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Quarantine in the time of Corona
Mar. 18th, 2020 11:59 pmWELL.
I has been an insane few weeks. I've been almost entirely inside since the end of February. J and D's parents spend the winter in FL, and J has spent most of it there with them. As it turns out, most of the tension D and I have had is resolved when J isn't also there -- there's probably a lot to dig into there, but the brunt of it is clearly that J's very strong personality really hampers D, in a way that every quiet sibling with a bossy older sibling is familiar with. D and I get along pretty fabulously most of the time, when it's just us, and manage to have really productive conversations to resolve whatever problems we do have pretty quickly.
Anyway, in short, D and I managed to get swept into the covid insanity very early through a ridiculous conflagration of events. Basically, the week we got our first real confirmed cases here in NYC, I got a bad cold (sore throat, hacking cough, no fever I noticed) and stayed worked from home because I am not a jerk like the dickhead colleague I got the cold from. In the latter half of that week, I found out that a different colleague's roommate had tested positive for covid (one of the first people to get it) and so I reached out to let D know, primarily bc she works at a hospital in a mental health clinic, and I assumed they'd want to know that even though it was very low risk I had anything but a cold, that the colleague had been exposed (they never developed symptoms). Well, her boss flipped out and quarantined her, but then wouldn't run a test and just sent her home. Then she had a booty call over that Saturday who it turned out had cold symptoms AND had been to S. Korea recently, and then she developed a fever the next day. So then we were both quarantined again for real. Ultimately, I ended up stuck at my sister's empty apartment with like, barely anything but a few pairs of sweatpants for five days while we waited for her results to come back. They were ultimately negative (yay!) and I came back to the apt yesterday.
Of course, now the place she works at is having her come back, and she came home today from her first day back and basically said there's no way based on how they're bringing people in, etc, that she isn't going to catch it. SO it looks like I might be going back to my sister's place for the next few weeks. It sucked royally the first time, but that was primarily because 1) I didn't know WTH was happening and whether she or I were sick, so I couldn't actually go out at all just in case, 2) I had none of my things, and 3) I didn't have my cats. Now that I know it would be for a few weeks, I could pack for real, bring the cats, and just settle in there for a while.
I had wanted to stay here, in our much bigger, brighter, more comfortable apt, but honestly, I think she's going to be having a rough time of it anyway, and probably will be feeling anxious about going, worried about her patients, etc, and worrying about infecting me would be one more thing to stress about. So now I'm leaning towards going back to my sister's. I'd obviously not pay the rent here for the month, but that won't be an issue for them. And maybe it's the safer choice all around? I'd obviously rather not be totally alone, but that might be better than someone who's constantly getting exposed.
Anyway, I will update on what I decide, and also on what I've been reading and watching. I feel like one day I'll appreciate knowing exactly what the hell this whole bizarre, collective experience was like in the moment.
I has been an insane few weeks. I've been almost entirely inside since the end of February. J and D's parents spend the winter in FL, and J has spent most of it there with them. As it turns out, most of the tension D and I have had is resolved when J isn't also there -- there's probably a lot to dig into there, but the brunt of it is clearly that J's very strong personality really hampers D, in a way that every quiet sibling with a bossy older sibling is familiar with. D and I get along pretty fabulously most of the time, when it's just us, and manage to have really productive conversations to resolve whatever problems we do have pretty quickly.
Anyway, in short, D and I managed to get swept into the covid insanity very early through a ridiculous conflagration of events. Basically, the week we got our first real confirmed cases here in NYC, I got a bad cold (sore throat, hacking cough, no fever I noticed) and stayed worked from home because I am not a jerk like the dickhead colleague I got the cold from. In the latter half of that week, I found out that a different colleague's roommate had tested positive for covid (one of the first people to get it) and so I reached out to let D know, primarily bc she works at a hospital in a mental health clinic, and I assumed they'd want to know that even though it was very low risk I had anything but a cold, that the colleague had been exposed (they never developed symptoms). Well, her boss flipped out and quarantined her, but then wouldn't run a test and just sent her home. Then she had a booty call over that Saturday who it turned out had cold symptoms AND had been to S. Korea recently, and then she developed a fever the next day. So then we were both quarantined again for real. Ultimately, I ended up stuck at my sister's empty apartment with like, barely anything but a few pairs of sweatpants for five days while we waited for her results to come back. They were ultimately negative (yay!) and I came back to the apt yesterday.
Of course, now the place she works at is having her come back, and she came home today from her first day back and basically said there's no way based on how they're bringing people in, etc, that she isn't going to catch it. SO it looks like I might be going back to my sister's place for the next few weeks. It sucked royally the first time, but that was primarily because 1) I didn't know WTH was happening and whether she or I were sick, so I couldn't actually go out at all just in case, 2) I had none of my things, and 3) I didn't have my cats. Now that I know it would be for a few weeks, I could pack for real, bring the cats, and just settle in there for a while.
I had wanted to stay here, in our much bigger, brighter, more comfortable apt, but honestly, I think she's going to be having a rough time of it anyway, and probably will be feeling anxious about going, worried about her patients, etc, and worrying about infecting me would be one more thing to stress about. So now I'm leaning towards going back to my sister's. I'd obviously not pay the rent here for the month, but that won't be an issue for them. And maybe it's the safer choice all around? I'd obviously rather not be totally alone, but that might be better than someone who's constantly getting exposed.
Anyway, I will update on what I decide, and also on what I've been reading and watching. I feel like one day I'll appreciate knowing exactly what the hell this whole bizarre, collective experience was like in the moment.
