Not a Wasted Word

Today was a good day. I used a snake my friend lent me and actually managed to unclog our downstairs kitchen sink, which was so stopped up that the water would stand for days. I had never managed to use a plumbing snake before, so I was VERY pleased with my successful efforts today.

My friend was able to sub for me again, which was just amazing. She covered my classes for five of my six days out. Having her in my classroom made it so, SO much easier to be absent.

My husband felt a lot better today – and even cooked two meals!

Which tasted so good! Because I can still smell and taste and I don’t take it for granted!

I worked out and felt great. I’m sure I’ll be very sore tomorrow, but it felt so good to strengthen my body after taking a week off.

My son rocked it doing some challenging third grade math, and caught some mythical epic in his Prodigy math game, which he was very happy about.

My daughter got her science project done. She painted the diagram with water colors, instead of using google drawing, which was pretty cool. Also, her friend from school dropped off her English binder so she could finish her essay by Wednesday. That was very nice of her.

Both schools confirmed that our kids can come back as soon as they get a negative test – they don’t have to wait out the remainder of the 10 day isolation. My daughter tested so lightly this afternoon that I’m fairly certain she was test negative tomorrow afternoon and be able to go to school on Wednesday. My son’s test indicates he will likely be staying home the rest of the week, which is a real bummer because he feels fine and he’s bored out of his mind and making everyone miserable.

And the best part of today was… I got a negative PCR test! Which means I get to go to work tomorrow! I don’t know if anyone has ever been as happy to go back to work as I am right now. I need to get out of my house and away from my family. And since no one can sub for me tomorrow, I need to be in my classroom! So tonight I DON’T have to write sub plans because tomorrow I will be at school! This is very, very good news.

I will, of course, being wearing a kn95 mask all week, and for the rest of the school year. Well, maybe at some point I’ll take it off, since I’m more protected now then I’ll ever be! Maybe after Memorial Day weekend I’ll take it off…

It’s been weird to retreat from the world so thoroughly. The last time we did this everyone else was doing it too. We were stuck at home, but we knew everyone else was doing the same thing we were. But isolating was so different – the rest of the world just kept doing its thing, while we sat shuttered inside. It’s going to be so weird to go to school tomorrow, knowing they were in my classroom for over a week without me. I have never missed an entire week of school, not in 18 years of teaching. It’s going to be so weird to go back.

And I’m so happy I finally can!

Well we’re still here, and we’re all still isolating.

This is my 10th day of being at home, but only my 9th official day of isolation (the day you test positive or have symptoms (for me the same day) is day 0). I tested positive again yesterday afternoon, as did both my kids. My son tested super positive, my daughter less so. They get to keep testing, and if at any point before Friday they test negative, they can go back to school. If they never test negative, they can go back on Friday.

If I never test negative, I can go back on Wednesday.

Yes, I understand there are people who don’t love that idea, but it’s the policy at my school, and it’s what I’m going to do (with a high quality kn95 on, of course).

My kids will likely miss their last week of school. They have classes on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, so it’s not like they won’t be able to say goodbye to their friends. But they are missing their last days of instruction.

This is especially difficult for my daughter, who is in middle school and had tests and projects last week and has more this week. I’m going to email the school to see what we should do. If she doesn’t go back until Friday she will not have enough time to make everything up. (There is some work she can do online, but not a lot of it, at least it hasn’t been shared with her yet.)

A bunch of kids are out with covid at my school. It’s like January levels again. It’s crazy because 90% of the kids at my school have been wearing masks – good quality kn95 masks – since the mandate was revoked in March. And yet they are still all getting it. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are getting it from school, but they are getting it somewhere, despite taking general precautions (I assume kids who wear masks at school when it’s not required are taking other precautions as well.)

It’s all over the Bay Area, and San Francisco especially. People still wear masks here pretty much all the time. That means that even if people mask in stores, and on public transportation, they are still getting it. Maybe they are also eating in restaurants or doing other things that provide more opportunities to get it, but the point is that even in a city where most people are still taking most precautions, it can spread like wild fire.

Of course, it would probably be a lot worse if people here didn’t wear mask so consistently. Who knows how many people would have it if that were the case.

I’m tired. I’m tired of writing sub plans and being stuck in my house, and being stuck with my kids. My husband finally had a fever free day yesterday, which helped take some of the pressure off. But that was day six of being sick for him! He had a fever for most of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and even some of Saturday. He definitely got hit the hardest it. It was really nice having him around yesterday to help with the kids on Sunday. I really needed a break.

