Living Life Upstairs

I did 10 minutes of yoga today. That made me tired and I took a nap. I started a puzzle. I walked downstairs and got a drink out of the fridge. All of these moral wins for the day. My back aches from laying on this couch. It may just be the COVID ravaging my body. I’ve seen hundreds if not thousands of patients with COVID in the past 18 months and managed to escape until this week. Post vaccination I figured my chances of eluding it were high. After being drenched in the delta variant at the hospital for the past month though my wizardry finally ended. I’ve been quarantined, cast out, banished, exiled; living life upstairs. If you can call this living.

Leave it on the Doorstep

My 5 year old was supposed to start kindergarten this week. That has to wait. I played a game tonight with my 8 year old. I was at the top of the stairs pouring water over the balcony while he tried to catch it in his mouth. My other children didn’t want to play. Brody told me he wants to do it again tomorrow. Kelsey brought me up a smoothie and some pizza today. A line from Home Alone came to mind.

COVID Fatigue

It’s been years since I’ve had a fever and body aches. I’ve gained a little sympathy for the patients I treat. This COVID business is no joke. I’m praying that my vaccine will keep me from the devastating pulmonary effects of the virus. So far it seems to have.

It is hard for most to understand the destruction that COVID causes. The news headlines get drowned out by the political drama. COVID fatigue set in for most of us a long time ago. I have to admit that I was fed up with masks, COVID restrictions and mandates. With the vaccine available numbers of infected had dropped and life began to return to normal.

A little over a month ago things changed drastically. The delta variant hit us hard. Each ER shift was filled with memorable patients: 30 year olds needing oxygen, 40 year olds on ventilators. ICUs were filling up across the state and across the nation. The ER has become the new ICU with patients boarding, often for days, waiting for a bed to open up.

An article on ESPN today highlighted Justin Foster, a defensive end for Clemson who suffered long haul COVID symptoms. His return story is remarkable.

The Vaccine

I scroll through Facebook. I’ve fortunately been doing less of that recently. Half of my “friends” on there post anti-vax info. Half of them are pro-vaccine. This leads me to believe that I have three options:

Continue my occasional perusal for entertainment purposes
Dump half of my Facebook friends (I’ll let the readers choose which side)
Get off Facebook altogether

Three may be the best option for a while. A friend did post this study today from the CDC:

The same article gives the following caveat:

The difficulty with most things is that everyone has an opinion and most are willing to share it. Anecdotally I find the above information to be true given the hundreds of COVID cases I’ve seen in the last two months. Only a very small amount (like myself) get COVID post vaccine and a much lower percentage are hospitalized.

My Opinions:

As I tend to do I will share two brief, but very important opinions:

Get the Covid vaccine
Don’t watch YouTube videos on how to swing a golf club

My first opinion seems very straight forward, my second a little less so. I have many friends who jump down the rabbit hole of endless YouTube binging on how to become a better golfer. I have to admit that i occasionally do so myself. It has for the most part led to misery and poor performance. The pathway to better play is more practice and occasional professional help.