the_siobhan | a creature, naked, bestial

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a creature, naked, bestial

Still alive. Just exhausted.

Had a conversation with my sister about the fact that she isn't taking any Covid precautions. None. She rides public transit every day and spends at least one day a week with my medically vulnerable father. She prides herself on being able to get good information out of reading studies so now I'm trying to compile a list of studies about the physical impact of repeated Covid infections.

Because I need another fucking job right now.

****

My own bout of Covid seems to have left me with worsened vertigo, so that's fun. I also think my memory is shittier but that could also be due to chronic overwhelm. My desk is covered in scraps of paper with reminders scribbled on them. I try to make sure I go through the pile at least once a week to check up on myself but mmmeeehhh, I don't always manage that either.

So it goes.

***

Old Man is finally home after six? I think? rounds of hospitalizations. They put him in a program that is intended to try and support the elderly in returning to home as an alternative to long term care. It's been - not going well so far, they have their own staff that manage the daily care and that has a lot of gaps. I'm working on it. In the meantime it's worth staying in the program for the Occupational Therapist and the RN visits.

Several of the bajillion phone conversations I've had today have also been about trying to track down his clothes and his glasses, which were lost in one of the rounds of hospital admissions. No luck so far. He has a backup pair fortunately.

***

The big looming deadline on the house is that fucking tree which has to be in by the end of the month. As predicted, I have been reminding the housemate on a daily basis that this was something they put in their name. I'm sure the reminders will be coming hourly by this time next week.

Of course before we put the tree in we have to clean out the wood from the old one. I'll be fucked if I'm doing that by myself, but they were in the States this weekend. Next weekend is a long one so there will be shouting if they've made plans to go out of town.

Altho I'm not sorry when they aren't here. There is something so incredibly demoralizing about juggling meetings, phone calls with contractors, phone calls with care providers, appointments, job deadlines, house deadlines... and then going downstairs and they're watching TV from the couch they haven't left for three days.

I mean other than the One Thing I have to bug them about, their lack of engagement shouldn't really affect me. I don't clean up after them any more so it's not like it creates more work for me when they don't do housework. I know the impact is purely psychological, but I just can't seem to shed it.

Bleargh. Close date is June 26, so six more weeks and they are somebody else's problem.

Can't fucking come fast enough.

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Worsened vertigo AUGH. I said to my new ENT a couple weeks ago after walking into the exam room and plugging in the HEPA, "I don't have it to lose." He didn't argue. May it GO AWAY.

When ppl you care about don't take care of themselves, part five thousand. Here, it's getting two of these people to not shave a decade off their lives by only eating shred cheese on bread twice a day.

OMG, my California ex was like that. The back of the couch faced the kitchen island where I would always be doing the dishes. Me. Frying pan. Head. That I never did it should earn me an international prize. Instead, we just get to not go to jail. Best of luck.

What exactly needs to happen with the tree?

I know the impact is purely psychological, but I just can't seem to shed it.

Yeah, don't minimize the psychological impact. Eesh. <3

We cut down a dying tree a couple of years ago and the city bylaws make you replace a tree if you've removed it. (If you're a private person anyway, developers seem to be able to mow down whole forests without any repercussions.)

So the inspector is coming in June to make sure it's in. There's a sizable fine if you don't do it, which I'll be stuck paying for. In the meantime, the old tree is still in sections back there so we need to get it out of the way.

There's a program to get a free tree, which Axe signed up for and now their name is on all the paperwork. I could potentially start over from scratch but I don't have the time.

I could be wrong, but IME most arborists will only plant in May and September, so yeah, checking on that soon is a good idea. When we ordered a front yard tree from the city, it took about a year for it to go in. We'd already moved out.

We're coming into TO June 1 and can bring a small sapling. Tons of nurseries out here. Not sure what the city's requirements are. What species and how big? Alternatively, you can get bare root trees shipped off the internet. LMK if I can help with that in any way.

In theory we have a tree arriving on Thursday. If that doesn't happen I might yell for help.

Oh, hon...I'm so sorry. That all sounds exhausting in that sort of slow accretion of sorrows way. I hope that you can cling to the promise of June 26 as a definite light at the end of this very, very long tunnel you've been slogging through for so long. *hugs*

It will definitely be something I can check off the pain-in-the-ass list, for sure.

I'm putting my foot down that their cat has to move out the same day. Poor thing doesn't get nearly enough attention while they aren't home (I'm allergic to her) and she starts shitting all over the house when she gets frustrated. I expect all their crap will take a bit longer but I can live with that for the time being.

I’m sorry the increased vertigo is sticking around. It may still be a temporary issue, as many people do experience resolution of lingering Covid symptoms by six months post-Covid. (Certainly wasn’t my experience, but I’ve read enough studies to know that a lot of folks do seem to escape having Long Covid stick around long-term.) I’ll keep my hopes up for you that it fucks off.

