Coronavirus Self-Isolation Day 43 / "Stay-cation" Illness
Today is our forty-third day of self-isolation due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. It's been six weeks since Nicole and I left the apartment for more than local walks. What a fascinating month it's been!
Basically, we're doing well. We try to avoid most news reports for the sake of our emotions and stress, so we just take it day by day. Our new normal is to have groceries delivered to our doorstep once a week and to take daily walks around the neighborhood outside our apartment complex. That's as far as we've left this area since my workplace told everyone to go on telecommuting.
Telecommuting has been fun. My workplace has been buying everyone computer equipment to make communicating easier. It's strange to see my immediate coworkers through a webcam after so long of not seeing them. It's nice to have this one piece of my old life back. The work itself has been good, too. I've been doing a lot of coding and learning JavaScript. The best part is that being at home means I hardly ever get interrupted, which was a mild complaint all of my coworkers shared at one point or another when we were in the office in our cubes. We've got a reputation as closers or people who get crap done so a lot of people beyond our department love to come to us to ask us to automate things to do their jobs faster. Well, without being in a physical office for them to come to bug us, that's pretty much stopped. It's been wonderful to just spend the day coding and listening to music in peace. I've finished up several fun projects and am feeling confident in my growing skills.
Between deadlines, I decided to take a week off from work halfway through April. Sure, it was a "Stay-cation" due to the virus, but it was nice to just forget about work and deadlines and all of that. The only shame of it is that halfway through, Nicole and I somehow caught a miserable stomach bug that affected me way more than her. Her symptoms were over and done with in less than a day but for me, it culminated with episodes of extreme gastrointestinal pain and bloating that would last several hours several times a day without much warning. The whole illness lasted a week and got so bad that I actually video-chatted with my primary-care-physician to discuss it. Thankfully, it didn't progress into needing to go in for testing even though that was some of the most frustratingly bad prolonged pain I've ever experienced. We now wish we knew how we caught the bug considering we're in self-isolation. It must have come in on a food delivery which means COVID can come in that way too... That's frustrating to think about.
Basically, we're doing well. We try to avoid most news reports for the sake of our emotions and stress, so we just take it day by day. Our new normal is to have groceries delivered to our doorstep once a week and to take daily walks around the neighborhood outside our apartment complex. That's as far as we've left this area since my workplace told everyone to go on telecommuting.
Telecommuting has been fun. My workplace has been buying everyone computer equipment to make communicating easier. It's strange to see my immediate coworkers through a webcam after so long of not seeing them. It's nice to have this one piece of my old life back. The work itself has been good, too. I've been doing a lot of coding and learning JavaScript. The best part is that being at home means I hardly ever get interrupted, which was a mild complaint all of my coworkers shared at one point or another when we were in the office in our cubes. We've got a reputation as closers or people who get crap done so a lot of people beyond our department love to come to us to ask us to automate things to do their jobs faster. Well, without being in a physical office for them to come to bug us, that's pretty much stopped. It's been wonderful to just spend the day coding and listening to music in peace. I've finished up several fun projects and am feeling confident in my growing skills.
Between deadlines, I decided to take a week off from work halfway through April. Sure, it was a "Stay-cation" due to the virus, but it was nice to just forget about work and deadlines and all of that. The only shame of it is that halfway through, Nicole and I somehow caught a miserable stomach bug that affected me way more than her. Her symptoms were over and done with in less than a day but for me, it culminated with episodes of extreme gastrointestinal pain and bloating that would last several hours several times a day without much warning. The whole illness lasted a week and got so bad that I actually video-chatted with my primary-care-physician to discuss it. Thankfully, it didn't progress into needing to go in for testing even though that was some of the most frustratingly bad prolonged pain I've ever experienced. We now wish we knew how we caught the bug considering we're in self-isolation. It must have come in on a food delivery which means COVID can come in that way too... That's frustrating to think about.