halojedha | Entries tagged with pandemic

The whole house has covid. We got through over two years without catching it, but with the total removal of protective policy this spring and E in nursery it was basically inevitable. (Insert rant here.)

It started with E coming down with a fever last Friday, which turned into gastric flu over the weekend with vomiting, diarrhoea, loss of appetite and dehydration. I was solo parenting on Saturday night and I was worried enough I called 111 on Sunday morning, but by the time we saw an out of hours GP on Sunday evening they had kept food and water down and bounced into the hospital as bonny as anything. Way to make us look daft, kiddo.

Thought that was it, then we both got sore throats and I became feverish on, what was it, Tuesday night? I don't even know what day it is today. I slept for the whole of Wednesday, shivering and sweaty with a piercing headache and whole body aches. Leo solo parented while ill like a champion. We both tested positive Weds night, and so did our housemate. Yesterday I felt quite a lot better, well enough to tackle a bunch of housework and do a batch cook while Leo took a turn staying in bed all day.

I was optimistic that would be the worst of it, but last night I was sweaty and coughing and didn't sleep at all after 2am. Managed to get some more sleep late morning, but not enough, and now I'm with E while Leo goes back to bed. I'm tired, achy, and have a hacking dry cough that is definitely in my lungs.

E has watched a lot of cartoons this week, but they'll be alright. Feeling very grateful for vaccines right now.

The thing is, this isn't even new: we've had a nonstop run of viruses since the new year, and the last month has been mad - E had chickenpox, we all had a mystery non-covid flu thing that wiped Leo and I totally out for three days, and now this. I can't remember the last time none of us was sick. We've barely had any childcare and barely got any work done in weeks.

"According to the latest research, about one in 20 Covid patients experience long-term on-off symptoms. It’s unclear whether long-term means two months, or three or longer. The best parallel is dengue fever, Garner suggests – a “ghastly” viral infection of the lymph nodes which he also contracted.

“Dengue comes and goes. It’s like driving around with a handbrake on for six to nine months.”

Prof Tim Spector, of King’s College London, estimates that a small but significant number of people are suffering from the “long tail” form of the virus. Spector is head of the research group at King’s College London which has developed the Covid-19 tracker app. This allows anyone who suspects they have the disease to input their symptoms daily; some 3 to 4 million people are currently using it, mostly Britons and Americans.

Spector estimates that about 200,000 of them are reporting symptoms which have lasted for the duration of the study, which is six weeks."

"As more information becomes available, the government’s Covid model seems increasingly out of date. Many Covid patients do not develop a fever and cough. Instead they get muscle ache, a sore throat and headache. The app has tracked 15 different types of symptoms, together with a distinct pattern of “waxing and waning”. “I’ve studied 100 diseases. Covid is the strangest one I have seen in my medical career,” Spector says."

From here: ‘Weird as hell’: the Covid-19 patients who have symptoms for months

Welp, that is making me entirely disinclined to stop shielding any time soon.

We've been in lockdown for 7 weeks. We started shielding early, before it was compulsory. The days are all the same routine, pouring through my fingers like sand.

We've both been tired. Childcare, work, housework. We take it in turns to prop the other up. We rarely have the energy to cook. We'll batch cook and then eat the same meal six meals in a row. We've been raiding the freezer which we stocked up in case we got sick. Our veg box is still being delivered, and it's an effort to use the fresh veg before it goes off. I steam a lot of it and give it to E.

E is fine. Thriving. They have five teeth now and are working on a sixth. They are a bonny, curious, wilful darling. We got them some new stacking and building toys - wooden blocks, rings on a peg, stacking cuboids. And we have a whole pile of new second hand baby board books after I bought a few job lots on eBay.

They like holding a toy in each hand and rummaging in a toybox, swapping what they're holding for other toys. They can crawl quite quickly around the house now. We keep having to move the cat litter and bowls out of reach. The stairgates we ordered arrived but we haven't had the time or energy to fit them yet. We've got one for the kitchen, since it doesn't have a door.

They can stand freely now, and walk holding onto furniture, climb on the sofa, but they aren't walking yet. They like pulling leaves off houseplants, pulling soil out of plant pots, pulling books off bookshelves, opening kitchen drawers and throwing things on the floor. We need to reorganize the downstairs, but it's hard to find time for extra jobs when we're not even keeping up with the laundry and dishwasher.

E is also doing this inconvenient thing right now where they're basically self-weaning during the day - preferring water and solid food to breastmilk - and then keeping me up ALL NIGHT breastfeeding twice an hour. I'm exhausted.

