In Which I Scare Myself
It was a long weekend. Early Saturday I began feeling a tickle in my chest that developed into a cough throughout the day. I took my temperature a few times, and mostly it was fine, but in the evening it went up to 99.5, which in hindsight is a common occurrence, but scared me at the time.
Instead of preparing dinner, James made Ramen just in case. I could feel my heart in my chest as I fell asleep.
Sunday my temperature was back down, so it calmed our nerves a little bit, but it was still stressful and I wasn't able to enjoy my weekend in. I emailed my boss and let him know that I had a cough and asked him what he wanted me to do.
Monday morning I drove to work before 9 AM, and sat in my car as instructed and waiting for my boss to come sample me for our in house study on COVID-19. I went through the consent process for the study, swabbed my nose in each nostril, shoving the QTip as far back as I could comfortably manage, placed the swab in a sterile tube, and dropped into a bag held open by my boss; all this while still inside my car. Because of my cough, all spoken communication through the window between my boss and me was done with my head turned away. He was wearing full PPE: disposable cover with hood, safety glasses, mask, full face shield, gloves.
I was then instructed to go home, and that we should have results by the end of the day.
I went home and spent the day worried. James and I moved things around in the living room to unearth the sewing machine, which has needed to happen for a while. I loafed around a bit. We had lunch. James gardened. This whole thing is so surreal. Sometimes my brain manages to forget that it's all happening, and then I'll remember and it just doesn't feel real. It feels like we're all in some movie.
I've been getting slightly dizzy on a pretty regular basis, but I think it's from not breathing enough, or breathing too much, or my supplements, or stress.
My anxiety has not been well the last few days. I have very definitely got the Doom Cloud, and there's not a lot of rational thought to dispell it because, for God's Sake, there really is a terribly global pandemic that is killing even healthy people. The chance that it could be one of us is not zero. Yes, it's low, but not as low as it could be if I was just allowed to stay home. Hence; anxiety. I'm trying to make the best of being at work through this, getting things done that I haven't had time for.
We will get through this.