December 22–26乃東生 Natsukarekusa shōzu - Self-heal sprouts
December 27–31麋角解 Sawashika no tsuno otsuru - Deer shed antlers
January 1–4雪下出麦 Yuki watarite mugi nobiru - Wheat sprouts under snow
'Conspiracy Lab 2', March 2022, by late Vancouver pop artist Derrick 'BOY' Humphries.
Tuesday, December 13th
Day nine of COVID.
A word of advice...if you're feeling at all dragged out or unwell, and go off to your local clinic in hopes of getting a precautionary PCR or antigen test, and they try to tell you that you simply have 'a slight cold' after giving you the quickest of quick once-overs, stick your neck out and ask to be tested. If they try to tell you that their policy is only to test people exhibiting body temperatures of 37.5C or higher, go to another clinic. Don't place a lot of faith in home antigen swab tests, either. Trust me...they are unreliable, at best. Find a clinic or other venue that will administer a legitimate test.
With new variants emerging and joining the fray every few weeks, and a lot of people now receiving their fourth or fifth jabs, the viral playing field has shifted. Today's COVID is now presenting a bit differently - particularly among people who've recently received the latest bivalent booster jab. A mildly scratchy or sandy feeling throat. A runny nose. Some sneezing. A dry, productive cough. Generally low energy, and an ever so slightly elevated temperature (36.8 - 37.3C). Symptoms that can easily be passed off as consistent with a standard, garden variety 'common cold'. This is COVID flying under the radar. Call it 'Stealth COVID' or whatever makes you comfortable...but if you don't catch it soon enough, it will wreak significant havoc on your life, and the lives of everyone around you.
When Mina started complaining of a sore throat last Tuesday, we didn't think much of it. Common colds are contagious. She sucked it up and went off to work in the morning as usual, while I flopped out on the bed and half-napped until around noon. The 'cold' Dr. Chop had diagnosed me with the day before was kicking my ass. She'd booked the afternoon off so she could accompany the old lady to her regular battery of appointments over at the hospital, after which she was to drive her back to Mayumi's and help her set up her medications for the next week.
None of the napping was really making me feel any better. I'd toss and turn; kind of half sleep and have weird, semi-fever dreams. I imagine that big bag of cold medicines and antibiotics from Dr. Chop was keeping any real fever I might have had well suppressed and under control.
I dragged myself out of the bedroom at around 4pm, and started on dinner. Mina got back from her sister's just short of 7pm, had a bath and ate. Her throat wasn't any better. After dinner, she noted that my colour seemed off. Apparently I had something of a death-mask pallor type of thing going on. This in itself should have raised some alarm bells; but people tend to look a bit pale when they're ill, so I took it in stride.
As covered in our last installment, before retiring for the evening, I decided that I wanted to use our antigen swab test - just to be sure that nothing was seriously amiss. We were supposed to be minding the old lady on Saturday, and I didn't want to leave anything to chance. I think both of us were having doubts about the quick and easy diagnosis I'd received over at Chop's.
Day 3 proper, and feeling like hot garbage Fucking shit Chinese made antigen tests are useless. ¥1200 down the shitter for that. Lesson learned.
It came up negative.
So...a common cold it was. Or so we believed.
Wednesday, December 14th
Day 10 of COVID
Last Wednesday morning, Mina's throat was a bit worse, but her temperature was close to normal, so went off to work anyways. Despite the handfuls of cold medicine I was taking morning and night, I was pretty much laid out in bed for most of the day...again. I got the laundry and cooking sorted, and that's about all I had the power to handle. Mina rolled in looking drawn and tired at around half past six. Day two or three of a cold is usually the worst. She had a bath, and we ate dinner. Both feeling under the weather, we turned in almost an hour earlier than usual.
Thursday morning, and - wheezing aside - I was feeling marginally better than I had for the last few days. I guess the handfuls of cold medicine and antibiotics were doing their thing. Mina, on the other hand, looked like the 'cold' she'd inherited from me was starting to get the best of her. She suited up and headed off to the hospital shortly before 8 am, anyways. I took advantage of my slightly improved condition, and cleaned up the house. The vacuuming and dusting hadn't been done since we'd bade farewell to the old lady over a week before, and things were starting to get a bit gross. I think it took me almost an hour longer than it usually does, but I got it done.
