Urgent Care in the Time of Omicron

I will not apologize for being away because sometimes life is like that, I'm just going to pick up from here and move forward.

So a lot has happened but I'm trying to think of just what I need to say to explain what has happened for you People of the Future reading this. We have a new variant. Probably when I spoke to you last we were still in the thick of life with the delta variant, deadly but controlled well by vaccines. Well, in the weeks leading up to Christmas (this thing likes to mess with the leadup to holidays, wtf is that about???) we all met the omicron variant. VERY contagious but the good news is the disease itself seems more mild, especially in vaccinated people. However, MANY MANY people are out sick or quarantined right now which makes the already short staffed country feel...very overwhelmed. Being able to catch a flight the week after Christmas was, for example, EXTREMELY difficult because of staffing shortages.

I can talk about Christmas in a bit, but first let's talk about this week. So on Thursday I developed a very swollen lymph node in the right side of my neck. I did what research I can (I'm a librarian, please for the love of God when looking this up use validated sources whenever possible and not Google or WebMD) knowing I'm not a doctor but it seems that swollen glands are not a super common sign of Covid, much more likely to happen after Covid vaccines because of the immune system response. Which is what a swollen lymph node is, an immune system response. So could be ear infection, sinus infection, something like that except it didn't come with any other symptoms like fever.

By Friday it was quite big and both Josh and I agreed that getting a doctor to look at it was probably not a bad idea. So I headed over to urgent care.

My doctor's office is connected to the urgent care clinic and we were at the doctor a few weeks ago so I kind of know the setup. They have different checkin stations and the urgent care folks once checked in go wait in their car until called by phone to come in. This protects everyone. The urgent care clinic is also a Covid testing site and since between the holidays and the surge every testing site is overwhelmed it makes sense they are taking this precaution.

So I get there not long after they open and I knew there'd be a wait but I was surprised to find that the check in line was out the door. Turns out, once I got far enough into it I learned that the receptionist for the urgent care portion of the clinic was out so the primary care receptionists were having to handle both...and there was only one line. Not only that but one of the desk staff was overwhelmed by a lady who, I'm not kidding I was in this line half an hour and the entire time this lady was arguing with the woman at the front desk about her lost appointment and how many days off work she had taken and who was going to fix this.

I felt nervous...this is a testing site, this line is going to expose someone...and also terrible for other people. Because this is, of course, a doctor's office and people are here with their babies, the whole bit. Anyway, I got checked in and back in my car and two hours later (that's good reading time, although cold) I finally saw the doctor.

I really like this doctor. Or physician's assistant. Someone. She was very nice. NOTHING negative about my experience yesterday is related to the medical staff. OMG, people have NO IDEA what they are going through right now and to a person they were WONDERFUL.

Anyway, the doctor said it was very unlikely to be Covid and didn't make sense to do a test without symptoms unless I wanted one. It's the next day now, and I kinda wish we had to rule it out but I'm not going to try to get a test at this point...lines for testing centers are insane and the at home tests (which in my limited experience SUCK) are basically impossible to get. But I had no fever and no sore throat which are the primary symptoms they look for. She said my immune system was reacting to something, possibly a skin tag that fell off my neck, possibly something else, and to treat with Advil and heat and watch it and come back if it gets worse.

I was supposed to get a Covid booster yesterday and we talked a bit about that as you aren't supposed to while sick. She said there were pros and cons but she'd probably go ahead and do it and then after nearly four hours I got to leave urgent care.

I got home and tried to reschedule my booster shot and unsurprisingly there were no spots available. So I decided to go and thought I should maybe confirm my appointment. So I called the pharmacy and nope, I do not have an appointment. My name was in their system but without an appointment, so the confirmation I was given when booking the appointment online a few weeks ago seems to have not gone through on her end.

The pharmacist was wonderful. Like I say, it was not a fun day but nothing about it was the fault of the medical personnel. She apologized and didn't know what happened and I told her it wasn't at all her fault. She suggested trying to walk in and when I asked her if there were days/times that were better for walk ins she said she wished she knew but every day is an adventure. A lot of people are complaining about their jobs right now...literally every workplace is short staffed and people are difficult to deal with, it's totally understandable...but IMO it's medical people who should really be getting the lion's share of the sympathy. It is rough out there right now.

So there you have it. I probably do not have Covid, unless I picked it up in line yesterday, but honestly so many people have Covid right now it's just unbelievable. Max woke up crying...I think he had a nightmare, but I kept feeling his head because I do worry about him getting sick...his chances of a good outcome from Covid are overwhelming but still, I'm his mom, I worry. He wanted me to take his temperature before he went to bed...because he saw me taking mine....and it's normal, so there's that. 

