(covid-19, weather, health, fina, kol, amuse)
Wednesday, beginning before 4 am with discomfort throughout the day, dissolved into a long engagement with the an online game. When i was introduced to Blaseball late last week it tickled my memory, "This is mildly entertaining but what was that game...", kept up as my response until dug up Kingdom of Loathing, found my character and blasted through years of accrued gifts as i recalled how to play. Christine corrected my descriptions of both from Surrealist to Dadaist. Fandom, i am embarrassed to say to my Dreamwidth friends, is not my thing, so the engagement in Blaseball just doesn't click for me. But i've managed to completely avoid any player vs player engagement in KoL and find it a just fine diversion.
The doctor called just after 5 to discuss diagnosis and treatments and now i have yet another chronic annoyance, Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I have suspected but, having determined that it wasn't bad enough to complain for any prescription solutions, never pursued. The lifestyle changes aren't really a solution for me as i like vegetables and the high fiber ones at that, beans and whole grains are a regular part of my diet, and i drink water all the time. Anyhow, we've got a plan to deal with the acute issue that began seven days ago, and i have my fingers crossed.
I'm cranky about this too, because i think back to this same doctor's "You're quite healthy!" after discussing the other skin conditions, allergies, asthma, and -- no, there's nothing that miracles of medical science can do, no heroic interventions, and in no way am i going to die from anything (*cough* except depression *cough*, and my asthma has never been severe enough to worry about).
So i think about those of you wrestling with cancer or with severe allergies or chemical sensitivities, those of you watching loved ones with dementia, those of you recovering from COVID and -- yeah -- that's serious. And i feel like a wimp and a malingerer for not pushing through this. But. It's not either-or. I can take a little time to let my body get over insult, disruption, while still acknowledging the seriousness of other types of physical and mental disruptions.
At work, many of us have been given a bonus. I was feeling very uncomfortable about it up until a moment ago. I've been so fortunate through out the pandemic, and i've tried to use the stimulus checks in such a way as to put them to use: and now a bonus? But -- no -- my employer cut everything back at the beginning of the pandemic, no merit increases, no this, no that, so i spent my own money on conferences that normally i would have asked my employer to cover. The bonus covers that, and i know where the amount goes. We have a savings pool for the inevitable need to replace computers, and that's where i pulled the conference fees from. That's where this goes back.
Meanwhile, temperatures the past few nights have gotten down to 39°F. Well, it's better than the two 30°F nights around April 21st. I did get many of my okra planted Thursday night along with long neglected greens seedlings and the tromboncino squash.
I am confused by the changed CDC mask guidance for vaccinated people and wish i could find something that could help me like this calculator: https://covid-19.forhealth.org/covid-19-transmission-calculator/ -- except that calculator bottoms out at "less than 1%" and https://bestpractice.bmj.com/info/toolkit/practise-ebm/understanding-risk/ has a 1% chance a "high risk". Some old data (2014?) had 12 per 100,000 chance of a transportation death. I'm going to assume the chance of a transportation accident that causes some significant side effects is ten times that: 120 per 100,000, 1.2 in 1000 which is what BMJ.com would label a moderate risk. That's an average American which i am not (even pre pandemic i had low transportation use). I did think about transportation injury risk when living in California and did try to adjust my life to minimize that. A blow-out on I-280 drove that home to me.
Anyhow.
Moderna per https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/Moderna.html is 94% effective at preventing laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 illness. The problem with that number is -- was that in addition to masking and distancing etc? https://health.ucsd.edu/news/releases/Pages/2021-03-23-though-risk-is-minuscule-infection-after-covid-19-vaccination-possible.aspx suggests that in a hospital worker context (frequently tested, in a situation around people with COVID) the chance of testing positive after was "higher than the risk identified in the Moderna " trials. The "absolute risk of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 following vaccination was 1.19 percent for health care workers at UC San Diego Health and 0.97 percent at UCLA Health, both higher than the risk identified in the Moderna and Pfizer clinical trials." The CDC says, "Moderna vaccine was 94.1% effective at preventing laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 illness in people who received two doses who had no evidence of being previously infected." This leads me to wonder about the difference between "testing positive" and "laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 illness." UGH Math.
