— पांच हजार आठ सौ अस्सी छह —
Well. Shobhit has covid. So far, I do not—I'll get to that momentarily.
There's no saying for sure where he got it. I only know that his symptoms started on Monday, when he texted me he was "Not feeling 100%." But the thing is, Shobhit had just gotten his booster shot at the Kirkland Costco on Saturday, so I regarded this as totally normal. I noted that I didn't quite feel 100% for, like, two days after I had my booster. In fact it felt as severe a reaction to a vaccine as I'd ever had, maybe even more—I was totally functional, but I still felt kind of "bleh" for a couple of days. So, I didn't think anything of it.
I should have thought of it as much more of a red flag than I did, when yesterday morning he texted me he was running a fever of 100.1°. All of his symptoms up to that point seemed like a standard cold: he was congested, he was coughing—but usually colds don't come with a fevor. Maybe I was deluding myself, but even when I said he should do a covid test just to confirm, I was still expecting it to come up negative.
I rather wish he had just done it while I was at work, but whatever. We had only one test left at home, and I took it out and ran it for him. You set the timer for 15 minutes for this test, but the second line showed within a matter of seconds. Fuck.
So, what now then? Shobhit already works from home anyway, and doesn't have a lot of social engagements. He did have a plan for Saturday night this weekend that will obviously not happen, but that's about it. It was significantly different for me, as I have tons of shit planned always. On the upside, my plans now through the end of next week (which is just what I'm currently focusing on) were kind of unusually easy to reschedule or pivot.
There were two particularly big disappointments. First, today: the Leadership Team (LT) at work is providing an "appreciation lunch" to the Office Relocation Team. I just put in my order for this lunch yesterday—and I took a break from writing this very paragraph to go back into DoorDash and cancel it. Then, that very same Office Relocation Team made a plan to go out for Happy Hour later this afternoon. I'm having to skip both, because it's clearly not a good idea for me to come to the office while Shobhit is sick. When I return to the office may depend on when he tests negative again, and assuming I don't get sick myself, but I'm officially working from home until further notice, and certainly the rest of this week. I was already taking a PTO day on Friday anyway, so that really only means today and tomorrow. Way too much is up in the air at the moment to know yet about how next week will look.
Second, this weekend: I had to message Jennifer and Matthew that we'll have to cancel their visit this weekend, which was going to involve an overnight stay on Saturday and then going to the Salmon Days Festival in Issaquah on Sunday. Jennifer responded:
That’s ok. Matthew is sick and I wasn’t sure if he was going to be better by then
I was going to give you a heads up tomorrow
Depending on how he was feeling
She added that she just told him to take a covid test because she hadn't even thought of that; I still don't know what his result was. But, she also said:
But he can’t breathe and eat at the same time…. It’s ridiculous. In which case, it kind of sounds like he will not likely be fully recovered by this weekend and they probably would have had to cancel for their own reasons regardless of the issue with Shobhit.
I had $100 budgeted for their visit, though, so now I'm saving on that spending I guess. I was already over budget anyway, and then we got a surprise water bill that covered 54 days rather than the standard month so that was about $64 more than expected; it put my projected budget balance at -$114.71. Well, I'm also having to postpone planned hot drinks at The French Guys Bakery with Laney on Friday, for which I had budgeted $25. So that's $125 I can remove from my budget, which puts my balance back in the black: $10.29. Hey, some things are really working out for me!
Anyway, I guess it's not the end of the world. We can just try again for Salmond Days next year. The thing happens every year on the first weekend of October.
— पांच हजार आठ सौ अस्सी छह —
— पांच हजार आठ सौ अस्सी छह —
I texted Laney first, because we had so many plans we'll have to reschedule—though, honestly, fewer than we might typically during any other average 10-day stretch. I texted Jennifer next, because of the need to cancel their visit this weekend. I texted Gabby after that, just to let her know I would becoming back to the office later in the evening to grab all of my stuff. I said at first that I would be working from home at least through the end of next week, but right now that's slightly up in the air, and just depends on a few factors. I later messaged the Office Relocation Team chat group on Microsoft Teams to give the bummer news that I would be unable to attend today's events.
It's even more of a bummer today because I still feel fine. Not only that, but I actually took my own test last night and it was actually negative, which honestly kind of shocked me. When Shobhit and I got covid in 2022, I tested positive less than 24 hours after he did. This time, he'd had symptoms of one kind of another for 2 days, and I had even slept in the same bed with him. There would almost have been something convenient about it if I'd tested positive as then we wouldn't have to try avoiding each other. I was genuinely surprised when I looked at my result strip and there was only one line.
I do have a theory about this, though. I had my booster shot on Sunday, September 14. My understanding is that vaccines are at full effect after about two weeks—which takes us to this past weekend. It would seem that my exposure to Shobhit's covid was perfectly timed for when my immunity would theoretically be at its strongest. Now, I could still test positive later, we don't know yet. But it's been multiple days now and I'm still not sick, so for now at least, I'm feeling hopeful. And if Shobhit's feeling better by Monday and I'm still testing negative, I may just go back into the office after all, perhaps just masking for a few days. My home work station is workable but far from ideal; my only true external computer monitors are at the office and at home I have to use a Samsung TV as an external monitor, which has a lower pixel rate. It's also creating an image that's kind of too big, so the picture on the laptop itself is too small; the picture on the Samsung TV monitor is a bit too big; only the external monitors at the office are just right.
Anyway, last night I made us chai, and then I took the car to go back downtown to pick up my computer, keyboard, headset and mouse from the office. Traffic was so bad, even around 7:00, I hardly would have taken more time to get there had I just walked. But, although I had ordered a new box of covid tests from Amazon earlier in the day, they are not scheduled to be delivered until tomorrow and I did not want to wait that long to test myself. So, once I found a parking spot on Union, I walked over to the Walgreens at 3rd & Pike to buy a 2-pack of tests. I then walked over to the office to grab my stuff to take home. I wore a mask in both places, even though no one was in the office by that point. I was thinking I might be feeling something in my throat, having no idea if it was just hypochondriacal paranoia. At that point I was thinking it likely that I would test positive, but, as I said, I tested negative.
As of last night, Shobhit decided to sleep in the guest room. This was a good idea both because we should stay in separate rooms as much as we can unless or until I test positive myself; and because my work station is in our bedroom. He says he feels slightly better today, and that his congestion has cleared a bit. He's still coughing though. Knock on wood, I still feel fine. If I actually do get through this without ever getting infected, it will feel a bit extraordinary. The only downside is that I will be left even more vulnerable as the season progresses and the effectiveness of the booster shot gradually wane over time. I will have to be particularly careful about masking in key places.
In the meantime, I'm just working from home, and otherwise hanging out at home. Nowhere to go, nothing to do outside of work but watch TV—it's feeling a bit like 2020 again, or January 2022, the last time I worked from home, and I did it then only because of the Omricon spike and I wanted to stay away from people. After that I got covid by the next April anyway. We had this week's episode of
Slow Horses to watch, and I watched in the bedroom while Shobhit watched in the living room. I still go out to the kitchen to make meals and such, but am otherwise sticking to the bedroom.
With Jennifer and Matthew's visit canceled, I might go to the "Halloween Pet Parade" happening at Volunteer Park on Sunday. But that depends entirely on how we're feeling by then.
— पांच हजार आठ सौ अस्सी छह —
[posted 12:50pm]