Mina had a rough day. They were understaffed, and there were way too many people booked in for chemo. She didn't get back until just after 7:30 pm. An eleven hour day. She was clearly exhausted, and it looked like the 'cold' was winning. She started expressing doubts as to whether she had it in her to take on hosting the old lady on Saturday. I don't think she slept well at all that night, and early Friday morning,
I told her to call in sick. Her boss wasn't there - he was sidelined at home as a 'deep contact' (his son had just been diagnosed as COVID positive), but he called her back after they'd relayed the message and asked her if she wanted to go in and get tested...as a 'precautionary measure'. Always one to err on the side of caution, she got dressed and buzzed off to the hospital staff testing area. It's kind of a drive-thru set-up in a small staff parking area on the north side of the main building. She was back home in around 45 minutes., and within an hour they called her to tell her that she'd tested positive.
This was one of those slow-motion moments, where everything kind of warps around you for a split second.
'Positive'.
Oh, shit. If she was positive, then obviously I was, too. She called them back and explained the situation. Fortunately they also provide testing for staff family members, so they made an appointment for me at 1:15 pm. We went in, I did the spit-test PCR thing (as opposed to the nasal swab), then we came back and waited. Almost two hours passed and we didn't hear anything. If a test comes in positive, they follow it up with a phone call. A negative result doesn't get any sort of notification. Not the best arrangement.
Mina texted her friend at the hospital, and left a message asking her to go into the computer system and open my file. About half an hour later, her friend texted that my file showed a COVID positive test result. Shit.
No big surprise...but 'shit' all the the same.
This is around the point that the sheer fucked-upped-ness of our situation all started to click. She'd been positive for a few days and gone to work as usual...not to mention hanging around with her mother at the hospital for half the day on Tuesday, then going over to Mayumi's for a couple of hours after that. Not good.
As for me...I'm high risk for a potentially bad-to-fatal outcome due to my sleep apnea, asthma and nascent heart condition. Oh...and my age. People over fifty tend to have more issues with this shit.
All of this meant that I should be getting that anti-COVID oral medicine cocktail to stop the virus from speed replicating and turning my lungs into blocks of Waterford crystal. Paxlovid needs to be taken pretty quick if its going to have the desired effect - specifically within the first five days proper of infection...but the sooner the better. Kind of like Tamiflu.
Mina called the hospital testing area, and the random doctor that had been unfortunate enough to cop 'COVID duty' that day told her that my positive diagnosis was just 'a bit too late', so I no longer qualified for the anti-viral treatment. We were in a bit of a panic. My chest sounded like hell. Worse than it had in the morning.
Mayumi's husband had been misdiagnosed, and at home with 'a cold' for just over a week when his condition suddenly took a hard turn for the worse. He went from sitting on the couch watching TV, to lying comatose on a ventilator in the COVID ward within a couple of days. He fought hard for three weeks, as the virus hopscotched around his body destroying everything...and was gone.
Not one to simply accept the often questionable judgement of a transient greenhorn physician, Mina got on the phone to Arsehole Dr. Cauliflower's clinic, and explained our situation. They told her to bring me down, and wait in the car. After about twenty minutes, Cauliflower came out in his autumn 2022 PPE, asked what was going on, looked in my throat, checked my chest and gave me the skinny. As my first symptoms had presented on the previous Sunday ('Day 0'), Friday was my 'Day 5'. While the rule for Paxlovid is 'the sooner the better', it can be administered up to and including 'Day 5'.
Talk about close calls.
While sooner certainly would have been better in my case, it was a good thing that I'd made it in just under the wire. Mina was right not to simply take the word of that greenhorn fill-in physician over at her workplace. He told us that it was also a very good thing that we'd both recently received our 5th jabs. This is likely why neither of us had presented with high fevers (and likely why Dr. Chop hadn't bothered taking my visit seriously on Monday).
I had to sign a special release form to get the five days of Paxlovid (still a bit of an experimental 'unknown quantity' type of drug) - just in case the possible side-effects landed me in the ER, or worse. As my chest sounded like a complete disaster, he added 4 days of steroids, and swapped out my inhaler for a different, non-conflicting one for the duration of the anti-COVID drug. Apparently BA 5 moves like gangbusters into the bronchi and upper respiratory tract, instead of initially going for the deep lungs, like the Delta variant - hence the awful sound. The main thing now was to stop the virus before it leap frog and could work its way down any further.
He gave me a paper from the health department outlining my quarantine time, and told me that I'd be able to go out of the house from Monday...but that my first two days 'out' were considered a grey-area cautionary period, so I was to take extra care and be mindful of any changes in how I was feeling. He then told us both to 'take care', and disappeared back across the street.
We waited another twenty minutes, and a PPE swathed pharmacist came out with the meds, explained how everything was to be taken, then sent us on our way. To our surprise, all of this stuff was free of charge. When we got back, Mina got on her smart phone and went about arranging for the week of free food deliveries we were entitled to as part of our quarantine arrangements.
