Coronavirus Diaries 25…

…Christmas edition…!

Our family usually does our Christmas gift giving on the 24th but this year, over an abundance of caution, we’re not meeting up in too large a group and doing one visit to family yesterday, with today being the other visit.

In both cases we’re talking about 10 people max and we know what we’ve been doing/where we’ve been and we’ve all been very careful whenever going out so while we probably shouldn’t have the get togethers, we’re reasonably sure we’re all clear…

,,,well…

My sister-in-law, who is a nurse who works with terminally ill patients, called to let us know yesterday that she tested positive for COVID-19. She is usually very careful, wearing masks and washing her hands frequently. Because of the nature of her job, she is also frequently tested for the virus. She took three tests in the past two weeks and the first two were negative but the last one, taken two days ago, came back positive.

She’ll test herself again to verify if indeed it is a positive result and not a false negative. However, she says she has felt a sore throat, which indicates she has something, but is otherwise -thankfully!- so far fine.

Nonetheless, that ended our family visit intended for today. We’ll likely not see that side of the family for at least a week or two, depending on what the subsequent test results indicate and until my sister-in-law tests negative.

Over on my side of the family, my father had an appointment with his doctor earlier in the week and he did a blood test and, wouldn’t you know it, he came back positive for COVID-19 anti-bodies.

Which means he had the virus.

I’ve written before how I suspected several people -including myself- in our family business contracted the virus in mid-late January, early-mid February.

At that point in time, COVID-19 was something which was supposedly only in China’s Wuhan province. It wasn’t yet thought to be in the U.S. and it wasn’t until March, nearly a month later, that we began to realize it was indeed with the United States. And it was in March, the second week or so, that many businesses in our area were forced to shut down to contain a possible spread.

It’s incredibly scary to realize that my father’s illness way back then, which lingered some two weeks, was more than likely COVID-19. Thankfully, he recovered fine. He was the one, of the three or four of us who were sick at the same time, who had it the worst and everyone subsequently recovered. I myself had two or so weeks where I was so exhausted at the end of each day, beyond the normal exhaustion of a busy week, and practically collapsed on my bed afterwards.

Yet I too have had blood test, the last one quite recently, and there has been no indication of COVID-19 anti-bodies within me. Having said that I don’t know if I was indeed checked for that.

Regardless, my wife, who works in the care field, has an appointment to get the COVID-19 vaccine this Saturday. She will be the first person in our family -and extended family- to get it and, unfortunately, neither my daughters nor myself can get it until its available to the general population.

As I’ve noted before, I’ll be getting it as soon as I can, but its a relief that at least one of us will have the first half of the vaccine and therefore, will half the chances of her getting this terrible virus.

I’m hopeful with the incoming administration there will be a stronger push to get the vaccine not only out there, but to have people get it.

If you can, please do so.

Hopefully one day very soon, we’ll return to something of a normal life.