Coronavirus: Miles away from ordinary.

I still have issues driving at night for that reason. Can't see the landmarks I'm used to, and I've lived in this area my whole life. Recently cut a bunch of trails through the cedars out here and I didn't realize how bad it was until a few days ago when I was driving around with my kiddo on the UTV and forgot which direction was the house. Normally I can kinda keep myself oriented to places on the ranch with like an internal compass of where things generally are. For lack of better phrasing I can normally *feel* it. So I just drove around until I found something that looked familiar. If it wasn't overcast it would have been easier, and fortunately the area we were in was only about 15-20 acres. Didn't even think it was worth mentioning on here until you mentioned it. At this point I'm like whatever, I survived, if there's still issues then I'll deal with them as I arrive. I'm going on a run tomorrow and I'm just gonna carry a small compass in my pocket.

And yes, if anyone is wondering, this stuff does send anxiety levels and anxiety attacks through the goddamn roof. The mental health aspects of this are just fucking horrible. What sucks is that it's usually the imperceptible stuff where you know something is off but don't know what. If I break a bone I can laugh about it because I know how to fix it. But how the fuck to I deal with my heart rate still spiking to 180s with in the middle of an easy jog a few miles from the house, or when I'm lying on the couch, or when I'm in the middle of a zoom conference call?

Best solution I've found is to just try to get myself ultra healthy and eliminate as many other factors as I can. I've already stopped drinking alcohol for almost three years now in January. I've dramatically improved what I eat and cut out nicotine completely aside from the occasional cigar once every few months. Got back into distance running. We'll see. I know I'm not the only one dealing with this so eventually the global "covid thread" discussions will turn into "covid recovery thread" discussions

 

A friend of mine got it early in the pandemic and he reported really bad brain fog. One of the symptoms was that he was literally dropping items he was carrying in his hand because his brain just forgot he was holding them.

 

A neighbor got it almost a year ago and is still dealing with shit. Dude was healthy as a horse, worked out regularly, did martial for years, etc. 10 months later and he still can’t taste or smell anything and he still suffers from heart problems- racing pulse like Nerds described, palpitations, exhaustion. Sucks to see him still going through this crap. And that is why I’m vaccinated, got my booster, and carry a mask for crowded places.

 

Well, I'm going to have a work buddy this week. Got an email yesterday that my daughter's whole kindergarten class has to quarantine because they were all exposed. When we asked my daughter about it, she said a kid who sits behind her in class left early on Friday.

They wear masks in the class/building, and she doesn't eat lunch or typically play with this particular kid. She also got her first shot last Monday, so hopefully that provides some immunity.

Based on guidelines provided by the school, she'll have to get a negative PCR test administered no earlier than this Friday to be able to return to school next Tuesday. If she's positive, then Thanksgiving is all kinds of fucked.

So far she's showing no symptoms, thankfully.

Beyond that, we're just pissed (but in no way surprised at all) that the kid's parents sent them to school. There's very little chance that the kid was fine that morning, developed all symptoms at school, and had to leave early. Obviously only they know the truth, but my theory holds water based on how many sick kids are dropped on my wife all the time in her classroom.

 

I am lucky enough that I work from home, and my kids are of an age where I can put them in front of the TV while I work. Not everyone has that luxury. I will not send my kids to school if I suspect they are not feeling well. However not everyone has that luxury. It pisses me the fuck off also. But it pisses me off more that sick leave isn’t a thing for everyone.

 

A lot more the former than the latter. People are taking COVID less seriously every day. It is no longer the number one topic. People sent looking up the statistics like they used to. Many feel they have no worries anymore because of vaccinations or the fact it’s just been going on for the over a year and a half and they haven’t gotten sick.

Albeit parents left and right have been fucked over by this pandemic and many have shitty options so they’re forced to take a (secret) chance, the selfish idiots still overpopulate them by a long measure. Just look at how many high school kids go to school sick, a kid who doesn’t require at-home supervision. Bad. Fucking. Parenting.