I also got some of my taste and smell back yesterday. I’ve been aggressively treating my allergies – with a pill and nasal spray – for three days and I wonder if that helped bring some of my smell and taste back. I’ve heard that other issues can exacerbate the loss of taste and smell, like allergies, so I wonder… It was SO NICE to taste my food yesterday. It was still a little muted, but nothing like it had been when all I could discern was sweet, salty, bitter and sour. I really hope my senses of taste and smell stick around; losing it sucked way worse than I anticipated.

I also worked out yesterday, on the elliptical machine, and that helped bring me out of a serious emotional funk in the morning. I was feeling so bummed out, but 45 minutes of cardio definitely balanced me out a bit. Not getting any real exercise for so long has been hard. I wanted to give my body time to rest, and I think it got enough of that because I felt fine during, and after, the workout. I didn’t push really hard or anything, but enough to get some endorphins pumping. I really, really needed that, and I intend to exercise again today.

And that’s where we’re at. Still testing positive, so still stuck at home. I’m very thankful there is an eventual light at the end of this tunnel. We’ve already missed so much, I’m ready to rejoin the world.

I just hope we can see my SIL and her kids before they leave. I think we’ll need to test negative for that…

I’m supposed to be on a plane to Portland right now. I’m sad that I’m not.

My husband is still down for the count. He spent all yesterday in bed with a fever and body aches. Today will be day five of me being alone with my kids in my house, and I am over it.

I took a rapid this morning and it was still very much positive so no errands for me. Instead I will start thinking of sub plans for this coming week because I don’t see how this will be negative by Monday. My day 10 is Tuesday so I can (and will be expected to) return on Wednesday without a negative result (assuming I’m feeling better, which I already am).

If my kids keep testing positive like me they will miss most of their last week of school. I have no idea what that means for my daughter’s grades. It will certainly make them both very disappointed.

We will miss most of my husband’s sister’s visit and barely be able to see her kids. That is if she feels comfortable seeing us at all (both her kids are under 5 so not yet vaccinated).

Ugh, this is rough. I’ll ultimately be glad it happened but right now I’m feeling pretty bummed out.

Yesterday was better. My daughter felt much better, so her energy level was more on par with my son’s. We took a break from video games, but they played a ton of Prodigy (a math game) because I updated their memberships (so they can earn new stuff). Learning games for the win!

The weather was really nice, so the kids and I spent lots of time outside. I was out there from noon to 5pm! I even pulled a couple weeds and did 30 minutes of very gentle yoga out there! It was in the mid-70s which for SF is straight up our nicest warm weather. It was really nice to get “out of the house” for a while.

Today the wind is supposed to pick back up (it’s been SO WINDY for SO LONG), so we won’t be able to do as much outside, but we’ll still probably spend some time out there.

It’s 9am now and everyone is still sleeping. I wish I were too! But I can’t seem to sleep in like that anymore, and definitely not on this couch bed. Tonight I’m going back downstairs and my husband and I will just have to figure out how to sleep with each other’s coughing (I don’t cough much at all during the day now, but at night I seem to start up again).

I’m starting to think about the weekend and when to rapid test us to see if we can go back. On the one hand I don’t want to waste them testing too early, but on the other hand I’d love to know we’re in the clear and can return to school on Monday,

I have to admit, one thing I’ve appreciated about this week is the certainty of our isolation period. There has been no, “Well do you feel better enough to go back tomorrow? Or should we keep you home another day?” that usually accompanies my kids being home sick (which is usually spurred by the fact that a parent needs to keep staying home with them, and needing to know if they will be home again too!) This week we’ve all known we’ll be here for the duration, regardless of our symptoms or lack there of!

But the negative rapid test to go back is stressing me out. What if one of us doesn’t test negative? What if I don’t test negative? My sub friend is out of town and I’d have no coverage at work. My students would be on week two without me in the classroom. I know in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that big of a deal, but it’s stressful for me to imagine.

I will probably test myself tomorrow morning because I’d love to run some errands (in a heavy duty mask of course!) before the weekend. We definitely need some staples and I’d rather be out on Friday when everything is less crowded. Of course if I test positive on Friday I will stay home.

(The CDC isolation calculator doesn’t actually require, or even suggest!, that I test before going out on Friday, it just says I need to have “improved symptoms” and wear a mask when I’m around other people for another 5 days. But all our schools require a negative rapid test to return to work, which I appreciate.)

And my son is up so I’m going to post this. I hope you’re all having a good week.

My husband tested positive this morning. He felt pretty bad last night, but we waited until the morning to ensure a positive rapid. And boy was it positive! He got the strongest line of all.

