My daughter who had it back in March has had a big flare up of the lung pain in the last couple of weeks. Her doctor is trying hard to help but resources are very limited on the island. There is no pulmonologist on island or flying in monthly, nor lung function tests being performed. Blood work is being run to check for inflammatory markers. Kid is really discouraged. Fortunately work continues to be supportive.
Those of you that day dream of retiring to an island - Don’t. Do you really want to fly to Miami for every appointment with a specialist?
H and I were given COVID rapid tests today as a precaution (we have been granted a waiver to be inside an assisted living facility during my FIL’s passing & for a few days afterwards to wrap things up). Happily, they are negative. We will quarantine when we return home, of course, but we are relieved that on day 7 of being out of our bubble, we are still okay. Keeping my fingers crossed.
A friend notified me last night that he and his wife are now awaiting results of a COVID test after their son came down with it and tested positive. He and his son are symptomatic (sore throat, fatigue, stuffy nose), while his wife is so far asymptomatic. My friend has some underlying conditions, but in general his conditions are well controlled with meds.
Hoping for the best for all of them.
We finally moved into our new home right before Christmas. One of the guys who has been working on some things in our kitchen got married and went on his honeymoon to Mexico a couple of weeks ago. He texted that he is back and has COVID. That makes every single trade we’ve had on our house except one who have been affected by COVID. Fortunately, we haven’t seen this contractor since a week before he got married, and we always mask up and require our workers to do so as well.
COVID just went through my entire family, not as bad as I thought. In fact if I didn’t know anything about COVID (and hadn’t gotten tested) I would have thought I had the flu. Everyone was in and out of it in about 3 days. Not the end of the world for most of us.
My poor almost 94 mother is still suffering with her COVID. Eight days from her positive test. She is alone inside her assisted living where staff are stretched so thin that they cannot even call families. I think she may very well survive this but not sure what the long term physical and emotional impacts will be.
That’s the real point, friends. Our own compassion can take many forms. If anyone has it easy, that’s not indicative of what others endure, the patient or family and friends.
@compmom you’ve been through so much. And always trying to make the best decisions for all.
That’s courage. Sending hugs.
We have good friends who have had an ongoing series of issues this year. They both retired at the beginning of 2020. They sold their suburban house with a large yard and garden to move to an apartment in the city because they have a child on the West Coast who had one kid and was expecting a second. The switch to an apartment was partly so that, it would be easy to go back and forth and partly so they could have an urban life, going to new restaurants etc… The second kid was born quite prematurely and they flew out. While they were waiting for the sale to close, COVID reared its ugly head the owners of the apartment they’d rented couldn’t return to Canada and decided not to rent. They were able to find another place, not quite as nice, online from the West Coast. So they are stuck in a nice-ish apartment with no yard and no travel the West Coast.
After they got back East, one of their cats died of cancer and a month later, the husband’s mother (in an assisted living facility with dementia) came down with COVID. The second cat looked terminal and the mother died. Then the husband’s father tested positive for COVID (he lived with the mother) and died a couple of weeks later. So, two COVID deaths, a beloved cat gone with cancer, another sick cat and an extremely premature baby.
They have been coming to our house once a week for dinner. We have been having them over once a week – we have a house on a river in what feels like a nature preserve and it is very quiet and calming. Before it became too cold, it was dinner that they had cooked at home or that we cooked, but eater outside (under propane heaters). Yesterday, they just came to sit by the river and have sandwiches they brought for lunch. They are very nice, generous people but this has been painful for them, and maybe even depression-inducing for the husband.
H called his sister yesterday to wish her happy birthday and we found out her and her H just ended a fourteen day quarantine. They had their S2, DIL and kids for Christmas dinner and at the last minute their DIL’s mother and bf came. They had separate tables set up on the porch, but because it was a windy day (not cold, they are on an island) everyone ended up inside. DIL’s mother and bf tested positive when they got tested because they were going to travel on a plane. No one else in our family tested positive or had symptoms, but my SIL said this really scared them. Both my SIL and her H are cancer survivors.
I had a long talk with a 3-11 nurse who has worked at my mother’s assisted living for 25 years. She initially called about my mother, who is in her second week of COVID. When I asked the nurse if she had stayed well, she told me she had gotten COVID last spring, during the first surge here.
Then she went on to say that her husband of many years had also gotten it and died. I was stunned. He was in the hospital and she was not allowed in, so she said goodbye on a phone.
She went back to work 6 weeks later. Her long term shift was 11-7 but she couldn’t bear the memories associated with getting up for work, of her husband greeting her. So she begged administration to change her shift. Heartbreaking.
@CU123 I think if my family had COVID with no real issues, all I’d be saying is “I am so incredibly lucky and thankful to get off easy”.
My parents’ AL has had one PT test positive and one resident (out of 8 exposures) then test positive. They’ve tested everyone twice and 4 more staff have it but no more residents. It’s a miracle to me.
More frustratingly, CVS is not returning calls to them about when the vaccines will be there. A few weeks ago it was all “fill out these forms, CVS will be here mid-January!” And now the AL is getting radio silence. I believe the fed govt has passed on the responsibilities to the private pharmacies - not sure what leverage we have.
@surfcity sure, I am just relaying my (and my families) personal experience with COVID and the vast majority of cases are like mine. If you read this thread you would think that it much worse, and yes I would be much more concerned if I had comorbidities (obesity/diabeties/asthma/etc) or I was over 70, but my wife (over 60) and I managed to take care of ourselves, and this disease is showing us how important that is.
My sister has been continuing with her normal social life since Mar - playing tennis/golf, getting together with friends at her club for drinks and dinners. She wears a mask when she is out and about. She is not super careful about wiping down everything that comes into her her house. She said 50% of her friends she hangs out with have had Covic without very serious outcomes.
I, on the other hand, have been holed up in my apartment.
This virus is like a Russian roulette.
Of the 7 people I know who are known to have had COVID-19, 2 were asymptomatic (1 found out by antibody testing, 1 was assumed infected by close contact with spouse), but 2 of the symptomatic ones had after-effects (1 severe, 1 moderate). All were in their 20s to 40s except for 1 of the asymptomatic ones in their 50s.
I.e. it is potentially much worse than a typical minor illness if you get the after-effects that could limit your future ability to do things.