McKeegan COVID Chronicles Day 5

Welcome back! The sun rose and set again with the interloper in our sanctuary. I am bone-deep grateful we are doing this post-vaccination. And that it seems to be the Omicron variant visiting us.

If you are new here, I am writing about the rude guest COVID19 entering our house. If you’d like to read more of the story, the previous Chronicles are here:

• www.bonniemckeeganauthor.wordpress.com When you land there, you’ll see a scroll of all blog posts. You can read them in order, if you wish.

Today is Day 5 from when the first kid had symptoms.

Sick Kid #1 Day 5 Symptom Report:

• 100.1 fever
• diarrhea is back – he thought maybe it was the butter. “I used more than usual when I made my eggs.” He showed me how much. Nope, that’s not it, kid, but really glad you took care of yourself in the kitchen today.
• looks under the weather to me but better than two days ago
• congestion
• occasional gunky cough
• slept many hours – even beyond teenager-on-independent-study routine

Sick Kid #2 Day 2 Symptom Report:

• Mainly fever but I heard a deep gunky cough a minute ago
• sore throat reported tonight
• I think the worst of it is ahead of him

Both SKs have good appetites and have kept their senses so far. Except maybe Sick Kid 2 who lost it yesterday when I forced him to swabby up the schnozzy. Sorry about that kiddo. If you missed that post, you really should read it. You’ll get to see how terrible a parent I was yesterday.

If I woke up feeling this crappy on any pre-pandemic day, I’d know that I had an annoying virus.

I might go on about my day or if it got any worse, I’d go back to bed. I went about my day today working from home (yay for telehealth!), but there’s a psychological difference. There’s two years of coronavirus this and coronavirus that in my head.

At the end of today, I was imagining tomorrow in bed all day with the cat. Maybe I can tell you more about him then. We shall see. Today’s post is already too long, so I’ll skip the feline again.

Sick Mama Symptom Report:

• plugged left ear
• watery eyes
• mild sinus congestion that comes and goes over an hour, as it has for a few days
• gunk in throat
• mildly sore throat on the left side
• the tireds
• a single suspcicious shiver while standing in the warm kitchen
• hint of a headache

No fever this morning. I’ve been waiting for that damn fever before testing. Lack of fever and only minor symptoms that seem “allergy-like” until this morning have righteously held me back. You’ll be disappointed to find out my resolve is WEAK. I am no role model, my friends.

I gave in. I couldn’t stand the suspense. I had to know what that dag-nab little swab would detect this morning.

I told myself what difference does it make if we run out of these infernal tests at this point? Rationalization or common sense or something else? I don’t know. It doesn’t take my clinical license to see there’s some psychological shenanigans going on here.

That brought our test pile down to TWO. That’s not even a pile. Or a stack. It’s one box of Binax Now.

Guess what?

Exposure for a solid five days and symptoms gradually ramping up but still no fever. NEGATIVE test! WTH?

Is the vaccine keeping my viral load below detectable by this particular test? Was my timing off? More dissatisfaction in the lack of a red line! I want validation. I want the confirmation without having to go get a PCR test, without having to leave the house. Me thinks the rude guest is hiding!

No, I don’t have agoraphobia (I left the house today!). And if I did, I know who to talk to, just sayin’. I just want this to be easy. I know what you are thinking: Bonnie’s Unrealistic. Entitled. Causing her own psychological discomfort. She’s crazy obsessing about rapid Ag tests! By the way, in the lab Ag means Antigen. Call it what you like, I want my way.

If you want to know what started this rant, read Day 4. It will enlighten you. But first, finish here.

And why does it even matter if a fucking test is so confounding? We know the rude guest is here. We have not been masking in our house or otherwise trying to keep Sick Kid 1 or 2 isolated from us. We know it’s highly contagious and if Sick Kid 1 picked it up at school where presumably everyone was wearing a mask, then why bother with all that at home?

No, he was not kissing anyone at school. He’d come home with mono if that was the case. Just sayin’.

Yes, I staged my negatory test photo location. It’s proof I am eating my vitamin C as suggested.

On a fluffier note.

This morning my phone notified me that a year ago today it snowed. Can we have some more, please? The light fluffy variety, not the Snowmaggedan variety or we’ll all go mad cuz once in 50 years was enough.

January 25th, 2021 – Isn’t that beautiful?

Thirty seconds later, the call came I’d been expecting for weeks. A Full Circle of Living and Dying client has died. As planned, we were called to assist with after-death care and the home funeral. So, thank you, rude guest, I cannot participate.

There will be no consequence to the family from my absence. The consequence to me is a missed sacred experience which I am disappointed about. The real consequence is that the lead End-of-Life Doula might need to carry out everything without a volunteer partner. We usually go out in teams. Three out of five of our board members have covid now. I’m worried about my colleague. Like other healthcare workers, she has enough on her plate without carrying the load for two.

The frustration of a negative home test when we know we have covid.

If you haven’t been following our Chronicles, you could read yesterday’s post: McKeegan COVID Chronicles Day 4. Yesterday, I discovered how frustrating it is to have covid in the house, a kid with a fever and early symptoms, and a negative test.

Lower case letters now because I don’t think IT deserves the honor of capitalization – F*** you covid19.

Last night I read an article that explains the Ag testing positive time frame for the Omicron variant. It is a short window – shorter than Delta which was shorter than the original virus version. It is confusing because, as I wrote yesterday, some people test negative with these home tests when they’ve had symptoms for three days. I still don’t understand.

There’s some good news: The article says that getting Omicron gives you some protection from the Delta variant. But sadly, it doesn’t work the other way around. Still, I don’t recommend it. Just ask Sick Kid 1 who reported to us on Day 1.

Okay. Time for more good news then I’ll shut up for tonight. The school gave us TWO BOXES of tests today! That means we have a stack. A Short Stack, and if you knock it down you can call it a pile. Things are looking up.

Isn’t that nice how I staged it?

Tonight’s sunset. I wonder what the final sunset in this saga will look like.

Unedited photo taken with my Samsung A12. Nice glow for no clouds. The color is from the smoke though. Everyone is burning trees limbs destroyed by the epic snowstorm. I had to close the window today because the smoke was so gross.

---

If you are new to my blog and want to follow our McKeegan COVID Chronicles, be sure to Subscribe by entering your email. I promise I won’t spam you. After this saga, I’ll get back to the rare Friday morning post. You can even Unfollow after this is over.

Thanks for following along!

Featured Image: Sunset in the days following Snowmaggedan.