Am I still in self-quarantine if I break the isolation for one entry into the real world? It depends on what the real world is and what I do after, don't you think? In my view, I very much am still in isolation. Along with Ed and along with the Madison young family. None of us have gone shopping (except for the rare curbside grocery or medication pickup). None of us have had any person to person contacts or visits, not even of the six-feet-apart kind. Well, until this morning. But it was no ordinary contact. I'll explain.
I've been musing about what to do with a troublesome tooth -- one that has a history of intermittent problems. I remember last year fretting about it in Como, Italy. I asked my bed and breakfast hosts for some salt, just so I could do that old world trick of keeping things at bay with a saline solution. But by the time I got back to the US, it was fine and the endodontist told me to come back when it's acting up again.
Of course, it chose to act up the day Ed and I started our quarantine. It's as if it was in cahoots with the evil forces of nature! In consultation with my dental docs (all of them sequestered at home except for super duper emergencies), I held off, waiting for better times.
Last week, we decided these are good enough times. Not many people are rushing to the dentist right now and the clinics have had time to rethink how best to deliver care. The worry is of course that sick patients will infect the dental crew, not the other way around.
Since I am of that demographic (old people), I was given a pre-opening Monday morning appointment. Meaning early! So early that I wondered if I should set the alarm, but then I remembered my sleep patterns of late and relied, as usual, on my morning wakefulness.
I was prepared: glove for the door handles. Mask to show my solidarity with those around me. Credit card and car keys in my back pant pocket. Pen, my own, for all those releases they ask you to sign which, these days, include something about CoVid -- probably that they do not accept responsibility for your death should some determined evil droplet fall your way.
I've been to dental places hundreds of times in my life, but this visit was unique. Everything has changed in the last weeks. Dividers, separators, screens, plastic curtains, spacing -- all of it is new and different. It felt like entering a construction zone where there had been a hazardous chemical spill. Well, maybe not that bad. Missing were danger signs with skulls and cross bones.
Of course, I'm totally in admiration of the endodontist. He has worked in many distant places (he likes to do what he calls "dental vacations" where he goes to remote corners of the world to provide dental care to underserved populations), but I am sure none posed as big a risk to him as this one: plunging into germ and virus packed mouths of patients, most of them scared, many of them in pain.
The odd thing is that I was not in pain. Like last year, the acute problem (and it was acute) responded well to suggested treatments and things were rather settled. Still, it was important to have it checked out. And, I got my first taste of what medical care will look like for the next year or two: quite safe, if a bit frightening on the visuals! (You've already probably guessed that Ed and I are rather extreme in our quarantine, possibly because it is not hard for us not to go out to places we would rarely go to anyway. Following this extremism, I came home, threw clothes into the washing machine and took a hot shower. Lots of suds. Perhaps for no other reason but to feel good about having this step out into the new real world behind me.)
Breakfast, with a sleepy Ed.
It's cold today. We missed having a frost last night by about half a degree and tonight will be another roll of the dice, but we are sure that this is the tail end of the polar blast. Some things do resolve quickly! And of course, it's still pretty outside. May is always a very very pretty month.
The kids are here this morning and it's a nice distraction from just about everything!
Monday visits are always special for them: they've not had a time of free play here for all of two days! We haven't read together, munched on the couch together, they haven't touched and examined their favorite books and toys! Everything seems fresh.
(Lunch)
When they're gone, I sit down to work on my weekly grocery list. Ed says I'll probably stay with this shopping method even when the pandemic is over. I totally doubt it. On line, I can't see the quality of the produce! I can't pick out the best and the freshest looking anything. And items pop off my list before delivery is made, so that I never really know going into this what I'll get at the end of the day.
And of course, I will never ever miss the grocery disinfecting process. Most of our purchases are of produce. It always comes in plastic bags. Many plastic bags, knotted tight. Put together with the often ungloved hands of the "shopper." Needing refrigeration soon. In the olden days, it took me 45 minutes to put away a week's worth of groceries. Now it takes me two or three times that number. This will be tomorrow's project.
And in the evening? What's for dinner? If it's Monday it must be leftover time! With a salad. And a few more veggies from the CSA box.
Stir fried, because on Mondays, I am without cooking imagination. A heavenly easy meal!
Later, much later, I think about how this day was supposed to have played out differently. Plans were made for it way back, when we actually made plans and dreamed ambitiously. I was to get on a flight to Europe tonight. We were to have a family get together in Paris -- kids, grandkids, all of us. A long, beautiful trip. Rooms were booked, flights were purchased. Later in the week, I would be taking Primrose to Giverny by train. She would have been old enough to ride a pony in the Luxembourg Gardens. Sparrow would have sat with his sister on the merry-go-round in the Tuileries Gardens. The three cousins would picnic together and chase each other and pester parents and grandma for a pastry or an extra croissant in the morning. Snowdrop just couldn't wait for the adventure of it all!
And here we all are, isolating. Well, minus a dental visit.
On the other hand, we are in our homes, in the Midwest, healthy and employed (or retired!). And it is May and the lilac and crab apple are about to bloom. Grateful doesn't describe the depth of my emotion.
