It’s difficult to fathom and remember that only a few years ago, just three years ago, many of us were hoping for a vaccine. Hoping for some kind of shot.
It feels far away, but I can still sense the fear and hope that permeated my days, back then. And how excited I was, at the prospect of a shot/vaccine that could bring us back to some sense of normalcy.
I’ve been pulling items off the pantry shelf, whenever I go into the kitchen. And smelling things like coffee beans, trying to sense if I can pick up any aroma at all. Sometimes it’s nothing, sometimes I think I catch a whiff of something. But it’s hard to tell if it’s an actual smell I’m able to detect, or if it’s the memory of a smell.
Ah, dang.
This year though, with Liz getting Covid (for the first time), and me starting not to feel great… we were trying to see if our situations improved before Christmas rolled around.
We’ve been working out the math, trying to figure out whether Liz is still in the infectious stage. How many days has she been sick, how many days have I been sick. And so on.
My cough has gotten more frequent/annoying, but not necessarily worse. It seems unlikely that I somehow dodged Covid, being next to and around Liz these last few days. But, so far so good.
Liz has been feeling under the weather since Friday. A few days ago, before our return to Chicago, Liz took a Covid test and was negative.
Tonight though, with her symptoms increasing in strength… she took another test, and came up positive.
I know we’re supposed to think of these Covid vaccine as an annual thing, as common and as innocuous as the annual flu shots. But there’s a part of me that still hasn’t felt like we’ve left the pandemic phase (even though I go about my life with this understanding).
Liz and I were out today, with the intention of getting our Flu and Covid shots. Well, I was the one who was thinking I’d get both at once… but Liz convinced me that probably wasn’t the best idea.
Right now, I’ve become more wary about going out. I know I’ve been fairly cavalier about going out to bars and restaurants, but the feeling I get now is that it’ll be better to avoid public spaces this winter. At least, until things settle down a bit more.
I’m not convinced things will be fine, and have a growing worry that things will get worse. But I’m predisposed to that. The worry. So I guess we’ll just see.
There was a very big shift that happened in March of that year. And I guess this small Metra pass is a tangible representation of that particular time. The pass has long expired, of course. But I think I’ll likely hold onto it, regardless. It still has some small bit of value to me, even after all this time.
After work today, I was running a bunch of errands. And on the list: stop in at a Northwestern Immediate Care, to get the Bivalent Booster shot.
Weird day for me today. I’ve been fully remote since March of 2020, and since that time… I’ve not been back to the office.
We’ve had some messages from work, encouraging people to come back. But I’ve still been very… apprehensive. I’ve still opted to remain home, and to work remotely.
I no longer feel like I have the ability or the tools to adequately gauge my risk of contracting Covid.
“Put simply, if you test positive on a rapid test, you almost certainly have Covid-19. If you test negative, in some cases, you might still test positive on a PCR test, which is much more sensitive because it tests for genetic evidence of the virus.”
After a quick huddle, Liz and I figured it would be best if we headed back to Chicago. As much as we wanted to stay, there were a few risks involved. While our contact with Jasmine was limited, we were somewhat close (I did get to give her a hug at one point).
So whether we got it or not remains a question. We could remain in Indy a bit longer, but staying potentially increased our chances of contracting Covid.
Another risk: if we developed symptoms or started to get sick, Stacey potentially would need to them take care of us and/or we’d be unable to make it back to Chicago until we recovered. And in terms of self-isolating, we’d all end up having to restart the clock based on the last person to exhibit symptoms.