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the_siobhanI'm about a month behind on updates these days, so bear with me.
A thing that happened, back in January my sister moved to the Ticino canton of Switzerland. This is the sole Italian canton, it's located on the border with Italy and since it's also at the base of the mountains it has a very temperate climate. My sister sent me a bunch of tempting photos of clear blue lakes sparkling in the sun shine and said, You should come visit! And I said, you know what? I will!
I planned it pretty carefully. Omicron was on the ebb, but after the last two years I knew damn well that we always have a spike after a major holiday. So I picked the week before what would be March school break in Ontario, reasoning that the plague-ridden hordes wold be at their lowest number that week. As it turned out, it was damn good planning, because the province dropped masking mandates the week after I got back. I expect things will get ugly again over the next month or so.
At the last minute, when I was booking the tickets, I looked at my bank account and decided I could potentially afford to pay for a second ticket and I asked my daughter if she wanted to come. She said FUCK YEAH. (Literally, that's what she said.) So we did.
The Good: It was fantastic! We took the train all over the country! We hiked on mountains! We sat in the sun and drank wine.
The Bad: The step father was hospitalized the day I left, something I found out about while my flight was being boarded. The PSW who called me assured me that it was probably just dehydration, so after some dithering I decided to get on the plane.
I then spent the entire week trying to get the hospital to call me back with updates on his condition - and although everybody I talked to assured me everything was under control and there was no reason to cut my trip short, I couldn't get in touch with him and I couldn't get anybody from his medical team to call me back until the day before I flew home. And Axel couldn't go in and check on him because...
drumroll
Axel caught covid. Found out the day after I left. In retrospect it was good I did get on that plane because Axel would likely have come to the hospital with me otherwise. They never had any symptoms, just got notified they should test by a friend who caught it and their test was positive. Jenn & I tested ourselves several times while we were in Switzerland - the at home tests are cheap and readily available there - and we both tested negative for the entire week.
Eventually my nephew was able to go check on the Old Man and confirm that he was weak but recovering. When I got off the plane Axel was testing negative, but I spent the night at the girlfriend's place anyway, just to be on the safe side. I visited the hospital the next day before going home.
So Old Man has since been discharged from the hospital and has been transferred to a rehab facility. I just spent the day going back and forth to get the PoA paperwork and visitor paperwork with the facility and then went to his apartment to pick up a suitcase full of clothes for him.
So the holiday was good, and I had an excellent time, but the stress-reduction factor was definitely not where I wanted it to be.
A thing that happened, back in January my sister moved to the Ticino canton of Switzerland. This is the sole Italian canton, it's located on the border with Italy and since it's also at the base of the mountains it has a very temperate climate. My sister sent me a bunch of tempting photos of clear blue lakes sparkling in the sun shine and said, You should come visit! And I said, you know what? I will!
I planned it pretty carefully. Omicron was on the ebb, but after the last two years I knew damn well that we always have a spike after a major holiday. So I picked the week before what would be March school break in Ontario, reasoning that the plague-ridden hordes wold be at their lowest number that week. As it turned out, it was damn good planning, because the province dropped masking mandates the week after I got back. I expect things will get ugly again over the next month or so.
At the last minute, when I was booking the tickets, I looked at my bank account and decided I could potentially afford to pay for a second ticket and I asked my daughter if she wanted to come. She said FUCK YEAH. (Literally, that's what she said.) So we did.
The Good: It was fantastic! We took the train all over the country! We hiked on mountains! We sat in the sun and drank wine.
The Bad: The step father was hospitalized the day I left, something I found out about while my flight was being boarded. The PSW who called me assured me that it was probably just dehydration, so after some dithering I decided to get on the plane.
I then spent the entire week trying to get the hospital to call me back with updates on his condition - and although everybody I talked to assured me everything was under control and there was no reason to cut my trip short, I couldn't get in touch with him and I couldn't get anybody from his medical team to call me back until the day before I flew home. And Axel couldn't go in and check on him because...
drumroll
Axel caught covid. Found out the day after I left. In retrospect it was good I did get on that plane because Axel would likely have come to the hospital with me otherwise. They never had any symptoms, just got notified they should test by a friend who caught it and their test was positive. Jenn & I tested ourselves several times while we were in Switzerland - the at home tests are cheap and readily available there - and we both tested negative for the entire week.
Eventually my nephew was able to go check on the Old Man and confirm that he was weak but recovering. When I got off the plane Axel was testing negative, but I spent the night at the girlfriend's place anyway, just to be on the safe side. I visited the hospital the next day before going home.
So Old Man has since been discharged from the hospital and has been transferred to a rehab facility. I just spent the day going back and forth to get the PoA paperwork and visitor paperwork with the facility and then went to his apartment to pick up a suitcase full of clothes for him.
So the holiday was good, and I had an excellent time, but the stress-reduction factor was definitely not where I wanted it to be.