This is what the daily food delivery looks like. We chose the 'bento option'. They ring Mina around ten minutes before they get here, and show up every day until our eight day quarantine is done. If we're not here to get the call, we're out of luck. If we miss two in a row, they'll check on us to make sure we haven't expired .
I cancelled my Saturday class with the Ashtray Face Lady's scrappin' tweens (she was kind and understanding, having recovered from her own bout with COVID back in in August), and Mina called Mayumi to tell her that we wouldn't be hosting the old lady for at least a week...maybe two.
The next issue would be how, when or if we should even bother telling okasan what was up. Mayumi said that she was leaning towards simply saying that, 'Shaun and Mina are busy, and can't have you over this weekend'...which is precisely what she did. Apparently the old lady was quick to blame me.
'Oh, Shaun wasn't feeling good the last time I was there (I'd just had the booster). I don't want to go there if his condition is bad'.
I found it curious that she didn't bother calling or even texting Mina to see if everything was alright.
She basically doesn't want to come, anyways. She resents the fact that Mayumi sends her away every second weekend. She hates getting up early on Saturday and waiting for Mina to collect her. She hates sitting in our living room. She can't stand me, or as Mina puts it... hates not being the absolute centre of attention.
In any case, full disclosure might have opened a can of worms that no one particularly wanted to deal with, and would have surely shit all over Mayumi's weekend even more than our sudden cancellation already had.
'It's because of the gaijin! it's because of the gaijin!, etc., etc...'
Fair enough. If the old lady's delicate mood set suddenly veers south, she makes sure that everyone knows it. There's no reason for Mayumi's crew to suffer any more than they already are. I figure we're suffering enough for everyone right now, so that should be sufficient.
*(Okasan needs an adversary in every venue. Over at Mayumi's, Fat Wife is her scapegoat. Here, it's me. Ho-ho-ho.)
Monday, December 19th
Day 15 of COVID
Mina went back to work this morning. While she was considered 'safe' to go out from last Wednesday (her Day 8), the hospital requires staff to stay away for ten days...as there remains some potential to spread the virus to 'vulnerable parties' after the government's recently truncated isolation window elapses.
She looked less than enthusiastic as she gathered her limited physical resources and head out into the sub-zero chill. I went in and did my morning class over at Insecthead's on Friday, despite feeling depleted and generally crap. I don't know if I would have bothered had Mina not been off work, and offered to drive. I think the 5km bike ride out there would have been a bit of a bridge too far.
The school had a bit of a ghost town vibe going on...like there were a lot of people absent. No one was in the office when I arrived, and the lights and heater were off. One of the assistants poked her head in the door as I was taking off my jacket and informed me that I'd only be teaching the fives...two groups of twenty-five, thirty minutes each. That was good news. I'd been stressing out over what to do. I was running on less than half a tank, and just wanted to get through the hour as painlessly as possible.
On top of everything else, some more bad news. Terry Hall, RIP.
First up was Erratica's group. There was a really weird vibe going on in there from the get go. The kids were dead silent and just sat and stared at me in the weirdest way. It was almost as if they knew that I had COVID or something. Usually they're all shouting 'Shaun sensei! Shaun sensei! Good morning!', but it was like they'd all had their tongues cut out. I tried rousing them, but it was like a non-starter. Of course Erratica just stood there like a dead weight. I went to draw some circles for character faces on the board, but it was covered in Japanese longhand chalk scrawl that looked as if it had been there since the beginning of the week (the date of the board read 'December 11th').
Erring on the side of caution, I asked Erratica if I could erase some of it, and she simply shook her head.
'Really?'
She walked over, picked up a chalk brush, then stood almost directly behind me at the board... dithering. I should have just erased the shit without asking. I really didn't have the energy to get into it with this cunt, today of all fucking days. While she dithered, I found a little blank space at the very bottom of the board, excused myself as politely as possible and eked out four small circles along the very bottom of the board. I'd have the kids volunteer to come up and draw emotion faces. 'Happy', 'Angry', 'Crazy', and then introduce a new one...'Cold'. Then we'd do something easy, and sing 'If You're Happy and You Know It', and just add a new action for cold.
'If you're cold and you know it, rub your hands...brrrr!'
Teaching kids is like doing live radio. Dead air time is your enemy. I didn't have the patience to wait for Erratica to decide whether she wanted to grant me 'permission' to use the board, or not. Apparently we were back to her control issues. She seemed to be getting off on holding up the show...and this particular morning, that was going to be all about 'asserting her authority', or 'stealing my thunder' (?!?)...or whatever. Jesus fuck. Why today, of all days?
