The J6 Journey: Year 6, October 15th-28th, 2021: The Covid Strikes

As I have explained a few times, this Michael W. Smith concert has been a 2 year saga. Well, today is finally the day, and nothing is going to get in my way of it. Sheryl and I are going to Lafayette and going to sit in the 7th row and take it all in and just relax. I still have some feelings of not feeling that great, but there's medication for that. I've taken my time today, skipped school with Abishai, rested a bit, took a long shower, let the teens sleep in, took my meds and food on time, played all my games so they are up to date, finished yesterday's blog, fixed my quicken program I missed up, put away the dishes, and everybody knows what's what. Everything is under control for tonight. Leah ended up going to Lansing because Grandma Cook went briefly into the hospital last night with some issues and Leah will spend the night and come home tomorrow. Grandma Cook seems better today. I'm sure this won't be the last "emergency" we'll have in the next however long. Not to compare Grandma Cook to a dog, but similar to Socks, when you are nearing the end of your life, it's a bunch of good days and bad days, some days where you rally, and then you just know when the end will be the end. It could be minutes, or weeks away. But we have to continue on as normal, or sometimes go visit. We can't keep an all night vigil every single time there's a touch of a crisis. Ok, fine, I don't want to leave on big trips, but I will leave my house for overnights and to go about my daily routine. I'm not going to hover over Socks watching his every breathe. And neither will we do that to Grandma Cook. We carry on.

Meanwhile, Justin slept in until noon, ate a little bit, has vertigo, and has stayed in bed. There's no need to test again because he said he's not going. Luke Green was informed. Jared wants us all to mask for awhile so we don't spread whatever germs we might have regardless of testing. That's fine. I'll do what I can tonight. Keturah is already protesting about Sunday. I say yes because we KNOW we have the extra germs from whatever I've had and whatever Justin has, so we have ACTIVE germs, so mask up. I won't mask up when we just have every day normal stuff. Even Jared is going to mask up. I think that's a good compromise and I'm going to let it be. Meanwhile, I will take care of Justin's actual physical needs. And pray that I can last until tomorrow when I can really rest and reset from this crazy week.

Keturah also slept until 12:30pm when she finally got up to have food, aka lunch. She totally skipped lunch. She has been assigned to read books until Jared comes home from work. Jared will take Abishai to karate after he handles dinner. I'll be leaving here in an hour to go with Sheryl. I'm glad to have had a low key day. I know it feels "boring" to Abishai, but I didn't need to force school on either one of us. Doing nothing is doing something. It brings peace to just sit and breathe and think about nothing.

And now I'm off to get ready. Less than 4 hrs until show time!

Good morning, Daddy!

Sad commentary on the state of affairs of our economy and school systems. So now parents are left scrambling for babysitting for their kids. Ridiculous.

Ice cream for breakfast because I said I would get him a treat later in the evening after supper last night but then forgot and then it got too late, so I said we would have a treat for breakfast. Actually, he asked for Chick Fil A for breakfast and I said no, I'm not leaving the house. Ice cream is good enough.

Who knew that there would be a 12 day gap in what I wrote above and what I'm about to write now. That's the longest stretch of "silence" I've had since I restarted the blog 6 years ago. And why did this 12 day silence happen?

Because....

COVID HAPPENED

That's right. The J5/6 finally experienced Covid for the first time in this whole pandemic. For the whole time we've been forced to wear masks and when we've chosen not to, and in the whole debate of getting vaccination or not, we finally actually caught the disease. Or the virus that causes Covid-19 which is what puts in the hospital or however the actual way it works. The SARS-COV-19 or whatever it is called virus. We had it. And here's the timeline if you remember the last blog entry.

On October 13th, Weds, I was sitting with my friend Kelli at the park, and we got an email that Justin had been in close contact with someone on Sunday that tested positive for Covid. Since it takes 5 days for exposure to turn into symptoms, yes, we tested him on Thursday, and he tested positive and actually got sick soon after. Meanwhile, I actually was now a close contact and Kelli was a close contact for sitting with me and a friend of ours was going to be a close contact in the days ahead as well. Whoops. So Justin got sick with symptoms on Thursday, October 14th. I refused to test for Covid on Friday, although I thought I was starting to feel a bit icky. I medicated up and went to the concert. As soon as I got home, I feel asleep on the green couch and didn't move from there for about a week. Saturday, October 16th became my day 1 of Covid. Then, on Monday, October 18th, both Jared and Kelli started having symptoms, so that was their day 1 of Covid. Keturah never had any symptoms. Abishai was lethargic for a bit on Sunday, but we never tested him so I don't know if he was truly sick with Covid or not. Thankfully, Kelli and I's mutual friend never did get sick, although she's had it before.