I've barely done any work lately. About ten hours a week. The rest is housework and childcare.

But I'm okay! Tired but okay. Taking the pressure off myself with work has freed up energy for everything else. And there are lots of things bringing me joy:

Growing things! A tonne of earth arrived and I moved half of it through to the back yard by hand. I felt strong and happy. I now have six full grow bags of earth ready for plants. I've potted up my courgette, bean and squash seedlings, and they're in the conservatory staying warm in their bigger pots. I planted some more beans, herbs and salad. Next is potting up the brassicas.

Online readthroughs organised by

wildeabandon are very fun - a good way to socialise, and it tickles my thespian/literary fancy. I played Crichton in JM Barrie's The Admirable Crichton, which is a silly satirical play about class inequality. The lead role is a class-loving snobby butler who loves serving, but who ends up becoming the boss of the group when they're shipwrecked and he's the only competent one. I do believe Kryten was somewhat based on him.

We also just started doing Good Omens, two episodes at a time. Episodes one and two were great fun, and I'm doing Crowley in Episode three (history sequence hurray!) against

leonato's Aziraphale. I'm looking forward to all of it!

Good Omens fandom is bringing me joy! I've been writing, and obsessively reading fics and meta. It's wonderful to have something creative and social which is absolutely 100% unequivocally Not Work. I'm loving the no-pressure writing inspiration, the nerdiness, the queerness, everything about it. I've never really got stuck into a fandom like this before and I really like it.

Our hot tub brings me joy, when I get a chance to take E out and have a float. The opportunity doesn't open up as much as I'd like, but when I do it's marvellous. It's empty right now waiting for a scrub and refill.

It's satisfying building my capacity to integrate E care into my life in a harmonious way. The best way to get E to nap has been to sling them and go for a walk, but recently those walks have been 90-120mins long (it takes E 20-50 mins to fall asleep, and then they sleep for 60-90 mins, and then it takes a little time to get home). I don't know how much they weigh, but they're ten months old and h e a v y. Afterwards I'm knackered.

So this week I've had great success with slinging them at home and getting them to sleep here. I put them in a back carry and work outside. The movement and the warmth of the sun lulls them, and it gives me a chance to do garden stuff. I even did some of the digging and earth-moving with them on my back, which felt powerful. Babywearing is getting me fit. Every night I go to bed achy, and every day I'm stronger than I expect.

And this morning E was fussy and sleepy during a Zoom call, and I thought I'd have to make my apologies and get them to sleep, but first I tried slinging them and bouncing on the yoga ball while we talked, and they slept on me so sweetly for an hour. It feels amazing to meet their needs while getting the stuff I want to do done, without having to take a massive chunk out of my day. My dream is to get them to sleep in the sling and then do some painting, but I haven't made it happen yet...

I struggled with parenting yesterday. After a week of being woken at 6am or even 5.30am yesterday I just didn't have the energy to give.

Leo and I are doing 1-2 hr shifts of childcare and other stuff. I do feeds, walks and naps, and other care at home to free Leo up for specific things, and they take E inbetween to let me do some work, and somehow housework and cooking three meals a day gets squished in too. When I was caring for E yesterday it felt like any moment of self care I took - even just letting myself be a little less responsive, a little less active, a little slower for a moment - deprived E of something they needed.

They're cutting a second tooth and spent the day flinging themself around, trying to climb things, needing constant catching and vigilance to stay safe, bananaing and shrieking if I tried to persuade them to do something less dangerous. I put a podcast on to give myself something nice while looking after them and they made it their life's mission to steal the phone and eat the audio cable. When we went for a walk or I breastfed I tried putting headphones on and they literally ripped them off my head. It felt like they were signalling they wanted more interaction and engagement from me but I was so exhausted I was in survival mode. Feed them, cuddle them if they'd sit still long enough, stop them hitting their head, that was it. I read three books and sang a few songs but then my well ran dry.

All the parenting books I've read say that self care is so important, but what if you're in self isolation and there's no outside support available? It's horrible to feel like self care and childcare are zero sum, like I'm in competition with E for getting our needs met. I prefer it when we feel like a team. But it's so much easier to get the breaks I need when we have help from outside.

Sorry, just a rant. I know all the other parents of young children are in the same boat. On a good day I have the energy and creativity to think of solutions that work for both of us but sometimes I just got nothing, you know? Coping strategies welcome!

I haven't done Tai Chi since we went into isolation. There's one video class a week, but it's after bedtime and I'm always breastfeeding. So I wouldn't be able to go to the evening classes if there was a pandemic. I want to practice at home, but when?