My thanks today have to extend to the health care workers once more. I came in contact with some today. Such dedicated people. To the core. Such important and hard work! I'm in awe.
With love.
I've been musing about what to do with a troublesome tooth -- one that has a history of intermittent problems. I remember last year fretting about it in Como, Italy. I asked my bed and breakfast hosts for some salt, just so I could do that old world trick of keeping things at bay with a saline solution. But by the time I got back to the US, it was fine and the endodontist told me to come back when it's acting up again.
Of course, it chose to act up the day Ed and I started our quarantine. It's as if it was in cahoots with the evil forces of nature! In consultation with my dental docs (all of them sequestered at home except for super duper emergencies), I held off, waiting for better times.
Last week, we decided these are good enough times. Not many people are rushing to the dentist right now and the clinics have had time to rethink how best to deliver care. The worry is of course that sick patients will infect the dental crew, not the other way around.
Since I am of that demographic (old people), I was given a pre-opening Monday morning appointment. Meaning early! So early that I wondered if I should set the alarm, but then I remembered my sleep patterns of late and relied, as usual, on my morning wakefulness.
I was prepared: glove for the door handles. Mask to show my solidarity with those around me. Credit card and car keys in my back pant pocket. Pen, my own, for all those releases they ask you to sign which, these days, include something about CoVid -- probably that they do not accept responsibility for your death should some determined evil droplet fall your way.
I've been to dental places hundreds of times in my life, but this visit was unique. Everything has changed in the last weeks. Dividers, separators, screens, plastic curtains, spacing -- all of it is new and different. It felt like entering a construction zone where there had been a hazardous chemical spill. Well, maybe not that bad. Missing were danger signs with skulls and cross bones.
Of course, I'm totally in admiration of the endodontist. He has worked in many distant places (he likes to do what he calls "dental vacations" where he goes to remote corners of the world to provide dental care to underserved populations), but I am sure none posed as big a risk to him as this one: plunging into germ and virus packed mouths of patients, most of them scared, many of them in pain.
The odd thing is that I was not in pain. Like last year, the acute problem (and it was acute) responded well to suggested treatments and things were rather settled. Still, it was important to have it checked out. And, I got my first taste of what medical care will look like for the next year or two: quite safe, if a bit frightening on the visuals! (You've already probably guessed that Ed and I are rather extreme in our quarantine, possibly because it is not hard for us not to go out to places we would rarely go to anyway. Following this extremism, I came home, threw clothes into the washing machine and took a hot shower. Lots of suds. Perhaps for no other reason but to feel good about having this step out into the new real world behind me.)
Breakfast, with a sleepy Ed.
It's cold today. We missed having a frost last night by about half a degree and tonight will be another roll of the dice, but we are sure that this is the tail end of the polar blast. Some things do resolve quickly! And of course, it's still pretty outside. May is always a very very pretty month.
The kids are here this morning and it's a nice distraction from just about everything!
Monday visits are always special for them: they've not had a time of free play here for all of two days! We haven't read together, munched on the couch together, they haven't touched and examined their favorite books and toys! Everything seems fresh.
(Lunch)
When they're gone, I sit down to work on my weekly grocery list. Ed says I'll probably stay with this shopping method even when the pandemic is over. I totally doubt it. On line, I can't see the quality of the produce! I can't pick out the best and the freshest looking anything. And items pop off my list before delivery is made, so that I never really know going into this what I'll get at the end of the day.
And of course, I will never ever miss the grocery disinfecting process. Most of our purchases are of produce. It always comes in plastic bags. Many plastic bags, knotted tight. Put together with the often ungloved hands of the "shopper." Needing refrigeration soon. In the olden days, it took me 45 minutes to put away a week's worth of groceries. Now it takes me two or three times that number. This will be tomorrow's project.
And in the evening? What's for dinner? If it's Monday it must be leftover time! With a salad. And a few more veggies from the CSA box.
Stir fried, because on Mondays, I am without cooking imagination. A heavenly easy meal!
Later, much later, I think about how this day was supposed to have played out differently. Plans were made for it way back, when we actually made plans and dreamed ambitiously. I was to get on a flight to Europe tonight. We were to have a family get together in Paris -- kids, grandkids, all of us. A long, beautiful trip. Rooms were booked, flights were purchased. Later in the week, I would be taking Primrose to Giverny by train. She would have been old enough to ride a pony in the Luxembourg Gardens. Sparrow would have sat with his sister on the merry-go-round in the Tuileries Gardens. The three cousins would picnic together and chase each other and pester parents and grandma for a pastry or an extra croissant in the morning. Snowdrop just couldn't wait for the adventure of it all!
And here we all are, isolating. Well, minus a dental visit.
On the other hand, we are in our homes, in the Midwest, healthy and employed (or retired!). And it is May and the lilac and crab apple are about to bloom. Grateful doesn't describe the depth of my emotion.
My thanks today have to extend to the health care workers once more. I came in contact with some today. Such dedicated people. To the core. Such important and hard work! I'm in awe.
With love.
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