Justin recovered fully within 4 days and he just slept most of that time. He didn't lose much taste or have any stomach issues. Just chills and hot flashes. Jared had minimal symptoms since he had the vaccine, so a bit of dizziness, runny nose kind of thing. It has hit Kelli and I hard since we didn't have the vaccine and we got all the symptoms for the whole week, hot flashes, chills, change of taste, stomach issues, exhaustion beyond even having a newborn, muscle aches and pains, the works. The exhaustion, that was interesting. Like I literally would say something and then not remember what I said, falling asleep as I said it. I've done that at the computer in more recent months, but this was even beyond that. It was incredibly strange and weird. I just slept and slept. And the aches and pains, wow. I almost forgot about them until I started typing them out. I'm fully recovered from them now and I don't need any pain medication because I'm back to baseline. Oh, the migraine the first few days. That was horrible, too. I lost 10 lbs because I felt so sick. I didn't want to throw up but nothing sounded good and the nausea was not curbed by dramimine. And all the dreams I had, my oh my. It was crazy. I spent a lot of the week on the green couch. I was able to gain back some control by the weekend.

Jared took over everything. He cooked and washed dishes. I was well enough after a few days to put the laundry in and instruct the kids to finish it. The kids did their school work on their own and I skipped school with Abishai that whole week. Because of exposure and his own symptoms, Jared has been working from home last week and this week. I'm ready to send him back now that I'm 100% better. He did what he needed to do. He kept everybody going and got me food and what I needed. Now he's just in the way. Back to our regular routines. His quarantine is now up so out he goes.

So we've had the Covid. And we survived. One with the vaccine. One without the vaccine but he's young so he recovered quickly. And one with the longer form because of lots of health issues and no vaccine. And then two kids who didn't get it at all, proving that kids' immune systems don't need a vaccine or a mask. It can pass through them quickly or over them or whatever. But now, we are immune for however long through the start of the flu season and through the holidays at least, I hope. Benaiah and the folks aren't. The folks will need boosters I think and Benaiah will need to go through it again but, that's up to him. I'm just glad it's over. I can move on. For now. And I pray that my friend Kelli continues to recover. Justin and Kya are chomping at the bit to see each other. But we parents have to be well enough to drive and all that first. We'll see.

Oh, what I was worried about last week was that the temperature drastically changed while I was sick. Fall came in quickly and the leaves changed, too. But I was able to see a lot of it today when we were out for ASL class and when I got Justin to small group which was at the bowling alley. So that made me happier. We missed getting to the pumpkin patch this year. There's always next year. Abishai isn't grown up yet. He did grow though and this weekend we have to tackle his clothes. His pants today were two inches too short. Whoops. I have to tackle that first. Poor guy. I would have last weekend or the weekend before but I was sick. We'll get caught up. Slowly and surely, I'm getting caught up.

Sleep is harder to get though. I moved back to our bed and the quality of sleep in our bed is harder to get vs sleeping by myself on the couch. I went to bed by 11pm and spent the next hr with rest less legs and the rest of the night waking up not knowing where to put my legs and I'm more exhausted than I was sleeping by myself on the couch. I just wish there was a good compromise. I don't want to sleep on the couch but I don't want to be exhausted either, especially if I've been in the bed for 9 hrs. I don't know how to solve this one. Jared thinks it's the mattress. I'm not sure. But I am falling asleep at the computer, so I need to be done here.

Screen time in a box. Lovely.

From 70 degrees to 50 degrees in a week. Lovely.

Uh, why not work on a painting project while the wife has Covid? At least the primer coats went on before hubby got sick.

That's right, Mommy feels yucky. I'm glad he's at least trying to write words and draw pictures. He's already come a long way this year alone.

Abishai slowed down for about 2 hrs. He may or may not have had Covid. It's hard to tell. He might have just had a busy Saturday and needed some extra rest near Mommy on Sunday morning.

Yup, absolutely true.

Throwback Thursday photo to when we put in a new sidewalk after we moved in so Fall 2016. Abishi was almost 2 and Keturah was 8 1/2. She looks much younger than 8 here though. But check out the flower bed in the background. How much work I've put into it over the last few years to get it to where it is now? And then how the dirt in front is now all grass and plants. Crazy! And how long Keturah's hair is now compared to then!

My friend was looking through some photos and found this one and shared it with me. We had all gone to the same apple orchard together that day in 2015. Look at how little Keturah is and how short her hair is! Justin would have only been 10 yrs old, Keturah would have been 7. Crazy!

She took this one, too. I love this one!

An update from the KP's sponsor kids.

Abishai even tells stories with his feet when he's playing!

Abishai's Feet Tell A Story

It only says "helmet" but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be a mandalorian helmet.

We broke out of quarantine today! Woot! Woot! I took the pics after we got back from ASL, but I was glad I was able to capture a few leaf pics for the season and on such a gorgeously sunny day, too!