James is fully vaccinated....I don't know if I posted that earlier...and that helps to know that. Josh also received a booster shot on Wednesday so other than my canceled booster we are pretty well protected here. But stuff gets in and sneaks in. Especially after Monday.

Oh, my Lord, Monday. So we hadn't seen Dad since Christmas Eve...after making about nine different Christmas Eve plans to try to avoid Dad having to drive at night the kids and I ended up going to him to spend Christmas Eve (Josh had to work.) Dad's church had a 1 p.m. service which was great, not at all crowded plus a good time for the kids, and I bought fresh pot pies at the deli and we had a good day. He was going to come up Christmas Day if he felt up to it, which he did not, which is okay because, kids and Christmas and chaos. But then starting the day after Christmas we had snow and he didn't leave his house for a week. We are just not well equipped for snow and he can't risk falling down.

So Monday comes and it's supposed to be the first day back at school, the 3rd. But the school declared a snow day. I have no idea why, we hadn't had fresh snow in days and it was raining, but somewhere in the district they must have had ice because they closed school. And Josh found out at the last minute that it was a holiday for him because they were observing the New Year holiday on that day. So in talking to dad, who at this point had not seen the kids in a week and a half, he said let's meet in the middle somewhere at a McDonald's for lunch. 

So we find this McDonald's and I looked it up and it says their dining room is open. The reason I looked is because a lot of them aren't, mainly due to staffing issues. But this one says it was. And we get there...I dragged Josh along, poor dude, his day off...and it' wasn't. And neither was the other fast food place close by.

So we're looking around and it's pouring rain and we're by this mall and there's a Panera bread there. So we go over there and voila, their dining room is open! So we're literally getting ready to order...and they're checking vaccine cards, which dad forgot to bring. So we're half an hour from anyone's house and it's pouring and we're not allowed to eat inside. And dad can't do outside, he can't afford to catch a chill.

So we get the food to go and we're in this mall and the only place we can find is this tiny bench in the middle of the mall that I'm shocked is open and we all cram there and eat. There's no tables and food is spilling and everyone passing by is staring at us...a security guard passed by right after we finished and I'm sure had he seen us he would have run us out of there.

It was just another in a list of Covid adventures and dad adventures. If we did get exposed, you know. not at the line at urgent care, it was probably there. And dad can't afford to get sick. I mean, he's had his booster, but he's in his 80s and in your 80s sometimes this virus just does not care.

So that's where we are. It doesn't feel like March 2020 again, it feels like something entirely different. In March 2020 I didn't know anyone who was getting sick...I didn't know anyone who was going anywhere...but people who did get sick seemed to get VERY sick. Now I know tons of people who are getting sick but mostly mildly thank God but the mild illnesses are screwing everything up because those people and their contacts have to go quarantine and that makes everything hard. And the CDC has changed quarantine rules and the world is mad because no one can agree what safety looks like and people feel like their lives are being trivialized....it's just a gigantic mess. But a mess of a whole new kind. And then we had the January 6 anniversary and it just....put me in a MOOD.

We did have nice holidays, Thanksgiving was lovely, my sister's family was in town, all went according to plan. And Christmas, despite the seven different plans, was a lot of fun. I love making Christmas happen for my kids. I wish I had been blogging more during that time to document more of what we did, but that's okay, doing it is more important than recording it.

And now we are here in 2022. I'm going to try to find the joy in 2022, that's my goal, as much as I am able, and remembering to come on her and document things I am thankful for should help. 

So media consumption. Since the new year I have been all about the comfort TV which means lots of the West Wing. I'm also in a reading challenge involving memoirs, so I read Gender Queer which is a graphic novel about a person's experience coming out as nonbinary and asexual and I reread When Wanderers Cease to Roam which is one of my favorite books, it's a woman who spent decades traveling and she writes a journal of finally coming home and putting down roots. And I'm halfway through My Autobiography of Carson McCullers which is a memoir told in vingettes about an archivist's journey to discover more about the famous author. Recently, I've listened to two of McCullers' books on audio: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which I read in college, and The Member of the Wedding. I'm also reading a poetry collection called Vulnerable AF by a woman named Tank Bell that I started yesterday and am enjoying. I have taken a challenge to read 20 books by Black women this year and this one is the first. And then today I started Braiding Sweetgrass for my book group next weekend and it's...not the reading mood I'm in right now it is very slow.

Today I'm grateful for: cool doctors, my sweet husband who bought me the best dinner, Max hugs on hard days, a new heating pad, being here and together over the holidays, lots of good books to read, Almond Roca and spice cake, James being back in school and so happy, Christmas being mostly put away and the house looking nice, a lazy day, and a new year to go forward into.