Concurrent COVID Crises

This has been a rough week. And interestingly it all started with last week, which set the tone for this week. (We will get to that in a minute or 10). But to put it in broader terms, this has been a rather rough year. And of course, I think about this daily: that it could always be so much worse and I do have a great deal for which I am thankful. However, it could also be so much BETTER… I definitely tend to be a “glass half empty” gal, especially within the last few years of my life. Which I realize is quite ironic considering I fought my demons and emerged victoriously sober, so I should be riding high from that major win. Of course I am very grateful each and every day for the absolute gift of my sobriety – but the initial “pink cloud” has evaporated, leaving me with all of my unsolved problems laid bare; my past trauma rearing its ugly head at the most inopportune times; and deep, deep cynicism and rage after all of the utter shit that I have been through at the hands of these “irresponsible white men”, to quote my sibling – 100% accurate, Bob, per usual.

Even before the beginning of what I am sharing with you in today’s tale, it has felt like one little thing – one irritant, one headache – after another lately. Again: yes, of course, it could be much worse. I always try to focus on one thing to the next: for example, getting home safely (after fighting all of Northern Hellville on the roads) from errands or my office day; parking Tobias next to his cousin in the garage; thanking the universe for my reliable transportation modes and my warm, cuddly, and usually irritated son waiting for me upon my return; a spacious roof over my head, thanks to my parents’ generosity and forethought; my sobriety; the ability to run each and every day – one of the greatest joys of my life; my amazing, insanely thoughtful, loving, always-there-for-my-emergency-FaceTime-calls, and magnanimous Z Clan; and all of the other small-but-actually-big blessings I have and my new personal favorite, “First World Privileges™ “. (Doesn’t that have a nice ring to it? You may borrow it but I will get the royalties.)

This past week commenced with a super fun (no, not really) virtual appointment with a white male psychiatrist (my first mistake), with the innocuous intent of procuring another Ativan refill for my annual escape to the homeland aka Terra Germania for the holidaze. This man had the literal audacity to put me on blast for “needing” a little white 1-milligram pill to be able to get on a plane to go see my family (or frankly, get through a triggering situation, stave off an oncoming panic attack, etc.) I would just like to reiterate: ONE MILLIGRAM. And this fucking HMO, Kaiser Permabullshit, expects me to make a container of 10 1-mg pills last for three to four months before needing another refill – but not before going through a ridiculously lengthy process to get in with a psychiatrist (after the last one left their bullshittery for greener pastures, unsurprisingly), and then having to justify why I need more Ativan. This is 2022 in America. Seriously: do you people not have other far more important battles to fight? Needless to say, I got feisty fast and was incredibly defensive towards this judgmental lunatic who essentially put me on trial for taking a drug that helps me to stay sober. And I told him that, too – you know I did. It took me 20 minutes to actually get him to fill the prescription, not before him “educating” me (cringe-vomit) about the “other resources available to me” (I need a barf tray) like meditation, CBT therapy or whatever the acronym is, and additional – quite frankly – asinine suggestions that maaaybe would work for situations other than flying, but puh-lease. This is a full-on phobia; this is also my anxiety and panic and sadness over leaving Basil (with a sitter); and it is oneeeee milligram. I promise I’m not going to punch a wall right now – but I’d like to.

I managed to escape very much scathed from that whole situation and went about my afternoon, making the mistake of texting a flash in the pan whom you will learn about later on as well as in the subsequent post, to tell him about the “psychiatric” encounter through which I had just suffered. Now, in hindsight, a couple of lessons learned: 1. I should maybe not have used that word – because the more I thought about it, it does sort of have more of a mental institution vibe to it and I certainly was not about to get in a straight jacket (please know this is a joke and I am not attempting to make fun of anyone in need of a psychiatric facility! Merely my attempt to cope through the use of sarcasm and dark humor…) 2. I should probably have texted anyone other than him, since we had JUST met and he was “needing space” already – my God, I cannot wait to blog about this asshole in his own separate post. Little did I know that this would be the last time I heard from him – and truly, this might be the final straw with men. I say that – and I love to joke about joining a convent – but we alllllll know I’ll be back for more. My most fatal flaw.

