Author: Doris

I was 100% enthusiastic about the quarantine beard until about a week ago when I decided it was like (as the song says) kissing Santa Claus. We momentarily contemplated dying the beard blue for a day before having him shave it off, but we didn’t do it because 1) we are lazy. 2) maybe his skin would turn blue and that would be awkward on Zoom calls to have a blue chin. He paused mid-shear to take a quick photo with just the ‘stache. He tweaked his back last weekend helping me lift the toilet into place when I was replacing it and then further tweaked it yesterday lifting Edda from an awkward position off the floor. He’s been in pain most of the day. No fun.

In an act of true love, I cleaned out our garbage can which was infested with maggots. This involved taking all the garbage bags out of the can, rebagging all the bags, spraying down the can whilst maggots swarmed all around, placing all the garbage back into the can, waiting for the garbage collectors to come take the garbage and recleaning the now empty trash can (with still some maggot-y maggots hanging out). This kind of thing (which disgusts Jeremy) does not bother me. Jeremy took on the making of the complex doctor appointments for Edda. Our pediatric dentist was having a hard time finding a good referral, so we got a lead to the Children’s dental department. Our ortho, who we love and did Edda’s scoliosis surgery, said that he’d be happy to consult in. On Monday, Jeremy called the appointment line and couldn’t even get in the queue to make the appointment, he called 6-7 times and the appointment line would hang up on him. Tuesday, he called and the recorded message said they only take appointments on MWF from 8:30 to 3:30. On Wed he called and waited on hold for 90 minutes and they said all the appointments for July were full, but they would start taking appointments for August starting on Friday. On Friday he called right at 8:30 and got an appointment for August 5th. Then our peds dentist also came through and got us a referral to the University of MD, so we also made an appointment there. I’d take maggot cleaning over 90 minute hold time any day.

We celebrated Kitachi’s birthday yesterday with baked ziti and Georgetown cupcakes. Thank goodness for Kitachi who is Edda’s buddy! Kitachi, who never requests specific dinners (even though we always ask), does like pasta, so I asked Jeremy to make some pasta for her. He said there was no way he could make lasagna, so I proposed baked ziti. We all loved the baked ziti (which does taste exactly like lasagne) and then after dinner, Jeremy said that he was completely converted over to baked ziti because it was so much easier to assemble than lasagna. As for the cupcakes, I ordered them yesterday (only in chocolate flavors – K’s favorite) even though I know Edda (who also loves chocolate) makes a complete mess of herself eating chocolate. No vanilla for Edda because we are just that crazy around here. I convinced Vince to go to Bethesda to pick them up. He went there and was confused and thought they were closed, but really, they had just turned off their front lights and were working in the back only fulfilling pre-orders for pickup and delivery. He semi-complained that it took him an hour to get the cupcakes and I said that it was a nice thing to do for K and really, what else is there to do?

Jeremy upgraded his indoor bike trainer this week to some fancy thing I have no idea about, but I stand there and look at it and nod and say wow! super impressive! He had put over 5,000 (10,000? who can keep track?) miles on the old trainer which gallantly done its duty. He gave me his old trainer and now I have the world’s most slapped together peloton bike set up. I have a hand-me-down trainer with a whole US-road-trip’s worth of miles on it. I have my bike which our neighbor gave us after it failed to sell at their garage sale after it had sat out in the rain for months and I have an old phone that Jeremy repurposed to control the trainer. I have a 30 day free trial for the peloton app and now I’m good to go.

Regarding antibody tests, here’s my worthless opinion – 1) assume that antibody testing is not very accurate and 2) no one has any idea how long antibodies last or how much protection they can give you. If you go in with that mentality, I think the test can give you some information. If you are negative, you are almost surely negative. If you are positive – you should think – OK, this result is 50/50 accurate and even if it is right, then you think – huh, this might go away at any time. Basically, it gives you the most information if you are negative. If it’s positive, I’d retest in 6 weeks and keep wearing the mask (of course, you should always wear a mask no matter what), but I’d feel a bit better that maybe I have some extra protection for a little while. Now, if you tested positive for an active COVID infection and then three weeks later, tested positive for antibodies, that is a pretty sure positive antibody situation. But then you should keep restesting for antibodies to see if they fade away. HAHAHAHA. Crappy testing crappy testing. We have no idea.

Jeremy: got a grant that he’s been waiting for since Feb. We celebrated by ordering food which turned out to be not very good.

Doris: ?

Vince: met with his college advisor yesterday, picked out some classes – English, Chem, Math and some intro to ChemE class (1 unit) and freshman seminar (1). California closed down again yesterday and Jeremy told me that Yolo county’s (where Vince’s school is located) ICU beds are completely full. Hmmm.

Edda: Started summer school yesterday. And we are making some progress on her teeth.

Maxi: Inadvertently ate a dollop of wasabi from our takeout dinner and then promptly puked all over the carpet.