Cunt.
She waited until I'd called up four kids to volunteer, and we'd finished making the four character faces at the bottom of of the board before deciding that the week old chicken scratching was expendable, and that she'd wipe it clean. It would have been nice if the kids could have had the luxury of drawing their 'emotion faces' in slightly bigger circles on a clean board...but I wasn't about to erase their work and have them do it again.
Cunt.
I shot her a look. I was pissed off, and my energy reserves were dangerously low. I was going to have to dig extra deep for this one.
'I'm getting tired of this. Next time, please have the board clean, and be ready for English class when we start. Do you understand?'
She simply turned her back and walked away.
Fortunately, Long COVID's group were a bit more together. Somehow I found a semblance of my usual pace, and made it through the song and dance numbers, only sputtering out and coughing a few times.
The office was still dark when I went to collect my pay packet. No Insect Daughter or Insect Wife. What to do? I checked on the desk in the computer nook. Sometimes they leave my pay packet and the receipt for me to sign in front of the keyboard. Nothing. After a couple of minutes, Insecthead appeared on the landing outside of the sliders.
'Good morning! Are you OK? Did you recover?'
'Kind of, I guess. I've felt better, for sure'
'But you made it in today...'
He seemed slightly surprised that I hadn't called in and cancelled. Until Thursday evening, that was sort of the plan, to be honest.
'Yeah. I made it.'
I then gave him a brief rundown of the timeline of my infection, and informed him that I'd apparently picked it up on Friday Dec. 2nd. - the last day that I'd been in teaching.
He started 'click-clacking', and looked a bit guilty.
'So...you caught it...at our school?'
Give the man a cigar.
'It's possible...but not clear. How about the situation over here? It seems quiet for the Friday before Christmas...'
'Oh. Some students and teachers are infected...' He appeared to going on the evasive. It seemed like there were a lot more infections over there than he was letting on. I didn't have the energy to press him on it. I was drained.
I signed the receipt and told him that I'd see him on Tuesday morning for the Santa thing. His eyes bugged slightly.
'Tuesday?'
Oh, Jesus. I ever so gently asked him if he remembered that we were going to do the kid's Santa visit cosplay thing on Tuesday morning, and he 'clickety-clacked' back in to reality.
'Oh. Yes. Tuesday. Right.'
I grabbed my bag and told him that I wouldn't be shaking his hand as usual, for 'obvious reasons'. He then inexplicably grabbed the spray bottle full of antiseptic hand cleaner off of the wall holder beside the door, and offered to douse my hands (?!?). It seemed like his brain was shorter out or something. I him flashed the mini spray bottle I always carry.
'I'm covered, thanks. Take care. See you Tuesday morning'.
At that point I was running on fumes. What a fucking effort.
Fortunately, we'd rescheduled tomorrow morning's pre-Santa party monthly CPAP thing over at Cauliflower's for late last Friday afternoon, so I wouldn't need to stress out before my little performance over at Insecthead's.
Mina had also been anxious for him to give me the once over, and listen to my chest. I'd finished the Paxlovid on Wednesday morning, but was still wheezing and rumbling a bit. While both of us continued to have slightly higher temperatures than normal, Mina was coughing a little more than I was...especially in the mornings and evenings . I worried that she wasn't getting a solid enough rest. We both seemed to be up going to the loo three or four times during the night, as well.
After the Friday am kindergarten ordeal, we came back, ate lunch, and both promptly collapsed on the sofa. It was a minor miracle that we managed to find enough energy to resurrect and be over at the clinic by 5:15. The good news was that my chest sounded as if it had mostly cleared. Cauliflower Ears looked relieved. He then reiterated how lucky it was that we'd managed to get out and get the most up to date BA 4/ BA 5 bivalent jab before we'd run into the virus.
As usual, luck had little to do with it. It was Mina's tenacity and persistence that got me the appointment over at another local clinic. We'd tried to secure appointments at Cauliflower's, but were rejected...as usual. No space available.
Mina asked him if there was any possibility my condition could suddenly start to deteriorate, and he told her that the Omicron variant that's making the rounds right now usually turns critical within three or four days of infection. If it's inclined to start heading south, it does so early on...not like the older variants. Patients with earlier iterations could suddenly start deteriorating after a week or ten days. Like Mayumi's late husband.
He then stressed that, of course, a full recovery would take in the area of a month. I'd also have to take it easy and return to my running regimen slowly, as there are risks for heart complications, particularly early on.
