me, it might be a toss up – I think the reaction from the shot was stronger, but was shorter. This illness will take a week for me to recover from. Eh, I think I’m sicker from Covid than from the vaccine. Anyways, I couldn’t get anyone else sick from the vaccine and this whole week I could have gotten someone sick which makes me feel bad. lI have mixed feelings about getting covid now. I feel a little disappointed because I managed to avoid it for so long – to get it now when the numbers are so low, I feel like I failed a bit. But I’m also a bit relieved because I know I got the most current variant and now have hybrid immunity, I should be protected for a bit until the next variant – which I estimate is 6-8 months. No need to get the 2nd booster.
So I’m still sick. Everyday, we get up and we each do a rapid test. We are going through them rapidly (lol). Today Jeremy is almost negative. I’m still pretty strongly positive. I’m sick, but I’m not as sick as Jeremy was last week. I think somehow, this has changed my idea of what I should work through and what I should rest through. In before times, I would have doggedly gone through my days and worked full days at my present level of sickness and just felt “worn out”, but this week – kind of because I had already thought this was my spring break week and somehow because I have a test that gives me a clear purple line that says – hey dude, you are sick! – I did take the time off as sick time and I’m mostly trying to rest. I look back and think, why did I drag myself to work so many times not feeling well? I don’t know. There were whole semesters in college where I had colds that seemed to last for weeks which now I think was due to scrimping on sleep and that I wasn’t eating well and because I was so overworked, I just couldn’t kick the cold. Anyways, this covid will take a full week to get out of my system, I can tell it’s a sticky one, I’ve have had pretty much the same level of sickness for three days now. I hope it doesn’t turn into a long covid thing. I am doing small things, attending some work meetings where I have to only be there, I’m working on estate planning and bills, etc. But only at a lowish, slow level.
I feel very well taken care of, Jeremy is minding Edda (who is laughing and very happy and very negative) and he’s cooking me my meals. I’ve had people offer to get me food. Vickey send me a fruit bouquet which I was very surprised and excited to receive.
It’s wonderful that I don’t have to isolate from Jeremy, only from Edda. So he makes a delicious dinner and feeds Edda first and then settles her next to the tv and we eat dinner outside.
I’ve been able to give Jeremy a haircut.
Vince called yesterday and said – hey mom. And I smiled and said kind of pitifully, I have the ‘rona. And he said – I know, I’m sorry, I hope you feel better soon. I told him to wear his mask more and get tested himself and he may have kind of rolled his eyes. He’s having a good time. He hosted a dinner party last weekend. He’s planning on going to the beach next weekend.
He made sheet pan pizza for his friends which he says was super delicious. We talked about how expensive groceries were and how to host parties on a budget.
He looks and is happy. I can kind of see in him bits of myself, but also he is entirely his own person, figuring it out like the rest of us.
So…because Jeremy was positive and Edda and I were both negative (PCR tested), we decided to do this week’s spring break trip without Jeremy. We were going to go to Asheville with Jeremy’s parents, their friends from NYC and our downstairs tenants and friends Ning, Brian and Noah. I rapid tested on Sunday morning – negative, so Jeremy’s parents came down for the night while Jeremy stayed hidden away and we were going to drive down today.
But! I tested positive this morning about 30 minutes before we were to leave. Waa, waa, waa, waaaahhh. Oh well. We sent Bob and Katherine on their own. Their friends are flying in from NYC. Ning and Brian are already halfway to Asheville visiting family this past weekend.
Jeremy did get quite sick from Covid this past week – with relatively high fevers and not feeling good. But I feel almost fine. Like 95-98 %. I’ve had a tickle in my throat since Sat night and a very intermittent cough/sneeze. I ran 8 miles yesterday (when I tested negative) with the same symptoms I have today. I hope I did not get Jeremy’s parents sick – I masked and stayed away from them for the few hours we were together yesterday. They got their 2nd boosters last week. We made it more than 2 years without getting sick – neither of us have gotten our 2nd boosters, though now there might not need to be a need.
Anyways, I’m in isolation now, and Jeremy is minding Edda. I took care of Edda all last week, I’m hoping I didn’t give it to her. I was pretty good about masking around her and taking turns eating so I was always masked feeding her. I think Jeremy is happy to have access to the kitchen again.
But he’s still super positive on the rapid tests. This brings up issues. How long do I keep him locked in the guest room? He’s getting antsy in there. MD texted him and said that he is FREE to end isolation. He still has a bit of a cough/congestion.
Jeremy is still sick – running a fever. Poor guy, I went out to buy him some sorbet and chicken noodle soup.
Vince has been calling less which I take as a good sign – he’s having fun at school and is busy. He called last night and this morning to catch me up on quantum mechanics and things he’s working on. He’s busy! Not in his apartment much. All good things.
I won’t bury the lede – Jeremy has covid. Felt bad Monday night and then Tuesday morning (who knew these things worked?! lol).