Edda had a good weekend. A lot of time with me – watching me work 🙂

Jeremy upgraded his bike trainer in our closet. He spends a lot of time in the closet.

I replaced the main floor toilet on Sunday. I’m very proud of myself for this because I did not want to do it at all.

Vincie is weepy this week. Feeling bad and in a funk. I try to gently offer grown-up suggestions that I know he will ignore and that I would have ignored from my own parents. Such suggestions like getting back on a regular 24 hour sleep-wake cycle. Going outside for a walk everyday even if you don’t feel like it. Figure out something to work on or a goal to focus on. He kind of looks at me like I’m crazy. We all cycle in/out of moods in the house…

We are still struggling with finding the right person to look at Edda’s teeth. We have many leads, but no one wants to have a look and actually help us. One person doesn’t do emergent issues, first appointment is in late Sept. Other people don’t have hospital privileges. Other people don’t have a multidisciplinary team to help us (dental / oral / endo / ortho / maxillofacial / hospital) . I had to give Jeremy some of the follow up tasks, because I just couldn’t bring myself to check them off my list because I felt so bad. Jeremy did the calling and the emailing and I entered the weekend feeling less terrible than I did during the week and feeling like we did what we could to move forward for Edda during the week. Our pediatric dentist (bless her heart) is also working her leads trying to find the right place for us. But medical stuff is slow these days. Edda, for her part, is still eating mostly well. And in good-ish spirits. She’s still having seizures (2x this week upon waking) at we are at 75% of full-dose of the Keppra. I have a sinking feeling that we are not going to get good control of this. Maybe the seizures are milder than they would have been? Hard to say. I can see her personality dulling, but I knew that was the tradeoff. But she still laughs many times during the day.

Jeremy’s work is stressful in ways that are both obvious to anyone that has been paying any attention to workplace turmoil and also un-speak-about-able. I got free antibody testing at my work on Friday. Results were available in 3 hours! I was impressed about the turn around, I guess they are doing it in house – I wasn’t expecting that they would have that capacity. I’m negative for antibodies – which is a bummer I guess since it would have been nice to have had it and still be alive. My friend was like – I guess that PPE stuff works! I calculated I’ve taken care of about 50 COVID patients, many who were coughing. So I guess that’s good. Next up for antibody testing is Vincent who was actually sick the entire week of March 9th. He’s getting tested next Wed. UCDavis sent out an email saying they would have singles and doubles in the dorms. I want to know before we decide on the dorms – though I think we’ll put him down for a single no matter what. He’s so far from home, I want him to be able to quarantine on his own if he needs to at a moment’s notice.

My parents sent over dinner on Thursday night – including a chicken treat for Maxi.

Vince is on a reading kick. I’m kind of impressed? Vince doesn’t really read. When books were assigned in high school, he listened to the audiobook (which is still way better than Cliff Notes and/or the movie version). I think Vince has a slight undiagnosed case of dyslexia (same as his dad), so reading is a little harder for him and so he avoids it. But now he’s gone through 1984, Catcher In the Rye, Lord of the Flies, I think he’s going to read the Hobbit next. He’s capable of finishing books that he doesn’t like (CITR) which I think is a very grown up thing to do. Being a grown up is just a series of doing things you mostly don’t feel like doing at the moment you are doing it, but are pleased that it’s done in the end. I told him he needed to add some POC authors in there and that there was no way he should leave them out now and suggested some…and maybe some women too?! At least add Jane Eyre or Emma or Pride and Prejudice! He groaned.

Edda’s teeth injury appears to be more complicated than we originally thought. Maybe she broke her jaw at the point where her teeth meet her jaw and therefore, she didn’t pull out her teeth, she broke her face. We are working through finding the right team to get this fixed. She seems in good spirits – still eating well and pooping well. Generally happy, but more woozy being on seizure meds. This is us at the endodontist on Monday. Now we have to involve ortho or someone at a hospital.

I took the news of her teeth badly. It’s not fun to have the word “trauma” refer to your daughter’s face. We went back home and I sat at my desk and got that heavy, sad feeling that the world is conspiring against me (and Edda). I could not concentrate, so Jeremy took me out on a date to Whole Foods. I want to say that this was our standard date pre-pandemic anyways. We haven’t gone on a grocery shopping date in a long time. I don’t think I’ve been to Whole Foods since the pandemic started. Jeremy likes it better when I go because they won’t bag if you bring your own bags and, honestly, we were overflowing with paper bags, that we just had to go back to reusable bags and it’s easier to unload the grocery cart and then simultaneously bag with two people.

My nursing unit! There was a party to celebrate someone retiring after something like 27 years. Jeremy asked, you guys are having parties? Isn’t that not allowed now? I sighed. (I didn’t go to the party).

A new work week! Lucky to have work to do. I’m off for two weeks from the hospital because I needed a mental break. I’m hoping to fix my closet system because it’s pulling screws out from the walls. And I’m hoping to get rid of a bunch of clothes I don’t use anymore (hahaha. I hardly use clothes anymore. Just PJs and scrubs and some running clothes. That’s it.)

