Andy actually wasn’t the first person in our family to develop symptoms, nor was he the source of our exposure- though he was the only one to be PCR tested because of his job. Two days after I got my new piercings, our sweet Hannah had brief unmasked contact with her boyfriend…who developed symptoms the very next day. Testing confirmed he had COVID, and then Hannah’s symptoms started two days after that. Though, this person also wasn’t our family’s only possible exposure source that week. One of Tony’s therapists notified me the same day Hannah’s boyfriend developed symptoms that she herself had just received a positive test result and had started having symptoms the day after she last worked with our son.
I wish I didn’t have to stop right here and interject the following statement, but given how disparate the views on COVID infection are in our communities, I feel that it is necessary to emphatically state: There is absolutely no shame any possible exposure source to our family should feel. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. There will be no blame from me nor any other member of our immediate family, and absolutely no condemnation.
COVID is everywhere in our community right now. Everywhere. For two years our family has avoided getting sick with this, but anybody who is attempting to have any sort of normal life is going to have a hard time avoiding this. Anybody. We are two years into this, three members of our family are vaccinated, both adults are boosted, and I am not going to deny Hannah the opportunity to live her life in an emotionally healthy way. She had and has my blessing for what she is doing. She masks up for most everything, and so do we. I have yet to see a credible expert on COVID state that we are ever getting rid of this virus, so I fail to see any advantage in hyper-restricting contacts with others at this point. Even for Tony who as yet cannot be vaccinated, emotionally his quality of life would be terrible if we shut down his therapy programs, which is why from day one my approach was mask up, practice what infection control we could, and keep everything running the best we could under the circumstances.
I had spent a half an hour unmasked in close contact with Hannah every night before we knew about the exposure, so I was the next person to feel the touch of symptoms, but I will say I felt it only lightly. Some days of being tired and having swollen lymph nodes was really the worst of it for me. I’m already back to doing light workouts. I literally got no other symptoms, and I credit being recently boostered up for that. I even felt well enough to wear makeup every single day the past week and a half we’ve been dealing with all of this, though I have held off on created my Instagram account as our family works through this.
Today
Hannah was completely recovered within three days (she’s young and vaccinated). Andy began developing symptoms a day after I started feeling like my body was fighting off something, but his symptoms were more pronounced than anyone’s in the family, though still mild for COVID. He got the PCR test because the at home test came back negative, and given our exposure source, we doubted the results. And unfortunately, probably his symptoms will persist longer because he is still being required to work given his lack of fever and the number of days since his symptoms developed. The severity of this wave as regards to staffing in healthcare has caused many local organizations to require this of their healthcare providers. He also received his booster a couple weeks before I did.
Thus far we’ve been able to keep Tony from getting this by having everyone wearing KF94s as much as possible during the period of time where contagiousness was suspected, keeping the air purifiers on, and ventilating the house with open windows. A kindly, but doubtless long suffering, customer service rep from the place I order my KF94’s from who called a couple of days ago got to hear exactly how healthy Tony is feeling. He was squealing, jumping, and running up the stairs, delighted to have me distracted on the phone while attempting to give him his evening meds.
I have been awash with gratitude for how little I personally have been affected. I am super thankful to have been both vaccinated and boosted. I was able to care for Hannah, I have been able to continue all necessary areas of Tony’s care also, though I did fail to notice that he drug his kindle into the bathtub one of those days. Andy jokingly blamed it on COVID brain, but it became a good opportunity for our son to learn some cause and effect when it comes to his electronics and large amounts of water. Not that I wasn’t tempted to feel frustrated with myself, but I believe in giving myself some grace under these types of circumstances.
And I have had the gift of seeing how much our son’s ability to handle extensive changes to his schedule and routines has improved. We haven’t seen any meltdowns…not even with the absence of the kindle. He’s not regressed in using the potty (and he briefly did at the beginning of the pandemic two years ago because he was severely traumatized by all of his therapists being pulled out of home literally in one day). And he’s continuing to show me during this quarantine exactly how much more he pays attention to things that other people are doing, and it is a great deal more than most people realize.
We’ve never taught him how to use a key. This is a skill that seems counterproductive right now to me for a kiddo with heavily impaired risk assessment. We have a lock on one of our food closets, and I asked him to wait for something he asked for yesterday. He grabbed the key off the box I keep it on, stuck it in the knob, and the only thing that kept him from opening the door was he wasn’t turning the key the right direction. He took it out and reinserted it several times in his efforts to obtain the desired item. And I thought, what a gift to see yet another piece of evidence for why I have made the choices and sacrifices I have to support his therapy programs and growth.
For today, I’m still kicking back mostly, doing things like watching Beauty And The Frizz breakdown the latest Notoriously Morbid release (surely given my makeup aesthetic nobody can be surprised I shop that brand from time to time) and reading Thich Nhat Hanh. Continuing to try out a Qigong bedtime routine each night that was recommended to me by my sister. We text everyday, and that is the best medicine my heart could ask for at this time. But soon we’ll be returning to our therapy schedule. And I want to make sure each of you who have worked with our family throughout this pandemic know how incredibly grateful I am for each of you and the contributions you have made to our son’s growth.
