Covid is a Respite from Work

Disclaimer: I’m not condoning getting Covid. It’s horrible. We (my partner and I) are on day 19 of symptoms that keep coming in waves. It started Christmas Eve. We thought we just had a cold. Scratchy throat, sinusy, coughing, run-down. I started taking a ridiculous amount of zinc (Zicam) and symptoms started ebbing. Christmas night, they came back and by Sunday, I was wiped out. Still went to work Monday with a pack of tissues and a tickly cough that could best be described as annoying. My partner came in 4 hours later and told his supervisor how he was feeling at which point our respective supervisors immediately sent us to get the Brain Probe.

We tried the Health Department tent site – they had run out of tests hours ago but we were still able to register and the administrator promised to call us that afternoon saying she would hold tests for us when she got a resupply. That never happened. I tried to get us in at Walgreens, CVS, the local community clinic, and 2 walk-in clinics – could not get an appointment for over a week. Our job will not accept a home test – they must be done in a lab – but there were no home tests available either just for our own edification. We went home exhausted. I made some more phone calls. Finally I found a sketchy walk in clinic that confirmed there were tests available and they were testing every day from 10 til 2 with the caveat that it would cost $20 with insurance, $100 without. As mad as I was at that, we really had no other choice. Everyone else was no cost – as it should be in the 3rd year of a frikking pandemic – but there were simply no testing supplies anywhere.

The next morning, we tried the tent site again to no avail. Still no tests. We went on down to the sketch walk-in and were able to get right in. Within 72 hours, we had positive results in our emails. My blood went cold when I saw mine. I had no idea what I was in for, how bad symptoms would be, how it would affect my asthma, how long it would last. I had an unknown in my system and no idea how I would react to it. That was terrifying. Even more scary? How the hell am I going to tell my partner who was still sleeping and hadn’t checked his email yet? Having worked in a medical field for 20 years, he was especially up at arms about folks spreading it by not getting vaccinated. The twist here? We had both had both shots AND our booster was done just a week prior to showing the first symptoms. Plus we’d just spent Christmas with his family.

I told my dad first, then my sister, just to practice I suppose. They were concerned and supportive. By the time he woke up, he checked his email and saw his positive, I just said, “Same.” I thought he would be mad but he was just in shock. That was 2 1/2 weeks ago and we’ve had another positive test since then, awaiting our 3rd results. We keep calling in to work every day to ensure we’re still on the payroll. We’re not getting paid because our short term disability has a 2 week elimination period so that’s hit us for about 2 grand. We’re having to get financially creative.

On the bright side, we’ve gotten a lot closer during our quarantine and isolation. We’ve had many good talks, even some including marriage. I’ve gotten a lot done around the house and we’ve gotten caught up on things we’ve been letting slide, including intimate things. We’ve not had work stress, no schedules, just time together and instead of being left at each other’s throats, we’ve actually gotten closer. I have to say I don’t mind the forced lock-in. I couldn’t ask for a better plague partner.

Next results should be ready in the morning. This is round 3. We still have symptoms. All bets welcome.

The rest of you, stay well.

Gym-spiration – I Need Some

Two years ago I joined Planet Fitness, determined to get out of my funk of being overweight and exhausted. I had a goal of getting my body back to where it was in my twenties. Now being in my 40s, I realize that was quite a lofty goal, nonetheless I worked hard at it. Because of certain health issues that I have, including COPD and asthma, it does make it hard to keep up with workouts the way healthier people would. I was actually proud of myself because I was going to the gym 5 days a week without fail and continuously upping my workouts to beat my personal bests. I did end up losing about 20 lbs, gaining a lot of strength but not a lot of tone. I still had quite a few inches of fat to lose.


Then the pandemic hit. In March and April, all of our gyms started closing down. Membership fees were frozen until an unknown reopening date. I went ahead and canceled mine because I didn’t want to be surprised with a membership fee when they decided to reopen. During that time of being stuck at home, no longer able to go to the gym which was directly between home and my office, which had also shut down, my motivation went to shit. Now I was waking up to walk 20 steps to my desk where I sat for 10 to 11 hours everyday only to walk 20 steps back to bed at the end of my shift. Working at home redefined a sedentary lifestyle. The pounds came back quickly. The energy left quickly.


Now that the gyms are open again, I have been trying to get back on the path albeit slowly. My lack of energy makes it difficult, as does no longer passing by the gym on the way to the office and back home. Now instead of ending my shift at 8:00 p.m. and going to bed, it means actually getting dressed for the gym, driving down there, wearing myself out, and driving back home. When you haven’t really left the house for 8 months, that’s a heck of a chore. I know that one option would be to wake up a couple hours early and go work out before I start my shift but I’m always leery of doing that because anything could happen to make me late for work. I am no stranger to flat tires and dead batteries. I’m also no stranger to back injuries which lay me up for a few days at a time. One wrong move and my scoliosis reminds me it’s there.


I desperately want to get back to my 5-day a week workout routine. The trouble is finding the energy and motivation to do so. I suppose I do have the motivation in being sick and tired of looking the way I do. I know that the more weight I lose the more energy I will have. So what’s my problem? I think once I got into the gym habit it was easy to go. It was my personal time, my alone time, and I looked forward to it. The lockdown broke that habit however and now it is extremely difficult trying to get back into it.


For those of you who continue to go to the gym, I would love to hear what inspires you to keep at it. Let me know in the comment section below what motivates you to be your best self.

Solitary Solidarity (Coping with Covid-19 Lockdown)

We Are Okay! That is first and foremost the most important thing going through my mind each day. Despite not being able to go out much, despite having to get creative for some meals at home, and despite being cooped up in a house with three other people, things are actually okay. The not going out part, heck I was made for this. I’m a painfully un-social introvert and having been raised an only child, it’s easy to entertain myself. I’m rarely bored. If I am, it’s usually only because I’m too hot and antsy (we have no AC).

I read a lot of blogs and other social media posts where people battling cabin fever try to find ways, some of them pretty outlandish, to stay sane during our nationwide lockdown. I wonder if I’m the odd one out for actually enjoying this quiet time, this alone time. It’s as if I’m sitting back watching the world burn and I will emerge from my mental cave when it all blows over. Certainly there are some things I miss. Kava Kat, a tea bar I started to enjoy going to with friends, of course had to shutter its doors during the crisis. Being a relatively new business to the area, I’m happy they survived the worst of it (so far) and were able to reopen. Some places I loved, like Uncle Carlo’s, sadly have not reopened. This city is a new landscape, sort of a bare bones one, but it will survive as a community. It’s beautiful how people have pulled together to support each other in every way possible.