My RSI is playing up. I've managed to do the home treatment - cold/hot/cold wrist bathing followed by massage, lion balm and stretching - twice in the last week or so. I should do it every day.

If I set aside even 30 minutes for self care activities a day, I could alternate Tai Chi and wrist care. That would be really good for me I think. And when I'm seriously sleep deprived, I need to give up on work and nap.

I've just been so stressed about money that I've been desperate for opportunities to work, and have been getting far fewer of those than I want, so it's hard to make the call to sacrifice work time for self care stuff. I'm trying to grow an online business in an hour here, an hour there. I'm bringing in new team members so work can be done while I'm not available but somehow, I have to pay for them. Once I get focussed on something it's hard to put it down. Anyway, it's pretty obvious that would help.

The last couple of days, since lockdown kicked in for everyone in the UK in earnest, when I've walked to the local park for my Daily Exercise, it has smelled so good. Grass and blossoms and woodsmoke. Our bit of London, one block away from the A10 and three from the M25, suddenly smells like the countryside. Overnight, there are so few cars on the road that the air is sweeter. It makes me feel good to breathe it. Like being on holiday. Humanity's lungs are congested, but as our patterns change the world's lungs are clearing.

I took a new route through the woods today. It was absolutely beautiful: bright and sunny and crisp. At the end of our road is a country estate which is being run as a conference centre and public park. It has a gift shop and cafe, both closed now of course. The estate is gorgeous: oak woods with children's climbing frames and swings, duck ponds, geese, wildflower meadows. I veered off the usual path through the woods along the stream to go around the lake under the trees. The ground had dried out since last week and the woods felt clear and spacious without the mud. One of those little emergent paths was visible running around the edge of the woodland lake, what they call a desire path. I had E sleeping in the sling on my chest, and I wandered along the water's edge, blue sky and budding trees mirrored in the clear water, the reflections disrupted occasionally by the passing of water birds. I'm listening to the six part pandemic series on This Podcast Will Kill You, learning about how viruses replicate and their structure and so on. I was walking for an hour while E had their midday nap, taking all the side paths in the woods, and I barely saw anyone.

This rhythm of life is really working for me. I miss socialising in person, and taking E out on trips. But with all the regular commitments of classes and meetings and get-togethers cancelled, there's more time. Leo has total permission to work fewer hours, as everyone understands that it's necessary when you don't have childcare support. We take turns to work during the day - I do feeds and walks and other half hours here and there, Leo does the bits in-between, and we all eat at the table together. So far we're managing around 5-6 hrs work per day total, and the rest is housework and cooking and eating and childcare handover and self-care. In theory we should be able to do 7-8hrs total between us, but we're still settling into it. If we did 4 hrs work a day each for 6 days a week that would be 24 hrs each, which would be a good amount for both of us.

Working part time, spending so much time with E and with each other, daily walks in the woods, cooking good food, making slow but steady progress with our projects - it's all rather lovely. We haven't managed any alone time as a couple since we started staying at home, it's hard without a babysitter. Either we're both tired by the time E finally settles or they wake up every time we try to cuddle without them and need soothing again. But the togetherness as a family is lovely.

My mum has come down with symptoms. We spoke on the phone today but it's hard being so far away. She's started journalling at

originotley if you want to say hello.