I think this will shed a little light on my relationship to my parents. We have not seen my parents in person since March 7th. We’ve done the grocery shopping for them early on with porch pickup (now they are shopping on their own). Do we arrange to get together for a July 4th socially distanced BBQ? No. This text below was the first in-person interaction we’ve had in 4 months… a visit to see if we could still smell cat pee in their rental property. Annnddd….the answer is yes. The cat pee is still odorous. I had a therapist once listen to all the weird issues I thought I had with my parents and then he sat back and said – I’ve listened to lots of parent/kid relationships and you know, you have a great relationship with your parents! I tilted my head and asked, I do? And he said – yes. you do. And so I’ve incorporated this into my thinking. Instead of thinking, isn’t it weird that the first visit after the great quarantine is to smell cat pee, I think – I have a great relationship with my parents. (And I know I do. My parents would do anything for me.)

We celebrated the 4th in the most patriotic way we could. By ourselves in our own house. Jeremy made lamb, we watched Hamilton on Disney +. Vince made margaritas for us. Vince said all his friends’ parents were making them watch Hamilton with them. We didn’t make Vince watch it with us, he kept us company for about 30 minutes.

For a few days there, MD was one of three states where the rate of infection was falling. Go MD! But now we are holding steady. We actually had someone float to our unit yesterday because their unit (the covid unit) had low census and our unit (non-covid) had a full census. Nice. Our little hospital treated the most number of COVID patients in the county. It’s gotta be coming back though. How can it not come back? But for now, it’s ok here. They are ending hospital “thank you” (hazard) pay on July 4th. Hogan is doing well. Jeremy mentioned our Republican gov might be the GOP guy in 2024 if he can keep the #s down in MD through this whole entire crappy disastrous thing that is the pandemic in the US.

We went to the dentist follow up for Edda on Tuesday. It was the first time Edda wore a mask. She hasn’t been outside much. I thought she would hate the mask, but she wore it just fine. It appears from X-rays (omg, I can’t believe we got an x-ray) that she didn’t damage the roots. The positioning seems OK, but they are still a little bit loose. I haven’t been brushing the two teeth that were pulled out because I didn’t want to accidentally move them again. Edda involuntarily grinds her teeth so we knew she had to move the teeth enough so that they would allow for the weird grinding that she does a lot of the day. We are going to follow up with the endodontist. She is a trooper. She’s taking the seizure meds, we are on week 2 of the up-taper, so we are at half dose. She seems sleepier which makes me unhappy. But it makes me happy that maybe she won’t hurt herself as much anymore. The endodontist called today and told me the price for the consultation ($109) and then the price for the root canal ($599 per tooth) while they were confirming the appointment on Monday. I asked – so we can do the root canal on Monday? And she said – if you want, we can do it on Monday. I said that I was not psychologically prepared to do the root canal on Monday and frankly (thought I didn’t say this) I would be surprised if the endodontist would also be psychologically prepared for a root canal on Edda on Monday. I think we’d have to be a hospital admit in order to do that.

Vince’s school is confusing me. On June 29th they sent an update on housing:

It said – we are going to de-densify the housing, you’ll be assigned a bathroom, no visitors, all the common areas will have furniture moved around to enforce social distancing (does furniture in common rooms ever stay the in the same spot? never.) and other various things. And then they reminded us that if we didn’t cancel buy July 1st, we’d not only lose the housing deposit, but we’d be on the hook for the whole fall residence hall fee.

Then they said, whoops, nvm. We’ll extend the cancellation deadline to July 10th. No one knows which classes are going to be in person (a few of them are). No one knows if they are going to be in a triple. No one really knows what is going on. Vince is like – am I going to be sitting locked in my room taking online classes with boxed sandwiches delivered to my door? I’m like – I, uuuuummm, don’t think so. Vince is like – it’s ok to not have roommates, but am I going to have floor-mates? I changed the subject – I’m asked – are all your other friends going to school? In dorms? Vince replied – Lots of people are going to full dorms. Sam’s going to be in a quad. The only people who aren’t going to go physically to their colleges are the ones going to school at community college or to college in Canada. All the Canadian schools are online. I sighed. The Canadians seem smarter than all of us in the US now. I said – at least with the late start, we’ll have about 6-8 weeks worth of college data to see how bad it’s going to be.

Thank you Wootton XC team for a helping a old lady get through her long run on Sunday:

Happy long run day.

You can run up the hill, but the team takes you up the mountain.

Say their names!

Sunday night dinner with the family:

I’m trying to do my most favorite hobby which is throwing other people’s things away. I tried to throw away all the DVDs in the house. Both boys protested. I’m like we do not have a DVD player in the house. No one has a DVD player in their house. We can download any of these things at any time. Vinced ask if he could keep them in a corner of his room so I wouldn’t be able to see them.

Edda in defiance.