April 2022: When We Got Covid

TL;DR: We are okay. Do what you can to not get Covid.

Blogging has been tough lately. My favorite and most loyal blog reader died in January and then, as you're about to read, April was kinda rough. I would like to get back into it. I also have a writing project which I'm supposed to be working on as well that I probably won't have much time to talk about tonight. I'm starting to use my laptop more just so I get more done. I still love having my office, but the reality of my life these days is I'm just not down there hanging out in it all that much. And stuff has to get done. I've done some typing on my laptop the past few days and it's weird...I definitely notice that I haven't been typing as much, because I feel it, especially in my non dominant hand. And for me, feeling it is weird because I have typed a lot for a very long time. So, time to get back in the habit.

April had some very good moments but was overall a tough month. It started with Max spending a whole Saturday throwing up. 

Josh and I often not-really-joke about how this downhill trend we've all been on actually started, for us, December 2019. Because in December 2019 we had a run of stomach flu go tearing through our house that was no joke. By the time we got through it, we were in holiday mode and we didn't really have time to emotionally recover from anything before...well, before there was a pandemic. So stomach bugs are no joke. And fortunately for us, Max really doesn't get sick all that often. Even when we had the stomach flu, he had the easiest time of it. So waking up the morning of the first Saturday in April to the sounds of Max coughing on his own vomit was very unfun. For an entire day, he couldn't even keep down water. I did a lot of laundry and watched a lot of Parks and Recreation. But the good thing about tummy bugs is they do not last long. By Sunday, we were tired but better.

Friday night of that week, Josh left for a solo road trip. He had the second week of April, which was also spring break, as a fluke week off, so we had decided to split it. Solo trip to California for him the first half of the week, family road trip the second half. Which was all fun and games until James felt so lousy Saturday afternoon he put himself to bed. James doesn't do this.

To James's credit, he threw up just once. But it was epic. 

I don't think the two bugs were related...incubation period on a tummy bug usually isn't that long. But both were unpleasant. Josh got back from California on Tuesday as planned but we decided to delay our Wednesday departure day. He didn't get much rest on the way back due to unseasonable cold and snow in the mountains coming home so we gave him Wednesday as a rest day and left for our central Washington road trip on Thursday. He had what we thought were allergies and a cold and needed rest. 

We should have tested. I wish we had tested. 

Thursday morning we left on a trip. Despite unseasonable cold and Josh having a cold, it was fun. We saw some state parks, took selfies by the Grand Coulee dam, visited a book store, all our usual stuff. Sunday was Easter so we planned to head out Saturday afternoon and go home. But when everyone woke up with a head cold on Saturday, we decided to just go straight home.

It felt like a head cold. I honestly wouldn't have tested if we weren't expecting Dad to visit and to go to church Sunday morning. I'm glad I had a stash of tests.

Mine was "I think I see a line" positive. Josh's was for sure positive. I called the nurse line because we wanted to know what to do about Max who is little and still unvaccinated. She said we could test him if we wanted to but with a cough and the exposure it was best to just assume he had it and treat him accordingly. We decided to wait and get a lab test for James because of school.

The best news ever is that Max recovered quite quickly. He was tired and cranky but the cough didn't linger. No one developed a fever. I was miserable, super head coldy and tired. Josh was already recovering. James, who was tested on Monday and declared positive on Tuesday, never developed symptoms.

It's been close to a month for me and it's literally been only about the past 48 hours or so that I really feel like I am past the cough. We were told five days quarantine at home and then five days fully masked whenever we went out. James went back to school on the following Monday and was required to be masked all week. He hates the disposable masks I was making him wear because they are most effective. By the end of the ten days I felt fine but the cough just went on and on. I lived on cough drops and Vicks, and didn't feel like myself, mostly because I had no energy and was getting no exercise. Today I ran for the first time since getting sick and it was amazing. 

So yeah. That was our Covid experience. I will always have a strong suspicion that the vaccine may have saved my life because I was the sickest and shudder to think what might have happened to me if I had been unvaccinated. 

Two weeks after, we went on a long planned weekend away with friends over James's birthday weekend. It was wonderful. We spent three nights at Fort Worden. I could have spent another, even despite the cough. It just felt so good to be with people and feeling normal again. 

Last weekend was Mother's Day and it was really nice. James made me these awesome paper flowers in school and he and Josh ordered flowers for me. I am such a lucky mom.

I'll try to get back in the habit of blogging. I want to talk more about my writing project and such but I think this is enough for tonight, or so my left hand tells me.

Media consumption....I've read a ton! I just finished three excellent kids books all of which I loved: The Last Mapmaker which is a new adventure story by Christina Soontornvat, The Honest Truth by Dan Gemeinhart about a sick boy who runs away from home to climb Mount Rainier, and Emmy in the Key of Code which is a fantastic novel in verse about computer coding and music and art and friendship...I can't do this book justice in a short description but it is awesome. My latest binge show has been I Love Lucy and I'm trying to get more Road to Avonlea but my library doesn't have much...I got the first one and I have the Christmas special to watch. I'm currently reading an anthology called Disability Visibilty, reading an old kids book by the author Avi, and listening to The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart which I've already read twice.

Today I'm grateful for dinner with my boys, sunshine, flowers, Reese's chocolate and peanut butter, getting to exercise again, my warm bed, and good books.