He’s fine – mild symptoms. Body aches, headache, low fever, congestion. It all responds well to Motrin and he sends me pictures of his pulse ox. Ever since the known exposure on Sunday night, we’ve been masking around each other and sleeping in different rooms. And once we got the positive result, we moved Jeremy and his work computer into the guest room where he remains this morning hanging out by himself and a bunch of squishmallows. I would say he’s bored. He’s intermittently sleeping/working.
I’m fine. I feel good. I’m negative. But, you know, every tickle-y thing in your throat, every itch in your nose, makes one feel like – omg, I’m getting sick. Edda seems fine too. She’s going to school. But we cancelled anything in the house – childcare, dinners, etc.
We are having the water main on our street replaced, so they ran these bypass pipes along the side of the street and ran garden hoses to the houses for water. Someone ran into one of the connecting spigots last night and created a geyser which flooded the street. We are a lot of fun here.
Friday night, we hosted a surprise birthday part for Mike! It was all Sofie’s idea – she made the guest list and asked me to invited people I did not know and she told me the cake flavor (german chocolate). So we all got there at about 6pm and then waited for Sofie to get Mike and we did manage a surprised Mike :). Lots of fun. I did make the german chocolate cake and I think it turned out great – one of my own lifetime baking highlights.
Sofie told me (rather emphatically) that I should buy Mike some Smartwool socks which I did, but then other party goers had asked me earlier in the week what to buy Mike – and I told them said that Sofie told me to buy Smartwool socks and (I did not know this), they went out to buy socks as well. So it was really funny that all he got for his birthday was socks from different people.
We then, on Saturday, we drove to St Andrew’s in Delaware to visit Dan, Jeremy’s friend from college and bike coach/consultant. Eliana took care of Edda for one night and we went on a date! It’s been a long time since we’ve been on an overnight date.
The boys went biking, I went canoeing and running.
We did have a nice time, but we’ve been managing/figuring out COVID stuff. Edda did get sent home last Wed for a fever of 100. But the school doesn’t have accurate thermometers (!?) so they were kind of guessing. I took her home – she never measured a fever all day, but she did sound ever so slightly off. And when I say not a fever, I got 98.9 which isn’t a fever, but I know is warm. Usually people measure in the 97s. She had a dr appointment on Thursday in the am for an annual physical/guardianship paperwork and measured a fine normal temp through all the temp checks, but she still sounded off. So I kept her at home on Thursday. On Thursday night, she had a slightly elevated temp of 99.0 (which normally, I don’t count as a fever at the hospital – the cutoff is 99.4) – so I decided to keep her home on Friday. At this time, I’m trying to rescue the surprise party on Friday – I had people coming in from Pennsylvania and we couldn’t postpone until next week as it’s spring break and we are all scattering – we were home testing her for COVID, everything was negative. She had a PCR test on Tuesday one day before symptoms and was negative. On Friday – she was fine, no fever, sounded great. So the party went on. And we went to Delaware on Saturday. We arrived and Quinn had a slight cough, but had tested that morning and was negative. We had a great time, eating/laughing at their cat antics, canoeing, getting phones that had fallen into a river and then on Sunday, Quinn was feeling bad enough to stay in bed. Dan told us just that morning, there was a small outbreak of 5 positive cases at the school and by the time we got home, we got a call that she was positive for covid. So then last night – we abruptly left DC Martin Sunday night dinner in mid-dinner and we slept in separate bedrooms and are masking around the house. We’ll know in 2-3 days if we got it.
Ah, the week has been going by too quickly. Vince had a nice spring break last week – he fermented things – kombucha and kimchi. I think he also slept a lot. Now he’s a week into the spring quarter – it’s a big one – with quantum mechanics. I mentioned that I had never taken quantum before and he asked if I went to college before quantum mechanics was discovered (!) – like in the 1980s. I laughed and said I said that I did not go to college in the 80s, it was the 90s and then Jeremy piped up and said that he went to college in the 80s- and yes, it had been discovered already – but it was not a required class for my major. Jeremy, unfortunately, got to take quantum at Caltech. ooooooff. that, I assume, was not fun.
V’s kimchi.
I had always assumed that the glass on the outside layer of our staircase chandelier was frosted. Turns out – no – it’s just insanely dirty. I spent about 4 days cleaning it about 5 minutes at a time standing on a ladder and using sticks with washcloths draped over the end. I’ve decided that it’s not that I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. I’m just on “sabbatical”. My goals for the next year or so are two things: get all the adult paperwork done for Edda & train for this fall marathon. Otherwise, I get to spend my time cleaning chandeliers.
Also, on my sabbatical, I get to watch construction going on directly across the street. At first, I assumed that this was in conjunction with the city replacing the water main on our street, but it’s not! Our neighbor has a leak on the house side of the meter which indicates that he’s using thousands of gallons of water, so he’s trying to fix it which involves a lot of digging.