He’s going to stay downstairs today, because he feels pretty awful, but also has to participate in some zoom meetings. My daughter felt pretty bad by the time she went to sleep. She’s still sleeping as I type this at 8:30am. My son still seems okay; we’ll see if his symptoms worsen today.

I noticed this morning that I can’t smell. Or taste really. I can smell really strong things like coffee, but it’s super muted. Like just a hint of it. Taste too. Like I could tell my toothpaste tasted like something, but not really what it tasted like. I heard losing your smell was less common with this variant, and yet here we are… ((shrugs))

So now we’re all stuck at home together. I suppose when we need groceries we’ll have to have them brought to us, or ask friends to grab them for us. My in-laws come home today from Texas with my SIL and her kids. We won’t be able to see them for a while, and will miss a large portion of their visit.

My kids missed really cool field trips this week, to Alcatraz (my daughter) and the Aquarium of the Bay (my son). I’m missing my trip. It’s a lot. I’m feeling kind of bummed out about it today.

I’m noticing that there are still a lot of big feelings around Covid. Some of the responses I’ve gotten have been… just a little off? I think some people still consider it a moral failing if you get it. Which I suppose is just a fear response. We’ve continued to be more cautious than most people – we always wear masks in indoor public spaces and only very rarely eat at restaurants. We did see a couple movies but each time the theater was almost empty and we kept our masks on. I think when some people who are still really afraid to get it see a family like ours go down, they need to find ways to assure themselves that we were less cautious than they are, to assure themselves they’ll be able to avoid it even though we couldn’t.

And maybe that is true. We certainly weren’t the most cautious family out there. j

But still. I have to admit, even the response here, which has been basically two people, has surprised me. I know people haven’t been commenting much here for a while (did I write something that offended everyone?), but I guess I was expecting more of a response to “oh hey my whole family has Covid!” But maybe I’m putting it out there wrong. Or people are just busy. Or it’s just truly not that big a deal anymore. I don’t know.

I want to be clear that my feelings aren’t hurt or anything, it’s just something I’ve noticed. And wondered about.

It is weird being on the other side. Yesterday afternoon we got the emails from the kids schools and it was surreal to know that MY KIDS were the ones alluded to in the “someone from your child’s class tested positive for Covid” messages. It isn’t you for so long (it hasn’t been us for over two years!) and then it is you. And it’s weird.

San Francisco has a ton of cases right now – higher than the national average by a lot. They say it’s because we mostly avoided it for so long. Even in the city it’s the well-to-do neighborhoods that have much higher numbers now, the neighborhoods where people were able to avoid getting sick back when sheltering-in-place was possible for them, and not the less economically advantaged citizens of the city.

{Our hospitalizations are not as high compared to the national average, which means that high vaccination rates do still keep hospitalizations low.}

Just like Covid is finally coming to all the places that were able to keep it away for so long, it came for San Francisco, and it came for us. It does feel like the ultimately lesson is that it’s increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to avoid it forever. It’s a sobering thought.

My kids both tested positive this morning, so we opened all the windows and cranked the air purifier up and made the big switch. Now my husband is the lone Covid negative member of our household, sheltering in the unit and the rest of us are upstairs.

{My son originally tested negative when my husband just swabbed his nose, but I tested him again swabbing his mouth and nose and that came back positive. I really do think swabbing the mouth is important with this new variant!}

It’s so weird to me that my husband – who I sleep with! – is the only one who hasn’t tested positive yet. That is crazy.

I’m glad he’s getting a day away from everyone though. He definitely needs it.

Yesterday was a doozy. Our cat, who had been explosively vomiting for a few days, vomited blood on Sunday morning. My husband then spent 4.5 hours waiting to get her into the vet, while my kids stayed upstairs alone and I listened to them on the monitor. It was… less than ideal.

$1500 later our cat is… fine? The only important info we got was that we can give her a quarter teaspoon of Miralax in wet food to help her with her constipation. I’m glad to know that, but $1500 seems like a steep price for it.

I have to say, I’m bummed my kids got this but I’m grateful they got it early in my isolation time so we can isolate together. I was worried they would test positive later in the week and we’d have staggered isolation times. Now we can all be home this week together.

So far my daughter has a stuffy nose and sore throat, and my son has a sore throat and mild cough. We’ll see where the day takes us.

Both kids are missing really cool field trips this week, my daughter to Alcatraz and my son to the Aquarium by the Bay. They are both super bummed.

It’s going to be a long week…