The short work week was over as quickly as it began (hallelujah) and I thought I would have a nice, quiet, relaxing Thanksgiving to myself, after going to my first-ever Caps game on Wednesday night with one of my best bros (aka guy friends) and his BFF. Hahahaha, was I ever wrong! Shortly after 8 AM, the commercial leafblowers began. And believe me when I say they did not cease until after 3 PM. ON THANKSGIVING DAY. Who the literal fuck is hiring these crews to come out on a major holiday?!?! I actually do hope some of my neighbors read this, because I would genuinely like to have a polite, civilized conversation in which they explain to me why on earth their leaves needed to be blown into smithereens on what was supposed to be everyone’s only day off until the December holidaze. Please see the below photo showing no less than FOUR of those satanic noise machines going at once in my neighbor’s yard. My ears were ring-a-ding-ding-ing from Spotify blaring Enya at the absolute max volume to drown out the eternal banes of my existence, that have now continued into the first day of December… At this rate, I suppose they’ll be blowing snow here in a few weeks, which will be just as productive (not) as what they’ve been doing.

I was so drained from the stress of it all and “babysitting” them, waiting for them to leave the fucking neighborhood, and then not being able to enjoy my run, that I honestly cannot tell you what I did on Black Friday, other than some work/getting rid of emails and making progress on my Christmas decorations. Photos follow, because I think we all need a little joy after reading through this miserable recap. My apologies, but writing = therapy. We are now coming up on a somewhat “exciting” turn in my concurrent crises, that would soon be joined by another C-word. Saturday I was feeling a little weird, so I masked up when I went to Michaels for a few additional crafts/decor items. By Sunday, I was experiencing chills, a slight fever, achy joints, a sore throat, general malaise, and I knew I was sick – “Probably just the flu“, I thought, since I have taken upwards of 9ish COVID tests over the past year or so, only for all of them to be negative. And I am about as fully vaxxed and double-boosted as a person can be, after dating my Republican ex. So naturally, I was exempt from getting COVID until now…

I spent most of Sunday in bed – and ditto Monday. This is extremely rare for me. If you know me in “real life”, you know that I am a million miles a minute, all the time. There is no rest in my world, which – quite frankly – is probably how this all happened to begin with. If it’s not running/training, it’s laundry; dishes; decorating/projects; more laundry; house hunting; sending my resume into the black abyss of companies’ hiring portals; writing/blogging – but never enough; trying in vain to keep Basil satiated; errands; endeavoring to fill the void in my soul at Target; fighting with white men constantly; balking at the price of groceries… By Monday night, I was feeling so miserable mentally, not to mention physically, that I had basically “wasted” half of my weekend when I had so many other things to accomplish around the house. As a result, I really pushed myself on Tuesday, and although I was super drugged up, I did feel better-ish on Wednesday morning. But my plans to go back to sleep for a bit around 7:30 AM were thwarted by an incoming article from my dad about the differences between RSV, flu, and COVID symptoms (linked here.) I was about halfway finished reading it when I had this thought, “Uh, huuuuh. You know, I should probably go straight to my bathroom and take a test…” In hindsight, of course I am quite irritated with myself that I didn’t test right away on Sunday or even Saturday, but as I mentioned, I have literally wasted tests, or so it felt like at the time, during all of the other instances when it was merely a bad cold-flu.

When I dipped this little guy in the solution and set my 10-minute timer, I can tell you that I absolutely did not think I would come back in and find those two pastel lines. But alas, “Your girl has COVID *grimace face emoji*”, I texted the Z Clan. I proceeded to let my boss know, although I’ve been mostly working straaaight through, as well as do some research on how long I need to isolate and whether I should contact my favorite team of doctors at Kaiser Perma-BS… and then I placed my first-ever Amazon Fresh order! And thus, the birth of “First World Privileges™“.

Now it is approaching 10 PM a full 24 hours after the last test I took (also positive, ugh – I guess I was hoping it would miraculously go away?!) and I am just… so utterly spent and drained. If you can believe it (yes, you can), this isn’t even everything! (Do you remember that clever little meme from the beginning of this whole pandemic mess, wherein the caption said, “But wait! There’s more!” – because that is genuinely how I feel at present. And it is honestly becoming amusing). We have yet to get into the absolute mess of a day at the Richmond Marathon on November 12, OR the asshole who helped me get to the finish line and then ghosted me two-ish weeks later after one of the best dates of my life, OR my raging insomnia the past two nights as a result of some weird unbeknownst-to-me agitation and restlessness symptom of COVID – but I am afraid we will have to save that for subsequent posts because it is late and I need to attempt to get into a much better frame of mind for sleeping tonight. So I will leave you with this parting salvo: I have never been more grateful for this blog; for those of you who follow me; for the ability to articulate what I am going through; or for the innate gift to come up with alliterative titles for these vent-y volumes. Good night to all – please take your vitamins and always, always test if you think you have COVID. Don’t wait three whole business days to shove a swab up your cute little nostrils!