In other words, it doesn't look like I'll be plying the canal-side for a little while. Not that I have the energy for it, anyways. I went for a 45 minute walk in the park across the road this morning. I'll be doing that no more than twice a week until after the holiday season wraps, at least.
Thursday, December 22nd
Day 18 of COVID
The view from the inside of our residential cage at around 8:30 this morning. The pneumonic drill they had going in the back was extra fun, as well.
The mid-winter's solstice. Feeling a bit shittier today. Dragged out. Welcome to the slow motion post- COVID rollercoaster, I guess. Maybe it's the dour, grey drizzle outside. That's supposed to let up by midday. Then we're in for a some icy Siberian wind, and a frigid weekend. No classes to struggle through today. My main mission will be to knock out a 45 minute walk in the sweet spot sometime between whenever the rain lets up and around noon, when the clouds are supposed to be parting for an ever so brief interval.
The perpetual construction and renovation that we've been subjected to since the beginning of September isn't helping brighten anyone's mood, either. Living in a dark stainless steel pipe cage, swathed in tarps and nets and surrounded by what appear to be gorilla army extras from an old Planet of the Apes film, hammering, drilling and covering the outside of the building with noxious chemicals doesn't help much either.
We're going to have to deal with this situation until the second week of May, at least.
Mayumi finally cracked and disclosed our COVID status to the old lady around the middle of last week. Okasan cornered her, and she came clean.
I think it took the old lady two or three days to finally pick up the phone and call Mina to see if she was alright. I just don't get it. Why wouldn't she pick up the phone or even send a simple text? Mina shrugs it off like a champ, saying that it's 'typical'. God. I guess she's accustomed to that kind of thing. I think it's sad.
After that, five more days passed. Mina didn't hear anything further from her until yesterday evening. I'm not sure who called who. We'd been wondering about this weekend; while neither of us is at the top of our game, we've dodged our rotating day service obligations for the last couple of weeks. Meanwhile, Mayumi and co. are at their wit's end, and in desperate need of a reprieve.
Of course, the old lady has the final say. If she decides to use our recent infection status as a way out, she can.
After a short back and forth, Mina held out her phone and asked in English if her mother could come over this weekend - as if it were my choice, or the old lady could comprehend what, "I hope so" meant.
So, as it stands, the verdict is that she will indeed be gracing us with her presence from Saturday morning until late Sunday afternoon.
Ho, ho, ho.
That means, laboured jaunts out to do our usual food shopping aside, I'll be relegated to the back of the apartment for the duration. I'll be spending Christmas Eve (my birthday) and Christmas Day proper either sitting by the small space heater in my 'classroom' (exactly where I am now), or laying under the comforter in bed, watching streaming shit and napping. I imagine the high point of Christmas 2022 will be a video call with my far-flung siblings (subject to their schedules and availability) at some point before Monday lowers the curtains all this nonsense for another year. These calls usually happen sometime in the morning over here, which would be the evening before (North American time) for them.
They'll be drinking, smoking and merrymaking, and I'll be sipping tea and trying to feel somewhat human.
The annual shogatsu (New Year's) holiday period starts on Thursday, December 29th, and runs through to January 4th, when it's back to work for the Monday to Friday salaried set in this part of the world.
We currently seem to be clearing around 15000 COVID cases a day here in Aichi. Close to sixty eight percent of locally allotted hospital beds are already occupied, and around thirty people are carking it from the virus in the precincts of Losersville every day.
Tokyo cleared 20,000 infections yesterday alone. As people start moving and spreading themselves around hither and tither from the middle of next week, it appears that the sky will be the limit. Again. January will be a nightmare...and it will likely be mid-March before the numbers start coming down in any meaningful way.
Holiday plans? We'll be staying around here, the same as we've done for the last few years...and trying to put the dregs of this fucking gross, never ending fatigue, cough and general shittiness behind us. Could be that we visit Mayumi's on New Year's Day...but nothing is set in stone as yet. It may be that we just stop by, pick up some donated holiday food, wave through the car windows and come back. At the rate the virus(es) are spreading now, it would be a minor miracle if no one over there picked anything up between now and then.
That's where I'm going to pinch it off for now. It looks like the drizzle has finally played itself out. I should drag myself out and around the park for as long as I can handle it...before that promised afternoon Siberian wind roils up and makes it all just that much more of a struggle. Of course, with any luck I'll be back in around two weeks to tie up any loose ends, and give a holiday round up in hopefully finer fettle than I'm in right now. Fingers crossed.
A happy solstice and tolerable Christmas/New Year's holiday season to anyone that's stuck with me this far. You know who you are, I assume.
Until next time, you'd do well to remember that...
"No matter where you go, there you are".
There, and nowhere else.
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