I wish we had better numbers about Long COVID.
This is also posted at https://elainegrey.dreamwidth.org/852416.html .
The doctor called just after 5 to discuss diagnosis and treatments and now i have yet another chronic annoyance, Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I have suspected but, having determined that it wasn't bad enough to complain for any prescription solutions, never pursued. The lifestyle changes aren't really a solution for me as i like vegetables and the high fiber ones at that, beans and whole grains are a regular part of my diet, and i drink water all the time. Anyhow, we've got a plan to deal with the acute issue that began seven days ago, and i have my fingers crossed.
I'm cranky about this too, because i think back to this same doctor's "You're quite healthy!" after discussing the other skin conditions, allergies, asthma, and -- no, there's nothing that miracles of medical science can do, no heroic interventions, and in no way am i going to die from anything (*cough* except depression *cough*, and my asthma has never been severe enough to worry about).
So i think about those of you wrestling with cancer or with severe allergies or chemical sensitivities, those of you watching loved ones with dementia, those of you recovering from COVID and -- yeah -- that's serious. And i feel like a wimp and a malingerer for not pushing through this. But. It's not either-or. I can take a little time to let my body get over insult, disruption, while still acknowledging the seriousness of other types of physical and mental disruptions.
At work, many of us have been given a bonus. I was feeling very uncomfortable about it up until a moment ago. I've been so fortunate through out the pandemic, and i've tried to use the stimulus checks in such a way as to put them to use: and now a bonus? But -- no -- my employer cut everything back at the beginning of the pandemic, no merit increases, no this, no that, so i spent my own money on conferences that normally i would have asked my employer to cover. The bonus covers that, and i know where the amount goes. We have a savings pool for the inevitable need to replace computers, and that's where i pulled the conference fees from. That's where this goes back.
Meanwhile, temperatures the past few nights have gotten down to 39°F. Well, it's better than the two 30°F nights around April 21st. I did get many of my okra planted Thursday night along with long neglected greens seedlings and the tromboncino squash.
I am confused by the changed CDC mask guidance for vaccinated people and wish i could find something that could help me like this calculator: https://covid-19.forhealth.org/covid-19-transmission-calculator/ -- except that calculator bottoms out at "less than 1%" and https://bestpractice.bmj.com/info/toolkit/practise-ebm/understanding-risk/ has a 1% chance a "high risk". Some old data (2014?) had 12 per 100,000 chance of a transportation death. I'm going to assume the chance of a transportation accident that causes some significant side effects is ten times that: 120 per 100,000, 1.2 in 1000 which is what BMJ.com would label a moderate risk. That's an average American which i am not (even pre pandemic i had low transportation use). I did think about transportation injury risk when living in California and did try to adjust my life to minimize that. A blow-out on I-280 drove that home to me.
Anyhow.
Moderna per https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/Moderna.html is 94% effective at preventing laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 illness. The problem with that number is -- was that in addition to masking and distancing etc? https://health.ucsd.edu/news/releases/Pages/2021-03-23-though-risk-is-minuscule-infection-after-covid-19-vaccination-possible.aspx suggests that in a hospital worker context (frequently tested, in a situation around people with COVID) the chance of testing positive after was "higher than the risk identified in the Moderna " trials. The "absolute risk of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 following vaccination was 1.19 percent for health care workers at UC San Diego Health and 0.97 percent at UCLA Health, both higher than the risk identified in the Moderna and Pfizer clinical trials." The CDC says, "Moderna vaccine was 94.1% effective at preventing laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 illness in people who received two doses who had no evidence of being previously infected." This leads me to wonder about the difference between "testing positive" and "laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 illness." UGH Math.
I wish we had better numbers about Long COVID.
This is also posted at https://elainegrey.dreamwidth.org/852416.html .