Hello Friends and Family. It seems an appropriate time to update my blog. It has been a very long time. Some of you may not realize that Bill and I live in Kirkland Washington, the epicenter of the covid 19 outbreak in the United States. We both have a habit of watching the world news and both of us are interested in science news to start with. I have been a practicing dental hygienist for 49 years. Everything about infection control changed in the 1980’s because of the HIV virus. As a result of that experience we have “infection awareness”. All of that to say we watched this coming and tried to prepare. We are both ‘over 60’ and I have a compromised immune system. We decided that we didn’t want to risk either one of us getting this infection. Leap Day, February 29, 2020 was our last contact with the community. So far neither one of us has any symptoms to indicate that we have been exposed to the virus but we can’t be positive for 2 weeks.
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| This week: 3/1/2020 |
I grew up in
Austin, Texas and had hurricane awareness from a young age I remember being a Red Cross volunteer as a
teenager. There were times when Austin
set up shelters for people from the coast moving inland to escape different
hurricanes and I even ‘weathered ‘ a couple of hurricanes myself. One in particular where the police came
around ahead of the storm and ask if we were staying in place and the names of
people to notify incase…. When I moved to the Pacific Northwest I transferred
my hurricane preparedness to earthquake preparedness. So that last Costco run we did getting water
and toilet paper wasn’t as much about the virus as restocking our earthquake
preparedness supplies. We had let the
water stock get low because neither one of us wanted to lift that stuff because
we were protecting our backs. If I had
been thinking better we would have purchased more disinfecting supplies. I thought 3 gallons of Clorox would be
enough. We have ordered wipes from
Amazon as the ones I pulled out of cabinets, drawers and backpacks all have
passed their expiration dates.
You can
follow the news yourself and see what is going on. I thought I would give you some insight to
what self-quarantine looks like at our house.
We both are still getting out and walking in our neighborhood but we are
keeping our distance if we see other people. (that is the new phrase around here: social distancing)
Yesterday (Wednesday March 4, 2020) was a beautiful day and over 50
degrees so I decided to work outside a couple of hours. I cleaned out my herb garden and cut and
trimmed plant in that bed. I have lots
of parsley and oregano and some thyme and rosemary all doing well. I plan on planting lettuce and spinach soon
to have an early start on having fresh homegrown greens available. I don’t know how long this ‘house arrest’
will continue but there is plenty here to keep us both busy. Just knowing I shouldn’t be around other
people right now makes it more challenging emotionally. I can easily shut myself in the house for
three or four days and not have a problem at all. I really do hope this is a short
incarceration.
I have
limited my social activities the last year and a half because of my health
issues anyway so I didn’t really have to cut back much. My stamina is not great under the best
conditions. Bill on the other hand is
the social-butterfly of the family but he realized the risk of bringing
something home to me would not be good.
We watch a lot of news and read what we can find. I realized that some people have laughed at
us for choosing to self-quarantine so quickly and but those of you who have
known about the personal health battles I have already dealt with understand
and have encouraged us.
Our trip to
Costco was good because we stocked up enough to hopefully get to the end of
March. However, at the last minute in Costco I asked CeLinda if we should get
the $10 giant bottle of hand sanitizer and the multiple canisters of antiseptic
wipes. She said no and we skipped it. Since then, we realized that we should
have bought them. I now have ordered from Amazon but it won’t be here until the
middle of the month.
So, we are a
bit nervous that we have only been quarantined for 7 days. One of the
incubation time frames we have heard is 14 days. We will feel better when that
day comes. I woke up later than I normally do this morning and CeLinda was
worried that I might have become symptomatic which was not true. We are both
not sleeping well because of our anxiety about the virus. We know that we were not around anyone that
was symptomatic but it is possible that a person who is not symptomatic but had
the virus might be able to pass it on.
We watch
other people get together and wonder if they are aware of how deadly this
disease can be. But it turns out that it is the worst for people over 60. So, I
have not seen many people in the wild like that. I am over 70 and CeLinda is
near 70. She has Addison’s disease and a compromised immune system as a result
and she is diabetic. So, we are in the high risk group if we catch the virus.
I know what
you are thinking. “What about the flu. That has killed many more people.” That
is true but we each have had a flu vaccination for many years. Multiple years
of vaccinations impart more protection than a single year. I know that it is
not very effective in some years. However, I have had a couple of times when I
had flu symptoms and they disappeared quickly. I chalk that up to getting the
flu shot. Maybe I am kidding myself but it helps psychologically.
We hear that
a possible Covid-19 vaccine is a year to
a year and a half in the future. That begs the question of how long we can
quarantine ourselves. My thought is that there will be some therapeutic
medication available much sooner. I am thinking of a medication like Tamaflu which
you take after you get the flu. CeLinda and I have both taken that in the past
and it reduced the intensity of the flu. When listening to a news briefing this
afternoon between Jay Ensley and Vice President Pence, a doctor working with at
the federal level talked about such therapeutic medications coming sooner than
a vaccine. We may have to stay in isolation until then. (They are advertising on local TV for 45 volunteers to try the first vaccine. They are paying $1000. to each volunteer.)
We see Kirkland
as the epicenter of the Covid-19 epidemic in the US. I think that there will be
no way to stop it until it gets as big as China. So, we will stay quarantined
until something drastically changes.
We hope that
all of you reading this will take care of yourselves. If you find yourself in a
high risk group make decisions about how to take care of yourself sooner than
later.
CeLinda again:
We are extremely grateful for our new home. We have more space and a great yard to move around in. It has been almost a week now and we are doing well. The only thing I have missed so far is picking up a hamburger. If you know me personally you know I love a good hamburger and I had a couple of favorite spots to go, usually did that once or twice a week. I don't even have any hamburger meat in the freezer.
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| We are in a Rocky Place right now. |
