The idea of eating inside a restaurant or having a drink inside a bar sounds lovely. Seeing family and friends again, sounds lovely. But I have no idea how ready I am for that all.
After over a year being cautious, staying inside and avoiding the out, large crowds make me uncomfortable. I was never one for being around a ton of other people, and that aversion to crowds has grown over the last year.
He told me that my eyes were not damaged at all, which was a good thing. As high blood sugar can cause damages to the eyes and blood vessels. And that Diabetes is the third leading cause of blindness. Another sobering fact to take in.
I started noticing I had some blurry vision a few days ago. And last night, I had a late snack and was then reading in bed. After about 20 minutes or so, as I was reading, I noticed the text began to get blurry.
It was then that I drew the connection between me eating/digesting food and my blurry vision. A few quick Google searches gave me results that were not promising, and seemed to suggest Diabetes.
The woman who gave me the actual shot was all business. I did get a choice of arm (I chose my right arm, given my tendency to sleep on my left side). There was no bedside manner, no gentle prep. Liz told me she barely felt hers, but my shot was like an angry hornet. The woman jabbed my arm like she was checking the temperature of a beef tenderloin.
I’m happy to say I did got a spot, and will be getting my first shot very soon. I’m still processing what all this means, and still feel a great deal of unresolved thoughts/emotions about the last 13 months.
I had a lot of worries and concerns, in the early months of the pandemic. And I don’t think those feelings ever went away. I think I just sublimated them, or found some way to repress them. I think I found some way to eventually function, without those fears and concerns taking over.
There’s a part of me that, lately, has started to wonder about my reaction to the vaccine. I’m very eager to have it, to be in the clear. But I think that, like many, I’ve suppressed a great deal of anxiety over the last year, and pushed a lot of things down that are going to re-surface soon.
Hard to believe it’s been a year. This is a birthday thought, and also a pandemic thought. A lot has changed since then, but we remain lucky to remain employed, to be able to continue our jobs remotely, and to be comfortable in a time when so many others are struggling.
We may not be in a fancy restaurant (yet). But this is our private table, the ambience is good, the food fantastic, and the company stellar. Everything, all of it, is a gift.
We do our ordering through Instacart, and I got a notification that what I picked wasn’t available. And would I be ok with a substitute. At a glance, the substitution was really similar and I thought it was just that the breading was different. When the groceries arrived… I saw this.
While clearing the sidewalk and driveway was work, it actually felt nice and… dare I say, fun? Maybe that’s too strong – relaxing seems more appropriate. The quiet and stillness was something I really enjoyed. And being outside, after being indoors for days on end, was a nice change of pace.
It was a tough decision for us, but Liz and I decided to visit Valparaiso for a brief Christmas evening with Bob and Julie.
The COVID vaccine currently being shipped around the country—manufactured by Pfizer and BioNTech and granted an emergency use authorization on Friday—needs to be stored at -94 degrees Fahrenheit, or else important components can degrade.
[…]
Keeping millions of doses that chilly is no easy task, and necessitates what manufacturers call a “cold chain”: an infrastructure that standardizes temperature throughout every step of shipping and delivery.
“Negative emotions are various but they are similar in one dimension, which is it hurts and leads people to react, to amend, to try to counter the negative feelings. One possible way to recover – or to generate positive utility – is to seek nostalgia that reminds people of the good old days.”
I have had and seen coworkers burn out. So far, I’ve been holding pretty steady… but there’s a part of me that wonders how long until I go the same way. Liz and I have talked, briefly, about trying to come up with ways to better separate our work and personal lives. Because so far this year, we’ve not done a great job of that.
This series of animated graphics was a nice way to learn a bit more about the vaccine process, and how the next few months might look in terms of a Coronavirus cure.
“Prior to CDPH, she worked for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer. In that role, she focused on outbreak response, including international work on Ebola and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. While based at the Illinois Department of Public Health, she responded to disease outbreaks across the state.
She has a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, a master’s degree in public health from Columbia University, and completed medical school and clinical training at Yale University.”