Missives from Wonderland

This has been a weird few weeks for me. Here are the highlights:

* A little more than two weeks ago, on May 24, KFP started sniffling a little. My husband and I thought it was seasonal allergies, since he has been bothered by them in the past. By Saturday, he had a mild cough, and since we were supposed to attend a party on Sunday with a person who gets kidney dialysis twice a week, I insisted we use one of our home tests and see if he had COVID. He did. While this did scrap our holiday plans, including participation with the Scouts in the Memorial Day parade that Monday, KFP's symptoms never worsened. He was completely healthy by Tuesday and even went on an overnight camping trip with the school, with the consent of the school nurse.

* My husband started sniffling on Saturday, May 30. He tested negative on that day and didn't retake the test until I urged him to take one again on Tuesday, June 1. He was positive. Being the mensch that he is, he isolated himself in the bedroom and wore a KN95 mask whenever he had to come out. I was bringing him meals and sleeping on the couch for several nights. He was feeling pretty good by Friday, June 6, when my son and I were packing for an overnight camping trip with the Scouts.

* Meanwhile, I was testing negative every single day and, as instructed by the CDC, wearing a KN95 mask whenever I went out. I still taught my classes, but I exercised extra caution and avoided close contact with my students.

* KFP and I went on the overnight camping trip, which involved the Scout leader, myself, our two sons, and one other Scout. Together, we did about a 4-hour hike with a lot of elevation, which was more challenging than anything I've done since I hiked the Appalachian Trail in high school. I was exhausted and in pain but very, very proud of myself afterwards. KFP even cooked me breakfast.

* By the time we returned, my husband was completely healthy again, so I washed all of the bedclothes, and he was released from "jail."

* Sometime during the day on Friday, June , I received a text from my aqua director at the main YMCA where I teach classes, telling me the pool would be closed for the weekend to deal with a safety issue. I then got a call upon arriving home with more details. It was the fact that the ceiling, which dates back to the 1960s, was starting to bulge downwards in areas. After an assessment, it was determined it needs to be entirely replaced. The pool is therefore closed until the end of the month.

* This means I currently have some freer days on my hands, and I'm using that time to follow-up on some personal projects. So I might actually be more vocal in here again, at least for the next month!


Oh! I should add my best theory as to why I never showed positive. Turns out that I might have been the first one in the family with COVID, but I had very different symptoms. About three weeks ago, I had a LOT of muscle pain in my legs that was actually so bad it made my knees feel similar to the way they did when I was still recovering from a couple knee injuries I've had in the past. At the same time, I was very tired, so that naps never seemed like enough for me. But I never had an upper respiratory symptoms, aside from morning sniffles that went away after blowing my nose.

Given my lifestyle -- I usually teach 6 to 7 hours of aqua fitness classes a week, in addition to doing weightlifting at home -- I thought the muscle pain was just from over-exertion. I did a lot of stretching, used my foam roller, took more OTC pain reliever and workout recovery supplements and powered through it. I also thought being tired was just the cumulative sleep deprivation from my admittedly weird sleep schedule.

So in other words, the symptoms never screamed, or even suggested, COVID to me, and I never tested.

Fortunately, I have been in the habit of wearing either a surgical mask or a KN95 mask when I'm out and about for several months, once the CDC suggested upgrading the type of masks you wear from cloth to medical-grade. I figured that since I was in and out of schools -- little germ factories -- and then teaching seniors at aqua fitnesses classes, it was the most responsible thing to do. So hopefully, if I did have it, I managed to avoid infecting anyone outside my immediate family.

Images of myself from April 2017, April, July and October 2018, becoming gradually more fit

Fourteen years, sculptors blasted and chipped,
suspended by rope. Four faces
emerged, blocky. Imperfect. Then, finally,
sculpted complete. At first, envisioned
as waist-deep portraits, their final form
became faces only. Faces hewn
into granite, formed by slow
crystallization of magma
beneath the earth's surface.

For fourteen months -- or more -- I've chipped
away my own granite body. My magma-formed
slow crystallization of eating emotion.
Imperfect. Blocky at first, but
gradually more sculpted. Chiseled forms
emerging from face to waist. Forming
a final portrait, suspended between
my vision and hope.

- October 14, 2018

This is my entry for LJ Idol, with the prompt "My Mount Rushmore."