 

This sums up my feelings pretty well. I don't know what I'd do if staying home with my kid would risk my livelihood that allows me to provide for my kid.

It's a shitty rock-meet-hard-place scenario.

That said, if the parents can work from home and could've kept their kid with them with no material impact to their job, they can fuck all the way off for sending them into the classroom.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/...xodus-of-americas-health-care-workers/620713/

"COVID patients are also becoming harder to deal with. Most now are unvaccinated, and while some didn’t have a choice in the matter, those who did are often belligerent and vocal. Even after they’re hospitalized, some resist basic medical procedures like proning or oxygenation, thinking themselves to be fighters, only to become delirious, anxious, and impulsive when their lungs struggle for oxygen. Others have assaulted nurses, thrown trash around their rooms, and yelled for hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin, neither of which have any proven benefit for COVID-19. Once, Americans clapped for health-care heroes; now, “we’re at war with a virus and its hosts are at war with us,” Werry told me.

Beyond making workdays wretched, these experiences are inflicting deep psychological scars. “We want to be rooting for our patients,” Durham told me, “but anyone I know who’s working in COVID has zero compassion remaining, especially for people who chose not to get the vaccine.”

This I think is one of the larger issues we've yet to untangle: damage to public life. I can't think of a single workplace engaging with the public that hasn't had staffing issues or serious incidents with members of the public acting like belligerent children. It's making some of the most rewarding jobs sour and the shitty ones untenable. The divide this virus is exacerbating will endure far longer than the virus itself, and that doesn't bode well for us as a society.

Also alarming: "Even in the unlikely event that no further COVID-19 infections occur, the past months have left millions with long COVID and other severe, chronic problems. “I’m seeing a lot of younger people with end-stage cardiac or neurological disease—people in their 30s and 40s who look like they’re in their 60s and 70s,” Vineet Arora told me. “I don’t think people understand the disability wave that’s coming.”

There's a very strong case to be made that the pandemic broke our already disfunctional healthcare system, and the collapse just hasn't been properly diagnosed yet. Right now, all the signs can be blamed on the pandemic. When/if it subsides or becomes endemic, and we're still seeing massive shifts in disabilities coupled with declines in outcomes, quality of care and life expectancy, I hope someone has the balls to proclaim it broken and try and fix it.

 

I was over at my in-laws this past weekend and it went pretty terribly. Both my FiL and my wife’s Aunt are belligerent and aggressively anti Covid safety. FiL in vaccinated but the aunt isn’t. And it literally boils down to “muh freedums!” type logic. But really, all the arguing from their end is just goal post moving to avoid admitting to being wrong about literally everything. So much so that my MiL and FiL both got breakthrough cases over the summer and hid it from us but were basically fine because the vaccine kept it from getting too bad.

I guess I just don’t even understand the perspective. For a lot of political things like taxes, social welfare, or immigration, I can understand varying opinions. But there’s no logic to this and I think what makes me so angry is that there’s not a real discussion happening. My FiL spends his time trying to argue about vaccine effectiveness the way people argue about the best way to bake a cake or something. Disinformation is extremely powerful especially when it takes something with complexity and makes it overly simplistic to appeal to the morons.

 

Am I the only one just now learning that anosmia isn't the only potential symptom, but parosmia as well? Absolutely fucking not. That symptom alone would convince me to quarantine. Eating is one of the few joys I have left.

 

There’s a patient at work who swears everything has smelled like waffles since she had covid almost a year ago. Even good smells get old eventually.

 

my hearing has also gotten worse. It’s been not ideal since the brain tumor, but it’s now gone haywire. Specifically, things that sound like they’re in one place are in another — for example from yesterday, a smoke detector low battery beep sounded like it was coming from a room to my left, was actually just a few feet to my right

 

I stuck my ear into a few COVID discussions this past week, and this seems to be a really good summary of the discourse:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/11/pandemic-winter-surge-three-unknowns/620738/