Quarantine Week ?

My mood lately has been generally less bleak with bouts of extremely bleak and extremely anxious.

The news about not reopening schools was, while not unexpected, still hard to take. The kid misses seeing her peeps and, despite her protestations, likes the structure and challenges school presents. We like, despite loving her deeply, not having to manage her full time while also getting our own jobs done.

The school announcement also made it clear that summer vacation plans are in jeopardy.

Will there be summer camps? The kid is desperately looking forward to spending a week doing gymnastics at overnight camp and always looks forwards to her two weeks of farm adventures.

Will Santa's Village, the AMC huts, or any campgrounds open? Will they lift restrictions on trail use? Will mountain biking clubs start up trips again? Will kayaking trips get scheduled?

The curve will come down, but when and what will it take for things to restart? Maybe kayaking with close friends who you can be certain are not carriers will be OK since kayaking is mostly socially distant, except in emergencies. Maybe beaches will stay closed?

Maybe summer will be fine and schools will start up in the fall and things will go back to mostly normal with occasional quarantines and official contact tracing as opposed to the sorts that Google and Apple already do....

Maybe the recent studies that are showing that the infection rate is way higher than expected, and therefore the mortality rate is way lower than expected, will turn out to be true. Couple that with the studies showing that people are showing some sort of lasting immunity means that herd immunity is closer than we think. Then all will be fine.

Maybe of course they are bunk since the tests are not reliable. Or maybe it does not matter what the mortality rate is since it does make a decent number of people very, very sick while leaving way more  people to be Typhoid Mary.

I also read an article saying that the most difficult thing about treating this thing is that by the time most people show up in the hospital they are in critical condition without even knowing it. The O2 levels are so depleted and their lungs so clogged that they should be very sick, but because of how the virus does its damage the patient's body is not reacting in the expected ways. Apparently we feel short of breath when too much CO2 builds up in our blood, not when the O2 gets low and COVID allows your lungs to shed CO2 just fine while blocking the O2 from getting into the blood stream.

Super fun time there for a hypochondriac. Now I think I am likely sitting on deaths door with no way to know. I did do a very hard interval ride on the trainer after reading that article just to prove that I could. The fact that I felt tired and a little high afterwards was worrying, but some water and TV sorted that out. I also did a fairly strenuous walk the following day and my VO2 Max is improving, so that calmed my nerves a bit.

And then night time comes and the monsters in the closet come out....

The most stressful thing I've done in weeks was today. I actually ventured out of the house to see my doctor. It was a routine check-up that was scheduled months ago - and that I had rescheduled once already - and was seriously planning on rescheduling again. H said getting out would do me some good.... I'm not convinced she was right, but I did go.... I brought plenty of disinfectant and wore a face mask when outside of the car. Other than the office staff, I was never within six feet of anyone. The office staff all wore masks - as did I - and reminded me that they only see one patient at a time, wipe down everything between visits, and do not see anyone with any symptoms.... Made me feel better at the time. Sitting here typing this now, I'm not so sure it really helped that much.

I feel like the two week clock is completely reset.

Anyway, he said my lungs sounded good. My blood pressure was fine. My temp was normal. I need to lose 5-10 lbs. He was glad to hear that quarantining and general anxiety had upped my exercise routine although he wished that I was doing more exercise for less crazy reasons....

He also had me take an anti-body test to see if I have had the dreaded COVID. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Do I want to know I've been exposed and likely recovered? I'm not sure if that would make feel better or worse. Logically, it should make me feel better knowing that I'm unlikely to get sick from this thing. However, it is likely to just make me anxious because I know I've been exposed and will be waiting to get sick. Or what happens if I test negative? Then I have to continue living in fear of getting it and possibly being one of the unlucky ones.... Although, in general I do tend to only get minor symptoms from colds, so I probably do have to worry too much.

Yes we are the lucky ones with homes, secure jobs that afford us the luxury of food delivery, and good health insurance and good health. Still we are not doing great.... The kid nearly missed a dance class and an online meeting because the adults spaced on time. It is getting harder and harder to remember what day of the week it is. The kid spends too much time in front of a screen before we notice and then we overcorrect.

Today the kid did an awesome job getting her shit done with minimal adult supervision because I was trying not to have an anxiety attack while driving to the doctor's office and H had full day of meetings. Then, because we all spent all of our collective emotional energy in the morning, bed time was a disaster.

We are the lucky ones. Pray for the ones who are not as lucky....