I feel you on the family members not protecting themselves. My teenager has decided he’s done with masking, even though he’s well-aware of what Long Covid can do (having directly seen it put me in a wheelchair). There’s nothing I can do about it or about the fact that he’s now made himself a much bigger risk to me. He knows he was the vector that brought Covid to me and put me in the hospital last time, so if his fear of doing that again isn’t enough to make him mask, nothing I can say will convince him either.

I'm doing physio for it again, so I'm hoping that will eventually help.

That's... terrifying. I'm so sorry.

Edited 2024-05-14 17:44 (UTC)

Comment below about death might be triggering so I separated it out. Please stop here if you don't want to read it.

..

It always makes me wonder what will happen if a family member does actually give Covid to my father. Like... will they be ok with that? Are they going to ask me to pretend that wasn't their choice?

I occasionally wonder about that toxoplasmosis theory, that covid targets the part of the brain that manages risk assessment.

I really think it does affect the brain. My kid is one of the most empathetic people I’ve ever come across, so yeah, I do suspect brain damage.

My sister (who is antivax/antimask) attends a huge antimasker megachurch in person multiple times a week, and has now ended up in the hospital getting monoclonal antibodies three times due to her high-risk heart condition. She’s already given my parents Covid once and I fully expect her to do it again. It’s a bit of a moot point since we’re already estranged, but if she kills one or both of my parents, that will close the door to any reconciliation. I can’t pretend that she wasn’t their killer.

Death from something caused by covid is more likely than death from covid. "Oh, they would have had a heart attack/stroke/whatever anyhow! That wasn't because I gave them covid!"

I am trying to track down if one of my kids, who apparently has a lot of anxiety about my health, has stopped wearing their mask at school. I expect this kid has. Their dad, who I see multiple times a week, has stopped wearing a mask at his desk at work, but he does wear one when he walks around the office. Because you can't catch covid if your head is closer to the ground, I guess.

Is your sister taking preparations when she visits?

My own bout of Covid seems to have left me with worsened vertigo, so that's fun. I also think my memory is shittier but that could also be due to chronic overwhelm.

The brain fog seems like it's a regular thing (ish), but the vertigo iks a new one (a bit niche tough). Hopefully they'll pass quickly.

I can't help with the tree.
You probably need to go hard now, ahead of the weekend.

Nope! And she won't be allowed in my house.

The vertigo is an old problem - I have damage in my vestibular nerve. I've been doing physio for it for ten years and it was mostly under control so this a resurgence of an old problem.

I mean visits the oldster.

I know about your vertigo! What I meant was triggering a relapse. I've not seen that one mentioned elsewhere (admittedly, COVID is less a discussion in places i see these days), but I guess it makes sense.

Nope!

My understanding of covid is that if you have any health issue it just rolls in there and makes it worse. I think I recall seeing there is even a cancer connection, although I haven't followed up on that to confirm. (I should look that up - sister has had cancer twice, so that might be a good lever.)

And vertigo can be caused by post-viral syndrome anyway, so here we are.

I think it is hard for some people when they see no one else wearing masks, to go against the crowd. Which is actually one reason I continue to wear masks visibly in public places. Also COVID sucked and I don't want to do that again and we have no idea where we got it from. I'm just really glad I did NOT give it to my parents when I visited them for the holidays, which I actually put down pretty much 100% thanks to the fact that my very first symptom was losing my voice, so I kept my mouth shut. My memory was definitely negatively affected by COVID but seems to be gradually getting better. A lot more losing things that I just had in my hands, forgetting what I came in a room for, etc.

I'm sorry your roommate fails to adult. I think it can definitely feel, especially to those of us raised female in our society, like lack of care. Like, if someone in MY house was doing a bunch of stuff and I wasn't, I would feel guilty at least and probably check to see if there was some way I could help out, or make sure that there was nothing I should do that I hadn't, so seeing someone else not step up when I've been working my butt off feels like they are being deliberate assholes. But I think a lot of times, especially for those raised male, they haven't ever developed the capacity to even NOTICE it. I don't know if that's what's going on, but that's a thing I have experienced.

This tree thing is the very last thing their name is on. So once that's done I don't have to care what they do or do not notice. But I do plan on cleaning the house from top to bottom once their crap is out of the way.

I did 100% of the work on putting together the buyout proposal and I honestly don't get that. They're hoping to walk away with enough to put an offer on a new place. But they can't be arsed to put any effort into making that happen? Does not compute.

Does not compute.

It does.
"I did 100% of the work" = "hey're hoping to walk away with enough to put an offer on a new place".

Seemless!

I think it is hard for some people when they see no one else wearing masks, to go against the crowd. Which is actually one reason I continue to wear masks visibly in public places.

Same here. I went to the doctor today, oldies everywhere, not a single other person in a mask. Even my doctor, who was wearing one last year, long after you needed to.

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