McKeegan COVID Chronicles Day 4

• Ladies and Gentlemen, and Everyone in Between, COVID19 is in the House!
• McKeegan COVID Chronicles Day 2
• McKeegan COVID Chronicles Day 3

McKeegan COVID Chronicles Day 4 Monday

I want to keep this post manageable, so I’ll save Big Kitty tales for another day, but I wanted to tell you he’s curled up on my feet which are shoved under the covers, under the bed tray my Chromebook sits on. He has a solid streak of Siamese in him, so you can imagine the things I hear about.

He has a small crusty on the tip of his ear that he doesn’t want me to touch. I suspect he had a scuffle with the new white fluffy female feline across the street (try saying that out loud in a hurry, I dare you). I hope she’s okay.

I don’t like living with COVID in the house. Just had to say it.

Sick Kid #1 Symptom Report (yes, he has the new title #1 because guess what? There’s a Sick Kid #2 now):

• low fever
• occasional gunky cough
• occasional sneeze
• sinus congestion
• still looks sick and most definitely did not like getting woke up by my rattling around before noon

It’s Day 4 for him and his fever seemed consistently lower the past 24 hours. I am not worried about him anymore.

Sick Kid #2 (Day 1!) Sick Kid #1’s twin brother woke up with a sore throat. By the way, it was noon cuz no school – oops, I mean Independent Study – means teenager hours around here.

The throat discomfort was mild enough that he said, “Maybe it’s just cuz I was sleeping with my mouth open.” Nah. Here’s why (you know I went straight for the thermometer):

Then there was the sneeze. And the tickly nose which seemed to be a tad runny.

I had the strangest feeling when I saw his temperature. I actually got a little giddy. I welcomed him to the Chronicles like he’d just won a trip to Hawaii and he was taking me. I was smiling! What the hell was wrong with me?

I had to think about that. Why was I happy with a touch of crazy at this point in time? My kid probably just started his rude intruder immune system battle. I should have been scared. I should have been worried.

It took a while but I figured it out. The very first feeling I had was relief. It was the feeling of “finally the tension of waiting is released and now we can get on with it.”

The second thing I thought was that I could finally bring him to these pages for you to meet. In a strange kind of way, I’d been waiting for him to join the story.

He was REALLY unhappy with me when I coerced him into sticking the swab up that tickly runny nose. I was glad when he suggested that he should handle the swab because every time I leaned in to stick it up there, he leaned back out of reach.

There was a forcefield between us and I couldn’t get through.

I gotta confess something else. I pretty much lost my shit during the whole swab up the nose procedure. I wasn’t smiling anymore. If you’d been outside our front door, you might’ve heard me. “Dude, it’s already touched your nose, you can’t just stop now. There’s not enough virus or whatever stuff on it from your nostrils. Stick it back up there and really get around in there. We can’t just waste this test!”

Testing him meant we were down to three tests. This one had to count!

He stuck it back up there a couple more times alright, but each time was for a count of one or two seconds. It’s supposed to be 15 seconds, each nostril. It looked like he barely touched the inside of his nose, but he must have cuz his eyeballs sprung a leak and not the cry-baby type. And he hollered, a lot.

Then he pronounced there was no fucking way he was ever going to do that again. He’d be fine on Independent Study the extra five days instead of testing negative later to go back to school. Well, alrighty then.

Maybe I was a little too pushy. Maybe it was too early in his symptoms. Here’s why:

That, my friends, is a negative test.

Sometimes I like things to be black and white. Clarity makes me calm. I didn’t like seeing this result; it felt like I wasted a test. I wanted the validation of what we are experiencing. I wanted to see the positive red line. The clearly missing line represents ambiguity. It’s not black and white at all. Okay. Red and white. Whatever.

Before we did the test and I drove him away with my insanity, my son shared a song with me. It is from a video game he plays. It is called Welcome the Darkness from Deep Rock Galactic. It is ambient music for chilled-out segments of the game. I’ve shared it here because I think it’s pretty cool. My kid is pretty cool, too.

Later he invited me to watch him play the game. He’s sweet. He found a part that was short so I could see what he enjoys before I’d lose my patience watching. It doesn’t take long when it comes to video games.

A negative rapid antigen test doesn’t mean you are virus-free. It can be negative even when you have symptoms. The following short story is proof.

After posting last night’s Day 3 update, I got a text from my sister-in-law’s mom. She’d just gotten the results from her PCR test that was taken on Friday. It was positive. The rapid antigen test the doctor’s office did on Friday had been negative. She’d had symptoms for three days. It had been over five days since she’d had a known exposure.

That means that in the small group of family and friends I communicated with yesterday, three of them are currently sick with this interloper.

Another one, my friend who just finished five months of chemo, was in the hospital with a fever last night and so weak she couldn’t text more than that news. I am aware the chemo treatments could have put her there; it happened to my mom during her first cancer chemo treatments years ago. Even if that is the case, in other words, it’s “just” chemo side effects (which is a horrible situation), my friend is so high risk my shoulders are bunched up.

Thankfully she was released from ER in the wee hours this morning, so she’s safe at home again.

Today, another friend reported today is DAY 1 for her. She’s now covid positive.

What a crazy wildfire it is! Four days ago I could count on one hand the people I knew who had experienced the virus. Today I’ve lost count.

If things are boring here tomorrow, I’ll tell you more about the cat. He’s lucky to be alive.

If you are new here and need to know what happens next, be sure to Subscribe so you don’t miss the last sunset in the saga (If this reference is lost on you, read Ladies and Gentlemen, and Everyone in Between, COVID19 is in the House!).

Tonight’s sunset. Yay for some clouds to reflect the light!

Can you find the transformer on the power pole? It is part of the new view, too.