- I've been taking E for walks in the sling. The weather has been beautiful the last few days. It's really spring. Lots of people out and about since the schools closed, not all of them doing social distancing. It's nice to nod and smile at people as I veer out of their way. We ran into our neighbours from a few doors down, who are retirees and XR activists, in the woods, and stood and chatted to them for fifteen minutes, the longest conversation I've had with them. There's a real sense of community solidarity. You pass people in the street and you know everyone is experiencing the same thing.
- We hoped to edit our Ocado order that arrived last week to add some stuff to it, but they closed their website due to high demand. So we'll have to make do without the extra stuff we thought of. At least the delivery arrived okay.
- A few more online orders have arrived. We're trying to minimise deliveries now. Wearing gloves and disinfecting stuff we unpack, then disinfecting the gloves.
- Leo printed a pattern and made a mask out of a vacuum cleaner bag. Apolocalypse DIY! They drove to their workshop, and brought home a ventilator mask and a few other useful bits - glue for mending things that break around the house, etc.
- They also drove to the vet and did a minimal no contact pick up of flea treatment. That should be our last errand for a few weeks.
- I barely did any work last week, mostly childcare and sorting the house out. We've made great progress with the tidying though. Processed our wholefoods order, packaged up two boxes of wholefoods to send to people, reorganised the conservatory/storage area at the back so it contains more stuff while looking clearer. We're making daily efforts to stay on top of the housework and keep the kitchen and living room liveable.
- Some massive milestones for E. In the last couple of weeks they've gone from "older baby" to "proto toddler". It's happened so fast! Last week they did their first forwards crawl - they've been doing backwards scooting for a while. I'd sat them on the kitchen floor while I did a couple of chores, and given them some stuff to play with. Something was out of their reach, and they they crawled towards it! A bit! Couple of movements with hands, one movement with knees. That knee movement has been thwarting them for weeks, so it's a big milestone. We need to baby proof and order and install stairgates asap. If they'll even get delivered...
- They're working SO HARD on standing. Constantly trying to stand up or pull themself up. In the last few days they've made immense progress. They can now stand up from a squat unaided, pull themself up on furniture, and today they stood for a moment without holding on to anything, then held onto something and took a step towards me!
- the elimination communication is going so well. Really successful at the moment. We're catching 100% of poos at the moment and about 50% of wees during the day. At night they're in a nighttime nappy and we only change them if they seem agitated after a feed, but they've been going all night without a change quite often. During the day they're using an independent child potty rather than the baby lap potty they started with. I put their bead maze in front of the potty so they've got something to do while they're sitting on it. They've started hanging onto the maze to pull themself to their feed to indicate their doneness after doing their business. It's a really grownup, independent moment!
- Looking across the room and seeing them standing up supporting themself is still totally surreal. Where did this giant grown-up child come from??
- they're so cheery and curious and engaged and grabby. Object permanence has happened, so if they want a thing, they still know they want it if it's hidden. They've done the cry reaction to having a dangerous thing taken away a few times, another very toddlerish moment. They have WANTS. So many wants.
- We've settled into a rhythm with bedsharing where everyone gets enough sleep. With enough contact, they've done a couple of 5+ hour chunks of sleep without a feed lately, it's lovely. We've given up on the cot and folded it up out of the way.
- E's favourite foods lately: homemade houmous still and always, the One True Food. (We stocked up on chickpeas and tahini before lockdown but are about to run out of fresh lemons.) Steamed courgette is flavour of the moment. Banana. Bean and vegetable soup. Dahl. Soy yoghurt. Almond butter. Response to other steamed veg - broccoli, squash, carrot, cauliflower - varies. Cherry tomatoes were favourite for a while but those seem to have become less interesting now. I've bought a melon which they liked the one time they had it before - will report back!

The news of the lockdown has left me feeling agitated. Adrenaline. I don't know why because we're already complying with the new measures. We're stocked up for a month or two and are only leaving the house for solo walks to help E sleep.

Still. What a time to live through.

Thoughts whirling around my head about the UK's policies - about the railway nationalisation, homing the homeless in hotel rooms, the 80% wage subsidy, etc. A lot of it is too little too late. As a self employed renter I've slipped through the cracks.

But... a lot of it is *good* policies, dare I say good leadership, from a party all my experience has shown me doesn't have our best interests at heart. It's surreal, bewildering, a relief, and unsettling. Turns out socialist policies are the best ones after all, yay? Will any of this survive the pandemic or will we go straight back to neoliberal business as usual? Surely nothing will ever be the same again?

- bought single trip travel insurance to cover disrupted travel and transport/accommodation cancellations. It was the best COVID-19 coverage I could find as recommended on money saving expert. Only pays out if travel is disrupted by FCO recommendations not to travel in the UK or Netherlands, not if I decide not to go. Airbnb has a flexible cancellation policy though. Still not sure if I want to go, going to wait and see.
- sorted out EU health card (and organ donor registration while I was at it)
- ordered bulk dried seaweed for emergency cupboard greens
- ordered extras of cat litter, disposable breast pads, over the counter medicines, teabags, tissues
- big grocery order arrived and had been put away. We got swedes and butternut squash as long lasting veg that will survive in the cupboard. The frozen stuff in our order got cancelled due to a delivery hiccup, and the extra fresh veg we ordered for the batch cooking didn't show, so that needs sorting next week
- still need to do the batch cooking but otherwise we're sorted

Going to the New Forest now for a long weekend with all four of E's grandparents. We don't have any symptoms so I'm hoping we aren't carrying the virus to them. Really looking forward to it.

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Entries tagged with pandemic

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COVID-19 - 5% of cases might be chronic

Lockdown week 7

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