Days until 42nd birthday: 15
Days until Christmas: 20
Days until Holiday PTO starts: 13
We are now one week past Thanksgiving. I started getting Covid symptoms -- if you count the surf-and-turf, which at this point I basically have to count as the start of it -- six days ago. That means Black Friday was day zero, and I am now on day five.
I am mostly okay at this juncture. I am still fighting off some minor fatigue and still have major congestion in my head and chest, but overall I'm fine. I'd say I'm at about 80% and holding steady, with no real decline or backslide that isn't easily fixed with another dose of DayQuil or some decent sleep.
For Daisy, she started her symptoms a day after I did and is probably two or more days behind in recovery. It's still taking its toll on her, but she is indeed better than she was. Complicating matters for her is that over the weekend, Mable tripped her while she was walking down the stairs, and she fell down a few of them and bashed multiple body parts in the process -- so she is very sore and recovering from that too. She relayed today that had that not happened, she'd likely be a lot further along in recovery. The NyQuil/DayQuil combos are helping her too.
The parents...well...the parents are not doing too hot. All four of us tested positive on Sunday (I believe), at approximately the same time. Mama is still really sick and says it's the worst bout of Covid she's had, and she's had it a few times. Dad, who was already having some health issues, also tested positive but seems like he's weathering it okay for the most part. But, Dad tends to suffer quietly and isn't the type to burden anyone else with his health issues. They're both still very old and it will take its toll on them harder than on us, likely.
I did have to take off Monday -- I did not want to, but I really had no choice. I would not have been able to sit upright at my desk and concentrate all night long. I'm not concerned about the PTO hit at this juncture; nobody's said anything to me about it and my leadership was primarily concerned with my health and recovery more than anything else, so if they let it slide and don't mention it, I'm fine with it -- I am salaried anyway, it's not like it actually matters. I returned to work on Tuesday to great fanfare and well-wishes from my staff and agents. Tonight is my final night of work for the week and believe me, I am glad for that.
Daisy's sister and her second-oldest son, the disease carrier, both tested negative for Covid once they returned home after Thanksgiving (despite both of them still feeling ill). I guess they left it all here in Omaha.
Wildly enough, as I've been recovering I've been sleeping really well, even if it's a bit less than I'd like -- and that recovery and sleep has not been aided by NyQuil. I'll go to bed and will wake up feeling actually rested, actually healed a little. And then an hour after I wake up, my body realizes it's not only awake but it's still sick, and I will absolutely have to take more DayQuil to counteract it. So, yeah, this isn't completely out of my system yet -- nowhere close. I would imagine I'll probably still test positive a week from now or more. But, it's going.
However, as it slowly goes, time moves ever faster towards the holidays. Christmas is less than three weeks away. My birthday is a little more than two. And there is a lot that still needs to be done:
- Daisy has to finish up her Christmas gifts for the family -- it involves handcrafting some things. It's not something that can be done while she's sick, so she still has to wait on that.
- Most of those aforementioned things have to be mailed to those family members, from the post office, in a flat-rate box.
- I already have a flat-rate box for them packed and sealed, ready to go, to mail to those family members (so I'll have to do that too, and will have to be well enough to do that).
- I have to get for my own parents what I've been planning to get for them, order and ship it to them, and then ship another flat-rate box of stuff to them from home. I also need to be well for this, so that I'm not sending them a box of Covid-infected items.
- The final set of Christmas cards still needs to be delivered to me, and I have to address/envelope/stamp and send those out within the next week or so.
- We have to figure out if we're doing Christmas Eve church services or not with the parents.
- I have to figure out what, if anything, we're planning to do for my birthday this year.
- I have to help finalize the holiday schedule for work (even though I won't be there) because I'm basically in charge of the entire overnight crew.
- Wrap all the presents for Daisy.
- Wrap all the presents for the parents.
- Wrap all the presents for the disease carriers, who apparently will NOT be in town for Christmas.
It's a lot. I'm sure there's stuff on there I'm completely forgetting about right now that will become more apparent in the next few days or weeks.
People have already started receiving their Christmas cards for the year -- both Daisy and I have been getting responses here and there from friends and family about how much they love them. As all 60 were mailed by this past Saturday, I'm sure that most people -- aside from the Canadians on the list -- have gotten them by now.
Why would the Canadians not have theirs? Welllll....
So, that's a thing that started. Wanna guess what day I sent out all of the cards to Canada?
No idea when the Canadian family will get their cards. I'm guessing it could be into January or later depending on how the strike goes. I don't know much about the strike other than from what I've seen online, a lot of folks are on the side of the postal workers, despite the inconvenience caused to the general public.
Still, can you imagine if the whole of the USPS just up and went on strike here in the states? In less than a week people would be burning down post offices. This country would lose its goddamn mind.
Anyway.
So, I guess after tomorrow I should technically be "good" to leave the house and stop self-isolating, per health guidelines -- though I don't plan to go anywhere or do anything but rest and recover this weekend and try to knock some of those above items off my to-do list. Both Daisy and I are being intentional about trying to recover slowly and carefully, because we don't want a relapse infection. We had a relapse the first time we had Covid and were knocked flat again for about another week before we finally were able to kick it out of our systems, and we just can't afford to be down another week with this bullshit if it can possibly be avoided -- there's just no time for it. So, my weekend will hopefully consist of sleeping and resting with as much downtime as possible in order to attempt to rebuild my battered immune system.
No comments:
Post a Comment