Our BetterMost Community > Chez Tremblay
Corona - what does help you? Your fears, thoughts, everything
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.
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