Today, after many delays due to scheduling issues, not being able to handle downtime from potential side-effects, and being just too tired and out of spoons to handle anything other than what I absolutely had to do in a day, I’m finally getting my second booster shot of the Covid vaccine. I was eligible a while ago, but I’d wanted to wait for the much-touted version to come out since it had proven effective against the strains of the spring and summer, but now I’m wondering if the current strains of the virus have mutated so much that we’re going to need a whole ‘nother booster to be as effective at countering them. I went to do some research, since that’s usually what I do with questions like this, but I discovered it had gotten difficult to find information that talked about vaccines and the pandemic as an on-going concern. In fact, the manipulation of SEO meant that I had to scroll a few pages down to find anything useful that wasn’t about economics or how the current administration in the US is to blame for how tired people are of the pandemic and so on.
Continue readingCOVID
Years of Pandemic Precautions Vs. One Coughing Doctor
I have made it through two and a half years of this pandemic without catching COVID-19. It is entirely possible I was asymptomatic at some point, but I’ve tested every time I’ve had a potential exposure to the virus or any of the symptoms and come back negative every time. So far as I can tell, I’ve managed to avoid getting sick through a combination of good masking habits, having the privilege to work from home as needed, and keeping my exposure to the public at large to a bare minimum. Now, as I spend a week working from home that was supposed to be in the office, coughing and sniffling my days away, I find myself struggling to accept that I might have gotten it from a doctor I saw earlier this week.
Continue readingOne Small Step at a Time
Once again, the world has changed in the space of a week. This time last week, I was worried about how I could share my experiences about being home schooled when I still couldn’t separate what was a result of the learning environment and what was a result of the emotional neglect and abuse. Since then I wrote that post, I’ve learned my employer might be forced to close due to the COVID-19 lockdown in the state of Wisconsin, learned my company was deemed essential due to a variety of reasons (though a lot of it has to do with us stepping into the medical face-shield business to help meet demands), settled into remote work life, learned my employer was going to be reducing everyone to 50% hours (alternating weeks to keep as few people in contact as possible), been told the factory was closing for two weeks due to an outbreak at the factory, and then was informed that we remote workers would still be working our 50% schedules despite the factory closure.