Corona - what does help you? Your fears, thoughts, everything

[CellarDweller]

OH, that sucks, Chrissi!

I hope they rectify that quickly!

[Front-Ranger]

I feel for you, having to put your health and safety at risk for reasons that don't seem important enough. I hope at least that children are tested to see if they have symptoms every morning. I also hope that your hours can be reduced with the lower class size. Is it possible to talk with your boss, or your bosses' boss?

[Sason]

That sounds like a GDBOAUS, Chrissi!

[Jeff Wrangler]

The parents lie to our faces, we know it, they know it. And we can't do anything about it.

That's just awful. 

[Penthesilea]

Thank you all.

I feel for you, having to put your health and safety at risk for reasons that don't seem important enough.

Yes. Exactly that's the feeling I have. We have to put our health at risk for parents who are too lazy to look after their children. Not all of them of course; I don't have any trouble about having emergency openings, as long as they're really emergency only. Which in my group is clearly not the case.

I hope at least that children are tested to see if they have symptoms every morning.

Ha, ha, as if.

Have a cough? - go to nursery, as long as it's not persistend
Have a head cold/the sniffels? No worries, go to nursery (that one has been taken off the Corona warnings list)

And against fever parents like to give Ibuprofen in the mornings - you realize the child is not well, and after about half a day, when the Ibuprofen wears off, the fever starts to rise.

Have a slight fever? Anything under 38°C (=100.4F) does not count.


I do love my job. I love the little ones. But the longer I work in this job, the more I dislike parents. "Everything's okay, he's fit as a fiddle." I get told in the morning, looking at a child with glassy eyes and a runny nose.

We play this dammit game every winter. They always try to bring their sick children. Corona just makes that kind of game more dangerous.


I am so, so sick of being lied to my face.
One father told us he has to work and the child's mother is very sick, so it's an emergency. He said his wife is immunocompromised. To wich we replied, in that case it's a very bad idea to bring the child to nursery. Suddenly the wife had "a different illness" and was not immunocompromised any longer.

One father told us his child does not have a fever (we had measured beforehand). The child was only "overheated" and it was our fault, because on said day we didn't have outdoors playtime. Sure.


I work only 16 hours a week, on two days. So I can't reduce hours, wouldn't make any sense. I asked my boss to be temporarily transferred to a different job as long as the Corona numbers are high, since I'm a higher risk person. My boss was all for it, but the boss's boss said no.
I could officially switch departments, but that would be permanently, I couldn't go back later. And I don't want that, I love my job.

[serious crayons]

Sorry, Chrissi, that's really a GDBOAUS.

I was just reading a news story about people who work in an overwhelmed Los Angeles hospital and another about National Guardsmen who, for some reason, were banished from the Capitol after the inauguration and had 5,000 troops at close quarters, some of them COVID-positive, in a cold parking garage with one two-stall bathroom. Sounds like somebody screwed up, senators on both sides stepped in and they got it fixed within a few hours.

But it made me think about how lucky I am to have a job where I can work from home almost all the time in comfort and convenience. Except once every week or two, when I have to go mingle with the public.

Last week I interviewed veterans at a monument dedication. We were masked and outdoors, but standing within 2-3 feet, so on Sunday I got a COVID test. On Tuesday it came back negative. But that same day I had to interview more people:

1) A couple indoors, all of us masked, sitting across a medium-size table from each other. Medium risk.

2) A weird millionaire who, when I knocked on his door, invited me into his art-filled mansion. I kept my mask on; he was unmasked. We sat probably eight feet apart. His ex-wife came in to fix him lunch. I later learned he'd had a stroke and never left the house, and I imagine his ex-wife is fairly careful because of him. So probably low risk. HOWEVER ...

3) A guy whose main floor was filled with unmasked construction workers. When I knocked on his door, he invited me into his basement. We were both masked but no more than four feet apart, and when I got there he'd been working out in the basement. So, I assume, breathing and probably maskless, potentially filling the room with germs. Higher risk.

I guess I'll be getting another test this Sunday. 

[CellarDweller]

Hello everyone!

just got off the phone with mom.  We have an update on Chris.

Chris had an appointment with a pulmonologist today, to see what's going on with him needing oxygen, as his oxygen levels always seem to drop when he's off oxygen.  As silly as this sounds, I need to go into Chris' past.

When my mother was pregnant with Chris, she started to bleed.  She and dad rushed to the hospital, and the doctors could not find a heartbeat, so they told her she had lost the baby, and gave her medicine to induce labor.

After giving her the meds and waiting, labor hadn't started, they examined, and found Chris' heartbeat.  They immediate gave her another drug to stop the induced labor, and she carried Chris to term.

When Chris was born, he had a concave chest because his chest bones had not fused.  You could see his skin pulsing where his heart was.  He had to have surgery to have a plate put into his chest, to make up for the lost bone.  Part of this procedure (because medicine was not as advanced as it is now) resulted in Chris having part of his lungs removed to accommodate future bone growth and the plate.

The pulmonologist explained that Chris has never had full lung capacity because of this surgery, so that's why his levels drop when he's off the oxygen.

She has cleared him to go back to work, and she's ordered a portable oxygen machine for him.  She also recommended that the machine be dropped down again to a lower level.  She also explained to him that going forward, if he ever gets a virus or pneumonia, he will most likely need oxygen again.

He contacted his job, and they will have a position open for him in March, that will be Monday - Friday, full-time hours, and it's not a problem for him to take his portable oxygen tank, if he needs it.

[serious crayons]

That's good news! And it sounds like your family must have had a tough time in his infancy and childhood.

Is Chris older or younger than you?

[CellarDweller]

he's about 4 years younger than me

[Jeff Wrangler]

Oh, dear. I guess this is his "new normal." I wish him well with it. I'm glad he will have a job to go to.